Distracted Boyfriend

The Distracted Boyfriend meme (also known as "Man Looking at Other Woman" or "Disloyal Man") is a stock photo by Spanish photographer Antonio Guillem that became one of the most iconic and versatile meme templates in internet history. Originally uploaded to iStock on November 2, 2015, the image shows a man turning to check out a passing woman while his girlfriend stares at him in disbelief.

But this isn't a Wikipedia article. You know the meme. You've used the meme. You've been the meme. The guy walks down the street with his girlfriend, spots another woman, turns his head like a malfunctioning owl, and his girlfriend stares at him with the concentrated disappointment of someone who just watched their partner like an ex's photo from 2014.

It's been slapped onto everything from political commentary to programming jokes to existential crises about choosing Netflix over sleep. It won Meme of the Year. It got called sexist by the Swedish government. Someone found the exact street corner where it was taken.

So how did a generic stock photo — the kind you'd scroll past while looking for "business team handshake" — become the most relatable image on the internet? This story involves a Spanish photographer, a Turkish Facebook group, a solar eclipse, and a painting from 1761.

The Birth: November 2015

On November 1st, 2015, Spanish photographer Antonio Guillem uploaded a photo to the stock photo database iStock. The description? The deeply unsexy: "Disloyal man with his girlfriend looking at another girl."

That's it. That's the origin. No viral marketing plan. No social media strategy. Just a dude who takes stock photos for a living, three models on a street in Girona, Spain (specifically Carrer Nou, 31 — yes, someone found the exact address), and a camera.

Guillem didn't just take one photo, either. He shot an entire series with the same three models in various scenarios: the couple being happy, the couple fighting, the man being annoyed by his girlfriend's shopping, and — in what might be the greatest stock photo narrative arc of all time — all three of them appearing to... reconcile. Intimately. Stock photo lore runs deep.

For over a year, the photo sat in stock photo limbo, being licensed by the occasional blog post about "signs of infidelity" and "how to trust your partner." Riveting stuff. The meme gods had other plans.

The Turkish Facebook Underground: January 2017

The earliest known captioned version of Distracted Boyfriend surfaced in a Turkish Facebook group. On January 30th, 2017, the page "Prog Düşmanlarına Verilen Müthiş Cevaplar" (which roughly translates to "Amazing Responses to Prog Rock Haters" — I love the internet) posted a version where the boyfriend was labeled as Phil Collins, the other woman was "pop music," and the girlfriend was "prog music."

Phil Collins betraying prog rock for pop. That's where this all started. Let that sink in.

The meme creator later said they were inspired by a Turkish political meme page called "Siyasettin," which had also posted its own version the same day. So the Distracted Boyfriend meme has dual Turkish Facebook origins, which is the kind of chaotic origin story this template deserves.

Going Nuclear: August 2017

After slowly bubbling through Instagram and smaller communities (a February 2017 Instagram post by @_dekhbai_ captioned "Tag That Friend Who Falls in Love Every Month" racked up 28,500+ likes), the meme hit critical mass in August 2017. And it hit hard.

On August 19th, Twitter user @n1m161 posted a version where the boyfriend was checking out "socialism" while "capitalism" looked on, offended. It was the shot heard 'round Political Twitter.

Two days later, on August 21st — the day of the 2017 solar eclipse — Redditor danikger posted a version where the boyfriend was staring at the eclipse while the girlfriend was labeled "scientific evidence supporting the dangers of staring at the sun." The post got over 31,200 upvotes in 24 hours on r/me_irl. The floodgates were obliterated.

Within days, r/MemeEconomy was going berserk with "BUY BUY BUY" posts about the format. And for once, they were right. This format was blue-chip.

Why It Works: The Secret Sauce

So what makes Distracted Boyfriend so absurdly successful compared to thousands of other stock photos? A few things:

Three characters = three labels = infinite scenarios. Most meme templates give you two things to work with. Distracted Boyfriend gives you three distinct roles: the thing you're tempted by, the thing you're abandoning, and you (the disloyal clown). That triangle creates narrative tension in one image.

The expressions are perfect. The boyfriend's slack-jawed admiration. The other woman's oblivious confidence. The girlfriend's "I can see you, you absolute walnut" glare. Every face tells a story, and the story is universally understood.

It's an object labeling dream. Slate cited Distracted Boyfriend as one of the most influential memes for popularizing the "object labeling" format in the late 2010s. The three characters are basically blank canvases for whatever meaning you want to project onto them.

We've all been all three people. That's the real magic. You've been the one distracted by something new and shiny. You've been the thing abandoned. And you've definitely been the thing doing the tempting. It's a complete emotional ecosystem.

The Photographer Had No Idea What a Meme Was

In late August 2017, as his stock photo was being viewed by approximately everyone on Earth, Antonio Guillem gave interviews to Wired, The Guardian, and NY Mag. His response to the sudden fame? He revealed he didn't know what a meme was until recently.

Incredible. The man created the Mona Lisa of memes and had no idea what the medium even was. It's like if Gutenberg invented the printing press and didn't know what books were.

NY Mag also tracked down and interviewed the three models. The whole stock photo series suddenly had a narrative. People discovered the full photo set on Shutterstock and Tumblr user klubbhead compiled them into a storyline that got over 47,500 notes. The internet had found its telenovela.

The Extended Universe

The meme kept evolving in ways nobody expected:

Distracted Girlfriend (October 2017): Someone found ANOTHER Guillem stock photo where the roles were reversed — the girlfriend is now checking out a passing man while the boyfriend looks hurt. Reddit went ballistic. "The tables have turned" post got 25,600+ upvotes. The Daily Dot called it "gender equality for the meme world."

Henry Cavill Photoshop (January 2018): A still from Mission Impossible got the Distracted Boyfriend treatment. Tom Cruise himself tweeted the image. When Tom Cruise is participating in your meme, you've made it.

Meme of the Year (April 2018): Distracted Boyfriend won "Meme of the Year" at the 10th annual Shorty Awards, beating Galaxy Brain, Roll Safe, and The Floor Is. Not even close.

The 1761 Painting (April 2018): Twitter user @ELXGANZA discovered that painter Joshua Reynolds had essentially created the same scene in 1761 — actor David Garrick torn between Comedy and Tragedy. The side-by-side comparison got 34,000 retweets and 110,000 likes. The meme was 257 years old. We just didn't know it yet.

The Swedish Sexism Ruling (August 2018): A Swedish recruiting company used the meme in an ad, and Sweden's Advertising Ombudsman ruled it "gender-discriminatory." The meme had been deemed legally sexist by a Scandinavian government body. You can't make this stuff up.

The Exact Location (December 2022): GeoGuessr legend Rainbolt found the exact spot where the photo was taken — Carrer Nou, 31 in Girona, Spain. His Instagram video showing the location got over 533,000 likes. It's basically a meme pilgrimage site now.

Cape Town Goes Viral (July 2018)

In one of the most incredible moments in meme history, Twitter user @pjmboothang posted a photo of her friend Trishna Pema from Cape Town, South Africa that accidentally recreated the Distracted Boyfriend scene in real life. The tweet got over 200,000 retweets and 566,000 likes. Reality was imitating meme art.

Then someone photoshopped the ORIGINAL Distracted Boyfriend template as the jealous girlfriend in the new photo. Meta-meme inception. We were in deep.

The Legacy

As of 2026, Distracted Boyfriend remains one of the most recognized and most used meme templates in the world. It's transcended the internet — you'll see it referenced in TV shows, corporate presentations (so many corporate presentations), academic papers, and even legal rulings.

It's proof that the best memes aren't created — they're discovered. Antonio Guillem wasn't trying to make a meme. He was trying to sell a stock photo about infidelity. The internet took his work and turned it into a universal language for expressing the fundamental human experience of wanting what you don't have while neglecting what you do.

And isn't that beautiful? A photographer in Spain takes a photo of three models on a street corner. A Turkish prog rock fan adds some text about Phil Collins. A Redditor connects it to a solar eclipse. And suddenly, the whole world has a new way to say "I am a disloyal clown, and I'm okay with it."

That's the internet at its finest.