The Inside Out 2 Trailer Has A Hidden Meme Easter Egg You May Have Missed

Distracted Boyfriend has been around since 2015 — and went viral two years after that. Its near-decade lifespan makes it one of the great memes of the century — and that’s not just opinion.

The year that it became a hit, it won Best Meme of 2017 at the Shorty Awards (an award event to honor short-form digital content creation and innovation). The meme wasn’t a mistake, either. It was professionally captured on the streets of Barcelona by photographer Antonio Guillem while working with models for an official photo shoot. In the photographer’s own words (via Wired), the group was in the midst of a shoot that was “representing the infidelity concept in relationships in a playful and fun way.” The official name for the Shutterstock photo is actually “Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl.”

Integrating Distracted Boyfriend into “Inside Out 2” was a fun easter little Easter egg to the highly anticipated Pixar sequel. It’s also worth pointing out that while the setup and body language in the scene are the same, the individuals in it are clearly changed — and not just because they’re animated. 

The offended girlfriend has the distant appearance of Riley herself, while the “boyfriend” looks an awful lot like the heroic “Imaginary Boyfriend” character that we meet, cloned en masse, in the first movie. He even seems to be sporting the same hairdo and ensemble (an open-button shirt, white T-shirt, and jeans) that we see in the first film. Of course, that earlier version is ready to die for Riley while this meme-worthy one seems to be exhibiting the very different concerns of an anxious girlfriend’s mind — but that’s a new story, presumably for the sequel to tell.