Breakr takes responsibility for #AlexfromTarget popularity as it looked to ‘see how powerful fanbases are’
Breakr, a platform which describes itself as being for ‘generation Z’, has claimed responsibility for the #AlexfromTarget viral.
The image of the Target employee went viral after being tweeted by @auscalum, although she had not taken the picture herself, but found it after another user posted it on Tumblr.
However, Dil-Domine Jacobe Leonares, founder and chief executive on Breakr, came out on LinkedIn to stat that the popularity was actually achieved by the company, after it decided to do an experiment to see how powerful fanbases are.
He said:” We wanted to see how powerful the fangirl demographic was by taking a unknown good-looking kid and Target employee from Texas to overnight viral internet sensation. Abbie (@auscalum), one of our fangirls from Kensington, UK posted this picture of Alex Lee (@acl163) on Twitter. After spreading the word amongst our fangirl followers to trend #AlexFromTarget, we started adding fuel to the fire by tweeting about it to our bigger YouTube influencers.”
However, doubt has been cast on the story as Abbie has denied any knowledge of knowing the company.
i dont work for breakr wtf i dont even know what it is
— ⠀ (@auscalum) November 4, 2014
The company also claimed responsibility for a Target parody video: Stephen Edward from Target. Leonares said: “Stephen launched a parody YouTube video to keep fueling the social media flame with our kids (as you can see in the video below, we were all in a Google Hangout the whole time). By controlling both sides of the conversation, we got more and more people to talk about the situation which kept the hashtag trending #1 on Twitter worldwide.” However, the creator of the video spoke to Buzzfeed to deny the claims: “I decided to make my ‘parody’ video of the whole ‘Alex From Target’ trend on my own. I do know the CEO of Breakr and have spoken to him before, but in no way has he ever reached out to me and asked me to be a part of his network.” Alex himself has also said he has not heard of the company.
Apparently there is a company trying to take credit for how the pic taken of me went viral. — DGM_Alex (@acl163) November 5, 2014My family and I have never heard of this company.
— DGM_Alex (@acl163) November 5, 2014
Did the company help seed the success – which saw celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres tweet Alex – or was it all natural? What do you think?
Thanks for all the support - it wasn't so much marketing ploy but more so a social test to see how powerful fanbases are. #bettertogether — Breakr (@BreakrNation) November 5, 2014So @citizenglish of @BreakrNation tells me @TheEllenShow wasn't part of the #AlexFromTarget campaign.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) November 5, 2014
If you're a fangirl, you'll want to follow @BreakrNation!!! They're the ones behind #alexfromtarget!! Big things coming — Lucas Perry (@ItsLucasPerry) November 4, 2014