Distracted Boyfriend, also known as Man Looking at Other Woman, is an object labeling stock photo series in which a man looks at the backside of a woman walking by while another woman, presumably his romantic partner, looks on disapprovingly.
History[]
Origin[]
On November 2, 2015, the source image, taken by photographer Antonion Guillem, was posted on the stock photo database iStock under the description "Disloyal man with his girlfriend looking at another girl".
According to a post published on the Meme Documentation Tumblr blog, the earliest known captioned version of the photo was submitted to a Turkish Facebook group at an unknown date. On January 30th, 2017, the Prog Düşmanlarına Verilen Müthiş Cevaplar Facebook page posted the image with captions identifying the man as Phil Collins peering pop music while prog music looks on.
Spread[]
On February 23rd, 2017, Instagram user @_dekhbai_ posted the image with the caption "Tag That Friend / Who Falls in Love Every Month".
Within seven months, the post gained over 28,500 likes. On August 19th, Twitter user @n1m161 posted the stock depicting the man staring longingly at "socialism" while "capitalism" looks on.
On August 21st, Redditor danikger submitted a captioned version of the photo in which the man looks back at the 2017 solar eclipse while being stared at by "scientific evidence supporting the dangers of staring at the sun". Within 24 hours, the post gained over 31,200 points (93% upvoted) and 130 comments on /r/me_irl. In the coming days, several posts about the meme format were submitted to /r/MemeEconomy.
Photo series compilations[]
As the popularity of the stock photo started to spread, people discovered similar stock photos in the series with the same actors in various scenarios. On August 22nd, Tumblr user klubbhead posted a compilation of similar photos from the series, featuring the man looking at the same woman at various instances with at the end showing his romantic partner in disstress and questioning why she didn't dump him.
Klubbhead added a reply to his post the next day, showing a photo of the man annoyed at his partner's shopping habits; alongside wo series of stock photos from the set with the first showing the initial man and woman being a happy couple once and the latter showing them all three being together with the implication that they all had intercourse together eventually. As of August 25th, the post gathered over 47,500 notes.
On August 24th, Twitter user @akfamilyhomeak posted a tweet featuring a similar scenario, but instead showing the two women from the series getting closer to each other with the man being blurry in the background. Later that day, Twitter user @oranforest added a photo to the same series as @akfamilyhomeak, featuring the two women being together with the implication that they got together.
Interviews[]
In late August, photographer Antonio Guillem gave several interviews about the photograph to various news sites, including Wired and The Guardian, in which he revealed he didn't known what a meme was until recently. On August 29th, NY Mag published an interview conducted by Guillem with the models from the photo.
Distracted Girlfriend[]
In late October 2017, another photograph by Antonion Guillem was discovered on Shutterstock in which the roles were reversed, depicting a man's girlfriend looking lustfully at a man passing by.
Meanwhile, a photoshopped variation of the image was submitted by Redditor SteW- to /r/me_irl, featuring the original Distracted Boyfriend as the jealous boyfriend. On October 30th, The Daily Dot published an article about the new stock photo titled "Distracted girlfriend brings gender equality to the meme world."
On October 29th, 2017, Redditor toastr submitted an image featuring the new stock photo placed underneath the original Distracted Boyfriend picture, along with the caption "The tables have turned." Within 24 hours, the post gained over 25,600 points (92% upvoted) and 240 comments. That day, Redditor J0Aco777 reposted the image macro to /r/dankmemes, where it garnered upwards of 8,400 points (91% upvoted) and 110 comments over the next day.
Henry Cavill Photoshops[]
On January 26th, 2018, Twitter user @synistere tweeted a still of the upcoming film in the Mission Impossible series featuring Henry Cavill.
Shortly after the tweet, they created a Distracted Boyfriend parody of the image, gaining over 1,500 retweets. The following day, Tom Cruise tweeted the image. In the replies to the tweet, film critic Ali Plumb requested that somebody create a Distracted Boyfriend parody of the image. In the replies, many Twitter users created parodies of their own. The most popular was created by Twitter user @Malforian, gaining over 1,700 retweets. The Lad Bible covered the Distracted Boyfriend/Henry Cavill parodies on the 28th.
Shorty Awards[]
On April 15th, 2018, Distracted Boyfriend was named "Meme of the Year" at the 10th annual Shorty Awards. The meme has beaten other popular memes, such as Expanding Brain, Right in Front of My Salad, Roll Safe,, The Floor Is… and Tiny Trump.
18th century equivalent[]
On April 16th, 2018, Twitter user @ELXGANZA tweeted an image of a painting from 1761 by painter Joshua Reynolds side-by-side with the Distracted Boyfriend meme. They captioned the tweet, "I’ve found the 18th century equivalent to the distracted boyfriend meme." The post received more than 34,000 retweets and 110,000 likes in 24 hours.
@ELXGANZA followed the tweet by writing, "Fun fact: the painting is by Joshua Reynolds and it depicts the actor David Garrick stuck between the alure of Comedy and the prestige of Tragedy, so here’s a depiction of how the meme would have worked in its original context." They posted the painting with each of the characters in the painting labeled "comedy," "troubled actor" and "tragedy." The post (shown below, left) received more than 700 retweets and 2,900 likes in 24 hours.
People responded to the image by posting memes featuring the paining. That day, Twitter user @TheHipsterRebbe tweeted a version of the image where the characters are labeled "social contract theory," "enlightenment dude" and "divine right of knights. The post received more than 300 retweets and 1,700 likes in 24 hours.
Twitter user @KitsuneAlicia photoshopped the picture so that both the Distracted Boyfriend and Reynolds's painting label the characters. The post received more than 260 retweets and 1,200 likes in 24 hours.
Several media outlets covered the reaction to the painting, including Mashable, The Daily Dot, and more.
Cape Town Recreation[]
On July 7th, 2018, Twitter user @pjmboothang tweeted an image she had taken of her friend that inadvertently bore a strong resemblance to the Distracted Boyfriend image. The tweet gained over 200,000 retweets and 566,000 likes.
After the picture went viral, the girl was identified as Trishna Pema of Cape Town, South Africa. The spread of her image was covered by Buzzfeed and Daily Dot. Twitter user @j47di tweeted a photoshop of the image which used the original template as the jealous girlfriend in the new picture, gaining over 70 retweets and 400 likes.
