Distracted boyfriend
You might remember it as Distracted boyfriend stock photo
The archive does not hold a copy of this image that it may show.
Biggest memes ever17 of 32
2015·The platform era
A stock photograph of a man turning to look at a passing woman while his girlfriend stares at him, with a label put on each of the three.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- Distracted boyfriend stock photo
- Spread in
- 2015
- Began as
- A photograph
- Format
- Meme
- Photographed by
- Antonio Guillem, a stock photographer based in Barcelona
- Original title
- “Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl”
- Recorded
- Mid-2015, in Girona, Catalonia
- Who or what it shows
- Models known by the stage names Mario and Laura
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
Why it matteredWhat changed
It made the three-label object meme the standard way to draw a preference, and it did it with a stock photograph whose own caption nobody had read. It is the template other templates are explained by.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Antonio Guillem shoots the photograph in Girona in the middle of the year for the stock library Shutterstock.1
- Found
A Turkish progressive rock group on Facebook posts it with the man labelled Phil Collins. An English-language prog page reposts it the next day.1
- Picked up
The picture reaches Twitter.1
- Took off
A tweet labels the girlfriend capitalism and the passing woman socialism. This is the post the format spreads from.1
- Record
It is named best meme of 2017 at the tenth Shorty Awards.1
- Later
Sweden’s advertising ombudsman rules that an internet provider’s job advertisement built on the meme discriminates on grounds of gender.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asA 2017 photograph.
ActuallyIt was shot in mid-2015 and sat in a stock library for a year and a half before anybody labelled it.1
Commonly remembered asThe photograph is called Distracted Boyfriend.
ActuallyThat is the internet’s name for it. The stock library lists it as “Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl”.1
LegacyWhat it left behind
- Guillem told The Guardian in August 2017 that he had not known what a meme was until the picture became one.1
- In June 2018 a still from Charlie Chaplin’s 1922 film Pay Day was circulated as the same composition ninety-five years early. It is a resemblance, not a source.1
More from hereIn this collection
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This began as a photograph, not as a video.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This began as a photograph, not as a video.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things