The Twitter illuminati that made “Alex From Target” an overnight sensation can drive millions of clicks with a simple retweet.
Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed
Cameron Asa is a 21-year-old communications major at the University of Tennessee. He's also the owner of Tweet Like A Girl, a Twitter account with 1.2 million followers.
Asa doesn't tweet as frequently as some "parody accounts," but when he does, he wracks up thousands of retweets. On Nov. 4, he tweeted, "stress goin up on a tuesday"; it's been retweeted 12,000 times. On Nov. 1, he tweeted, "No shave November aka guys with scruff aka what a time to be alive"; it's been retweeted 6,000 times.
He told BuzzFeed News that he's part of an unofficial network of Twitter users, all with massive parody accounts who are regularly responsible for making new memes go super viral. He said the network — which has no corporate sponsor backing it — was responsible for the "Alex From Target" sensation on Sunday.
"I know for a fact it was the parody accounts that started it," Asa said. "It was just absolutely nuts. I've never seen anything like it."
But randomly flexing their power to launch random cute boys into superstardom is only the tip of the iceberg for Twitter's unofficial parody account network. The guys running these accounts are also making impressive amounts of money.
Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed
Asa said he started messing with novelty Twitter accounts during his senior year of high school. His first big hit was a Carly Rae Jepsen parody account.
"I made a parody account that just made, like, parodies to that song, parody tweets to that song," Asa said. "And I thought, Hey, it'd be kind of cool to have a Twitter account with a lot of followers."
Asa's "Call Me Maybe" account got around 40,000 followers, and it got him thinking about other kinds of things that could do well on Twitter. He tried one he admits was pretty stupid called Retweet Dares that got around 180,000 followers. The tweets would basically dare users to retweet the account.
Asa stumbled upon Tweet Like A Girl in 2012. He said in the beginning the account was meant to make fun of girls.
"Like, for example, one of the tweets would be like, 'Oh my god, I'm so fat,' with a picture of a stick or a twig," he said.
He said he gained 100,000 followers in five days, but Asa hit the wall that all novelty accounts eventually hit: He ran out of material. So he decided it was time to expand Tweet Like A Girl's scope.
"I transitioned into relatable tweets for girls, and ever since I did that, it's still been nuts," he said.
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