Alex From Target Uses His New Found Fame To Make A Difference

By now most of the world knows who Alex from Target is, but in case you somehow missed it let’s review real quick.

Alex Lee, 16, lives in Texas with his parents. He took a part-time job at the local Target store. One day while he was bagging groceries, a customer took a photo of him. For, some unknown reason, the photo was uploaded online. Soon, after, being put online the photo went viral. Just like that Alex from Target was a celebrity. It is true proof of the power of social media reports Popdust.com.

In a six hour period after Alex’s photo was downloaded he gained more than 100,000 Twitter followers.

Soon after his photo went viral, Ellen Degeneres invited him to be on her show. While on Ellen, Alex won the hearts of teenage girls across America.

Ellen was not the only person interested in Alex. John Shahidi, the co-founder of Shots Mobile Inc. reached out to Alex via Twitter.

Shots has had the celebrity support of Justin Beiber and Floyd Mayweather. Shots selfie app, is a social media app created to help stop cyber-bullying. The app is used by several celebrities including Kylie Jenner and Madison Beer. On November 12 the app celebrated its first year mark. It has well over 3 million users.

Alex is now using his viral fame to do good. He is using his voice to promote the Shots app.

Before joining Shots Alex had told CNBC’s Fast Money that he hoped to do something positive with all of the attention and clearly he has done just that.

“We’re just constantly talking about how we can influence other people in a positive way and just, I guess, make things better for other people of my generation,” Alex told CNBC.

John Shahidi, the CEO of the teen-centric selfie app was excited about bringing Alex onboard.

“There’s really two things I’ve told Alex from Day One. We could make a lot of money, quick buck. Or, we can do something bigger, and let’s use our power to do something positive,” Shahidi said.

With fame, however, Alex has experienced the dark side of it as well.

“It’s definitely changed a lot. It’s pretty overwhelming, actually,” he said.

Alex now has over 733,000 Twitter followers and 2.4 million followers on Instagram.

The New York Times reported that after Alex’s information was leaked he received death threats. Proving the old Hollywood adage that fame always comes at a price.