--- title: Photographer Explains Viral Guy Looking Back Meme description: The photographer behind the viral "guy looking back" meme didn't even know what a meme was, he shared in a new comment. canonical: https://time.com/4919007/love-triangle-meme-interview/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-28T21:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:28.529Z og:title: Here's the Backstory of That Viral 'Guy Looking Back' Meme og:description: The photographer says he didn't even know what a meme was og:url: https://time.com/4919007/love-triangle-meme-interview/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dfa5022a93d660e/6988db95196cf461aa041ae1/gettyimages-493656728.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4500 og:image:height: 2531 og:image:alt: gettyimages-493656728 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's the Backstory of That Viral 'Guy Looking Back' Meme twitter:description: The photographer says he didn't even know what a meme was twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dfa5022a93d660e/6988db95196cf461aa041ae1/gettyimages-493656728.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Guy Behind the Latest Big Meme You Saw Everywhere: 'I Didn’t Even Know What a Meme Is' > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Why Do People Always Look So Serious in Old Photos? [Watch (HLS stream): Why Do People Always Look So Serious in Old Photos?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/mjNaDSHz.m3u8) (1:02)  _Published 2016-11-29. The first photographs were taken in the late 1820s, and the new medium developed throughout the rest of the century as a practical tool, artistic form and social activity._  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 28, 2017 9:00 PM UTC  Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl AntonioGuillem—iStockphoto/Getty Images  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 28, 2017 9:00 PM UTC After a stock photo of three people entangled in a romantic triangle [became a viral sensation](https://twitter.com/i/moments/901044973881217024), the photographer behind the image is speaking out about the roots of the picture, the models involved and how he’s handling this whole internet fame thing. “My models and I work really hard and we make a living out of our work, so the meme situation is just an anecdote that can be curious,” Spanish photographer Antonio Guillem wrote [in an extensive comment to _New York’s_ Select All](http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/08/antonio-guillem-the-photographer-behind-guy-looking-back-meme.html?utm%5Fcampaign=nym&utm%5Fsource=tw&utm%5Fmedium=s1). Since he says he has worked for half a decade in the stock photo industry and sells 1,600 photos daily, this one was only a blip on his radar. “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,” he continued. He also explained that the models are close to him: “I care about them as they were my kids,” he said of two of them. (The internet discovered that the three are in many of his shots, [leading to funny takes](https://twitter.com/oranforest/status/900923334799622144) on the rest of the photo shoot’s narrative.) As for the back story on the photo shoot that has now become iconic? They were in Catalonia, Spain in mid-2015, he said, playing around with the “infidelity” concept. Everything was improvised, but it was “challenging” to get the facial expressions just right — since the group had difficulty keeping straight faces. Intriguingly, this is not Guillem’s best-selling photo, nor is it making him a ton of money. Most of the memes of the image are pirated online spoofs, so Guillem is not getting much in the way of a copyright kickback. But he’s not too bothered by it, except, he says, in instances where the new take is decisively derogatory. See below for two iterations. > [](https://twitter.com/DoctorZachJones/status/900346924766609408) > [](https://twitter.com/oranforest/status/900923334799622144) ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4919007/love-triangle-meme-interview/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4919007/love-triangle-meme-interview/"},"headline":"Guy Behind the Latest Big Meme You Saw Everywhere: 'I Didn’t Even Know What a Meme Is'","datePublished":"2017-08-28T21:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:28.529Z","description":"The photographer behind the viral \"guy looking back\" meme didn't even know what a meme was, he shared in a new comment.","url":"https://time.com/4919007/love-triangle-meme-interview/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","photography","memes"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dfa5022a93d660e/6988db95196cf461aa041ae1/gettyimages-493656728.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dfa5022a93d660e/6988db95196cf461aa041ae1/gettyimages-493656728.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"gettyimages-493656728","caption":"Disloyal man with his girlfriend looking at another girl","creditText":"AntonioGuillem—iStockphoto/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4919007/love-triangle-meme-interview/","name":"Guy Behind the Latest Big Meme You Saw Everywhere: 'I Didn’t Even Know What a Meme Is'"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Why Do People Always Look So Serious in Old Photos?","description":"The first photographs were taken in the late 1820s, and the new medium developed throughout the rest of the century as a practical tool, artistic form and social activity.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/mjNaDSHz/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-11-29T20:49:37.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/mjNaDSHz.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4919007/love-triangle-meme-interview/","duration":"PT1M2S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4919007/love-triangle-meme-interview/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```