About

Target Tori refers to Target employee named Tori who was garnered online attention after being tweet-shamed by a store customer for refusing to sell an incorrectly priced toothbrush. After the customer tweeted about the encounter, Tori found large support online on Twitter and 4chan, with a GoFundMe campaign launched in her support.

Origin

On January 17th, 2020, verified Twitter user @David_Leavitt (David Leavitt) made a series of tweets in which he complained about a Target manager named Tori refusing to sell an Oral-B toothbrush which was incorrectly priced at $0,01 instead of its usual price of $89.^[1][2] The first in the series of tweets received over 1,300 retweets and 7,200 likes in three days.

In the series of tweets, David Leavitt, who claimed to be an award-winning journalist who worked for CBS, AXS, Yahoo and other outlets, wrote that he reported to the police that the store refused to sell him the toothbrush for the displayed price of $0,01 and that he was advised suing the store.

Spread

Within several hours, the tweets gained significant traction on Twitter and 4chan. On Twitter, users sided with the employee, accusing Leavitt of being a troll and calling for Target to reward Tori (examples shown below). For example, a January 17th, 2020, tweet^[10] by user @Lunalore received over 340 likes in three days. A tweet^[11] by user @brianndrws received over 710 likes in the same period.

On the same day, video content creator Carpe Donktum, known for his video edits created in support of the United States President Donald Trump, launched a GoFundMe^[16] campaign in support of the employee. The tweet^[3] announcing the campaign gaining over 5,200 retweets and 17,900 likes in three days (shown below). In three days, over $30,400 had been raised.

Starting on January 17th, 2020, on 4chan's /pol/^[4][5][6] board a number of threads of anti-semitic sentiment were posted. In the threads, anonymous users criticized Leavitt's actions, with a number of posters bringing up anti-semitic stereotypes (shown below, left and center). Also on 4chan, a series of Wojak edits based on the photograph of Tori were posted (shown below, right).

On January 18th, 2020, Carpe Donktum tweeted^[13] that he made contact with Tori, posting two additional photographs of the employee as proof (shown below, left). On January 19th, Carpe Donktum tweeted^[14] that Tori created a Twitter account, with a letter of thanks posted on the account on the same day (shown below, right).^[15]

Starting on January 18th, 2020, a number of online outlets reported about the story, including articles by Good,^[9] Heavy^[7] and INSIDER.^[8]

Story Authenticity Debate

On January 18th, 2020, INSIDER^[8] reported about the story, highlighting several of inconsistencies in it, such as lack of confirmation that David Leavitt is affiliated with CBS, and no evidence of him contacting the police being provided. Also on January 18th, 2020, Twitter^[12] user @RTodKelly made a series of tweets putting the authenticity of the story under doubt.

Search Interest

External References