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Hilarious Vintage Navy Photo Predates The Distracted Boyfriend Meme

Hilarious Vintage Navy Photo Predates The Distracted Boyfriend Meme

Distracted Navy Wife crawled so Distracted Boyfriend could run...

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

Everyone is familiar with the Distracted Boyfriend Meme, with seemingly everyone from your great aunt to your mail delivery person posting it somewhere on their social media.

But while the image of the man looking at a woman walking past while his girlfriend is clearly annoyed is iconic, there is a photo that predates it by a few decades.

Let us introduce you to the Distracted Navy Wife, which essentially does what it says on the tin.

The image is from a 1950 edition of the US Marine Corps' in-house magazine Leatherneck.

Leatherneck

There is a longstanding joke in the US military that women prefer Marines over members of the Navy (even though they also play an important part in the military) and this editorial was poking fun at that very idea.

The photo features then-Staff Sgt. Louis A. Capozzoli, with the caption on the photo saying: "Hey! Nancy Kelley, USN(W) takes a second look at SSgt. Louis Cappazzoli's dress blues. Joe Ewing, USN, holds her back. All are students at [Navy Journalist] School."

Funnily enough, the man pulling his wife away was probably doing the right thing.

Family of Capozzoli told Task & Purpose that the Staff Sergeant was very popular back in the day.

Capozzoli's daughter Linda Herbst said: "He was very clever and very handsome ... We always used to say he looked like Clark Gable or Errol Flynn. He was a good dancer, and he always said 'don't marry a man who doesn't dance.' He was still pretty handsome at 80 when he died."

"He was very charming, but he was always respectful of women. He loved women.

"He called all ladies 'dolls' rather than 'broads,' and if he didn't remember your name, he would just say 'doll.' Women would fall all over the floor over that."

But don't think that this image from Leatherneck was the first iteration of the Distracted Partner meme.

There was a still from a Charlie Chaplin movie in the 1920s that produced a very distinct Distracted Boyfriend vibe.

Fact-checking website Snopes said it certainly can't be considered the first ever version of the iconic meme, but it didn't rule him out completely.

"Charlie Chaplin didn't invent the 'distracted boyfriend' meme, but he certainly qualifies to be its poster child," Snopes said.

You could probably look at all different types of art over the last few decades and find some element of the Distracted Partner meme.

Featured Image Credit: Reddit

Topics: News, Interesting