# Distracted Boyfriend

> A stock photo became a caption template while selling about 700 licences a year.

- Owner: Antonio Guillem
- Kind: Meme & format
- Sector: Culture (no sector)
- Seed date: 2017-01-30
- Peak date: 2017-08-25
- Spread Score: 29 (Niche), v1.2
- Mechanics: Platform jump, Press loop

## Summary

A Turkish Facebook page repurposed a stock photograph with music labels. Instagram, Twitter and Reddit variants followed, and users assembled other images from the same shoot into stories.

## Timeline

- 2015-11-01 — Antonio Guillem (Open web) — The source photograph was uploaded to iStock.
- 2017-01-30 — Prog Düşmanlarına Verilen Müthiş Cevaplar (Facebook) — A Turkish Facebook page labelled the photograph with Phil Collins, prog and pop music.
- 2017-02-23 — @_dekhbai_ (Instagram) — An Instagram account posted the photograph with a caption about falling in love.

The full timeline, metrics and sources are on the case page, or via the Pro API (https://howitspread.com/developers).

Canonical URL: https://howitspread.com/cases/distracted-boyfriend

Cite as: How It Spread (2026). “Distracted Boyfriend.” Case HIS-01029. Spread Score v1.2: 29/100. Updated 2026-10-17. https://howitspread.com/id/HIS-01029