In the past 48-72 hours, Twitter has been bombarded with tweets and retweets surrounding the site's latest trending topic: #AlexFromTarget. Over the weekend, a teenage girl went shopping at the retail establishment and thought the cashier, Alex, was very attractive. She decided to snap a picture on her phone and share it with her Twitter community, showcasing #AlexFromTarget as a hot piece of adolescent meat and asked her followers whether they agree. Apparently a lot of them did because he is now the number 1 trending topic, he got over 300,000 followers on Twitter after the girls tracked him down, and he even made an appearance from CNN from all the attention he was getting on social media solely because of the picture taken during his shift which can be seen on the left.
Although we have not touched the subject of social media in the course as much as we have other media types (which is understandable since the spike in social media prevalence is probably too recent for research to be caught up on), I think it is one media that is increasingly important especially for teenagers who are being introduced to it at younger ages than many other groups. Although television, film, and music is still a huge part of the lives of youth, I think it is easy to argue that social media is getting to the point where it is just as important as those media types, especially for those youth who are exploring their
sexuality.
I became mildly interested in #AlexFromTarget for a few reasons..
Reason A) The kid is really just average at best. He is really not all that crazy good looking to have drawn that much attention. Even the actual Target official Twitter account became aware and involved with the Twitter trend to the point where they gave him a shout out as well. He was featured on CNN. Literally, thousands of people have made memes, vines, and spinoffs of the meme. In any case, he has been blowing up my social media sites just because these teenage girls decided to objectify him and make a huge exhibition of him on Twitter based only on his looks.
Reason B) I realized that these teenage girls kind of really did objectify him and make a huge exhibition of him on Twitter based only on his looks.
Then I started thinking about it and this is not the first time teenage girls do this. Think One Direction. Think Justin Bieber. Most recently, it makes me think of Nick Jonas. Teens and young adult women had him trending as well and their obsession over him (his newfound sexy looks). I would argue that Nick Jonas was kind of objectified even though it seemed like he was completely on board with being objectified.
In a way, #AlexFromTarget really is put in a position where he is preyed on in kind of a creepy way by the girl who took the picture. And, by the looks of this picture angle, it doesn't seem like he actually consented to it. If I were in his position (as the woman that I am, not a man) I would feel kind of objectified by this. I tried using Brown's "Disinterest, intrigue, resistance" (1993) article to think through what the hell these girls are thinking, but I don't think either of the three categories fit into the type of girls that are obsessing over this Twitter sensation. I think the type of girls who are engaging in this type of activity are definitely at the age group where the "resistance" types fall under but with more of an "intrigued" mentality. But I really wouldn't code them as either. I think the type of girls who are engaging in this hormone-powered collective infatuation are on a different category...maybe one where they are just plain interested in boys without the naiveness of the "intrigued" group. Thoughts?
In any case, I am also interested in hearing if people would agree that this kid is kind of objectified by these girls or if I'm just reading too much into it. (Lately, with all the media coverage on women being objectified by way of catcalling, I feel like I am hypersensitive to what does and does not constitute an appropriate way of thirsting over another individual.) And, if he is being objectified by these hormonal teens, what does that say about where women are going in terms of exploring our sexuality?
Could it even be argued that there is a larger overarching phenomenon of increasing male objectification?
If this pattern of male objectification is present in younger generations who will think back to boys like Nick Jonas, Justin Bieber, and #AlexFromTarget, could we expect women being more open with their sexual frustrations once they are all grown up?
Would women objectifying men offset the grossness of men objectifying women?
How does that even work and what would be little girls' role? I'm genuinely curious.
Works Cited
Brown, J. D., White, A. B., & Nikopoulou, L. (1993). Disinterest, intrigue, resistance: Early adolescent girls' use of sexual media content. In B. S. Greenberg, J. D. Brown & N., Media, sex and the adolescent (pp. 177‐195). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Alejandra,
ReplyDeleteThis was a really insightful post. When we talked about this in class yesterday, I had not yet heard of the #AlexFromTarget phenomenon. I became really invested to see how this would all play out and have found some even more interesting things that have come out about it in the last few days.
I found this article on Buzzfeed about how a marketing company called Breakr is trying to claim responsibility for the whole thing
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/alex-from-target
The article also talks about how other girls now are posting pictures of men working at stores (ex: Frankie from Starbucks) to try and create spin-offs of the whole situation.
In a strange way I agree that these photos are not only objectifying but extremely invasive of privacy. I think that people would be reacting very differently i.e. more negatively if these photos being circulated were of teenage girls.
However, if the whole thing was in fact a marketing ploy how does that change your feelings on the situation?
Thanks for a great post,
Charlotte