Charlie Chaplin was the original Distracted Boyfriend meme

Was the Distracted Boyfriend meme actually born in 1922?

No. But check this out. There’s an image going around Reddit right now that looks remarkably like the famously disloyal man — and it’s from the 96-year-old short film Pay Day, which stars Charlie Chaplin.

The photo was posted to r/pics on Monday by user i124nk8 under the header “Charlie Chaplin: inventor of memes.” (It had been circulating on Twitter, courtesy of @peeto_g, since the day before.)

Now, against my better judgment, I am considering replacing the original Distracted Boyfriend with the Charlie Chaplin version from now on. For one thing, everyone’s outfits are much better. For another, I haven’t seen the latter image every day for the past 10 months. Plus, vintage! Read more…

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