Dive Brief:

• Sunday afternoon a tweet went out with a snapshot of a Target employee checking out a customer’s purchases, with his nametag​ visible: Alex.

• “Alex from Target” quickly went viral, with a series of memes, jokes, songs, and imitators that saturated the internet by Monday morning. No surprise, by then #alexfromtarget was trending on Twitter and on other social media.

• By Sunday evening the web had reportedly tracked down the teen’s real Twitter account, where he seemed a bit taken aback by the sensation. If it’s really him, he maintains a feed quite typical of a teen.

Dive Insight:

Whatever will Target do with this? Like much viral web phenomena, the wildfire-level spread of “Alex from Target” is inexplicable. So far things are all in good fun. Will Target hang back and let the fun happen at arm’s length, until it reaches its natural shelf life? Or get involved — and how?

YOOOOOOOOOO pic.twitter.com/eknsxBlx38

— rims (@auscalum) November 2, 2014

STEAL HIS LOOK: ALEX FROM TARGET shirt: $29.99 Target pants: $35.99 Target watch: $19.99 Target bags: $0.05 Target pic.twitter.com/FxV2cWUKWy

— Dream Closet (@TheDreamCIoset) November 3, 2014