Meaning
What does Distracted Boyfriend mean?
The famous meme Distracted Boyfriend, also known as Guy looking back/Man looking at other women, is a picture of an object labelling stock photo series made.
The photo features a romantic couple walking by a red-dressed woman, who catches the eye of the “distracted boyfriend”.
One of the reasons it became a very famous meme template is because of the supposed partner of the man who disapproves of the situation with a confused facial expression.
Origin
What's the origin of Distracted Boyfriend?
The stock photos were taken by the photographer Antonio Guillem and were posted on iStock on November 2, 2015.
According to the Tumblr blog, Meme Documentation, the earliest known captioned version of the picture was posted in a Turkish Facebook group at an unknown date,
However, it was popularized by another Turkish Facebook page, Düşmanlarına Verilen Müthiş Cevaplar on Janurary 30th, 2017 as a Phil Collins meme.
Later on, the creator of the meme said that he was inspired by a political page Siyasettin, who posted a similar version on the same day.
Spread & Usage
How did Distracted Boyfriend spread?
The image quickly gained a global presence, since it held so much opportunity for funny captions.
On August 19, 2017, a Twitter user posted the picture with the captions of the man being “The Youth” who stares at “socialism” (the other woman walking by) while the partner is captioned as “capitalism”.
Within a couple of hours, the post gained thousands of retweets and a handful of attention.