Where Are the Internet’s Biggest Viral Stars Now? Check In With These Social Media Sensations

Thanks to YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, we’ve seen some seriously incredible viral videos over the years — but what happens to the people in them? Some, like Mason Ramsey and Bhad Bhabie, managed to leverage their 15 minutes of fame into actual stardom. Though only one of them became internet famous because of their actual singing abilities, both landed music careers after stepping foot into the spotlight and racked up millions of followers online.

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However, not everyone was so lucky. Alex from Target, a.k.a. Alex Lee, quickly became a meme when Twitter caught sight of his boy-next-door good looks back in 2014, but his stardom burned out after he took a break from social media. During a January 2018 interview with J-14, Alex gave fans a pretty major life update and reflected on his time as a viral sensation.

“I was working at Target and I was just doing my regular shift, but my phone was dead. Then, my manager came up to me and she showed me the picture that was blowing up, and it had like 30,000 retweets,” he said at the time. “I didn’t believe her when she showed me. I thought it was a prank or something. I was very confused – and then, I asked to go turn my phone back on in the back. … My phone was [frozen]. All I saw was that I had 10,000 messages because my phone number got leaked. Also, it wouldn’t let me open any of my social media because of all the notifications.”

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People even started showing up to his Target branch to try and take pictures with and of him — and, like most viral stars, he ended up on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Eventually, he joined other social media stars on the 2015 DigiTour. “I had to leave high school after going on the Ellen Show — in Texas, you can only miss ten days of school before you’re truant and you have to go to court. I had to go to court because I was missing so much school from flying out to Los Angeles and all that stuff,” he admitted. “I went on tour for a full month. It was the first time I’d ever gone out of state without my parents. It was pretty crazy.”

But where is Alex now? Later that same year, in March 2018, he returned to Instagram with tattoos and an affinity for working out. He’s looking pretty different these days!

What about all our other favorite viral superstars? Scroll through our gallery to see what Mason, Bhad Bhabie and more are up to now!