The Story Behind The Stock Photo That Launched A Thousand Jokes

It’s a meme so popular, even your mom has probably seen it. (And maybe finally gets what a “meme” actually is.)

The image, known as “Distracted Boyfriend ” and “Disloyal Man ,” has made its way onto a ton of social media platforms, like Twitter ...

... Instagram ...

... Tumblr ...

... and even Facebook .

The simple, yet versatile, joke all started with a stock photo that clearly depicts a woman walking with her boyfriend who, to his partner’s dismay, can’t help but check out another woman walking by.

The photo is part of a series of photos snapped by photographer Antonio Guillem , which is available on the stock photo website Shutterstock.

In February, an Instagram user who goes by @_dekhbai_ posted it to his page and asked followers to “tag that friend who falls in love every month,” according to the meme experts over at Know Your Meme .

The post got almost 30,000 likes and then the photo faded into internet obscurity.

It remained there until Saturday, when Twitter user @n1m161 posted the stock photo, depicting the woman walking by as “socialism” and the upset girlfriend as “capitalism.” Another Twitter user named Omar Essam copied the idea , according to Vox. Essam’s version went viral.

Things just took off from there.

Buzzfeed reports that another Twitter user eventually discovered that the stock photo was part of a set …

… And the joke evolved.

Now if only someone could think of a meme for this stock image …

 … That would be great.

HuffPost has reached out to Antonio Guillem and his models. We will update this article accordingly.