The Advantage of Being Attractive: Alex From Target

Like the story of how Audrey Hepburn was discovered, a lot of people fantasize about being spotted by a famous casting director when going about their day. What’s different today is the internet has made that entirely possible with a click of a button. Whether you’re on Instagram, YouTube, or Tik Tok the content you put online has the potential of going viral. This leads to a higher chance of someone important seeing it and asking you to star in their major project. Although not comparable to Hepburn, the modern day version of her story happened to this cashier at target, sending him to internet celebrity status overnight. At 16 years old, Alex became a meme known as “Alex From Target”. Despite this he has disappeared from the internet today. What happened? Were his looks not enough to keep his online followers?

Time Stamps:
0:00 Intro
1:40 How Alex Gained Fame from his looks
3:06 What does it mean to be "conventionally attractive"?
6:50 Testing an attractiveness hypothesis from the 1800s
8:20 How Alex benefited from his looks
10:28 The general benefits of being attractive
12:59 Why we think good looking people are so great
16:24 Mate selection as an advantage
19:35 What happened to Alex From Target after fame?
21:58 Self-Determination Theory

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Main Sources:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9280.00002
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24214366/
http://faceresearch.org/
https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1996-00227-002
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/49392/2/MPRA_paper_49392.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0092656674900440
https://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/orsp_shahani-denning_spring03.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-6383(98)90011-X
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550615579462
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760601076635

Następny odcinek

S02E28 - The Cult of David Dobrik: How to Keep A Group Obedient