The meme people won't stop sharing now has a surprise ending

If you have been in the online bubble for the last few weeks, you will have seen this meme, known as the 'Distracted Boyfriend' or 'Disloyal Man'.

Taken in 2015, it is one of a series of images by photographer Antonio Guillem, of a man looking at a woman's rear, while another woman looks on in disgust.

Picture: Antonio Guillem/iStock/Getty Images

As a meme, it has gone through various mutations, becoming more and more self-referential as the hours have ticked by.

The formula is pretty simple.

Yet if anyone were to return to its source, they would find it is just one part of a much longer series, including these images:

'They've made us a meme' (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

'Let's escape this meme fame' (Picture: iStock/Getty Images)

'What do you mean we are not paid per retweet?' (Picture: iStock/Getty Images)

If ordered in a certain way, photos of the couple create quite the story board.

This was done by @oranforest, and the suggestion was liked by more than 225,000 Twitter accounts.

Speaking to Inverse, the photographer Antonio Guillem said:

I never thought that one of my images will be that popular.

I didn’t even know what a meme is until recently, when the models started to tell me about the memes that people were doing with our work.

According to Inverse, the original image was taken in Girona, approximately 90 minutes northeast of Barcelona where Guillem lives and works.

Despite the fact that using the image without paying for it, is technically stealing, Guillem told Inverse that he is more concerned about it being hijacked for pejorative use.

What really worries us and we are not going to allow it, taking the appropriate legal measures, is the use of the images in a pejorative, offensive or any way that can harm the models or me.

HT Inverse

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