Photo of '10-year reunion' of 'Distracted Boyfriend' meme gets 1.3M likes; but is it true?

Memes have become a part and parcel of those active on social media, making one laugh, think, react to an event or getting them relate to any behaviour or incident. Many memes have gone on to become popular over the years across the world and one of them is one of the ‘distracted boyfriend’, a light-hearted take on wandering eyes or infidelity. Recently, there were some interesting reactions when a netizen posted a ‘before and after’ image claiming that three people in the post had reunited ‘10 years on.’

Truth of before and after of viral distracted boyfriend meme

A netizen shared, on Twitter, an image of a man, looking towards a woman in admiration to his left, while another woman to his right expressed her shock at it. Behind them, was a photograph of the viral meme and the netizen claimed that they were the actual people from '*THAT* meme, 10 years on.'

The post seemed to have caught on in a big way on Twitter as it received 218.5K retweets and 1.3 million likes. While a good number of netizens were convinced, some spotted that the trio did not look the same as the one in the meme, particularly the woman to the right of the man. 

Many of the Twitter users shared similar versions to join in the fun and even trolled the netizen for trying to cash in on it. 

The netizen clarified that it was not the same and expressed his surprise on people retweeting the photo without seeing his second post, where he clarified that the trio were just cosplaying for effect. He added that the trio had posted so at an exhibition of memes in New York.   

Truth of 'Distracted boyfriend' meme

One of the reasons why the trio could not be ‘10 years on’ was because the original meme had surfaced in 2017.  The photograph was a stock pic clicked by Barcelona-based Antonio Guillem in 2015 in Girona in Catalonia, Spain. While this did not turn out to be true, the girl featuring in another viral meme, of the burning house, had made headlines a few months ago, as she shared the story of the photograph that got clicked accidentally.