About

I Went Through My Boyfriend's Phone and Saw Things I Wasn't Prepared For refers to a series of memes in which a screenshot of a news article about a woman going through her boyfriends' phone is paired with imagery of what she supposedly wasn't prepared to see. Originally gaining popularity on Twitter in December 2018, the format saw continuous presence online in the following years.

Origin

On November 30th, 2018, lifestyle website Mamamia^[1] published a personal story submitted by an anonymous reader titled, "I went through my boyfriend's phone and saw things I wasn't prepared for." In the story, a woman checks her boyfriend's phone to find out that he met his ex and hadn't told her about it. On the same day, Mamamia posted shared a link to the story on its Twitter account (tweet no longer available, screenshot shown below).

The meme format gained initial popularity on Twitter in early December 2018, although the exact first post is unknown. On December 1st, 2018, the official Twitter^[2] account for the gaming website Niche Gamer posted the earliest found meme based on the image, combining it with an image of Kirby holding a gun. The post gained over 80 retweets and 470 likes in four years (shown below).

Spread

On December 2nd, 2018, Internet Historian tweeted^[3] a meme that gained over 250 retweets and 2,300 likes in four years (shown below, left). On December 3rd, 2018, iFunny^[4][5] users PeeCock and WeebeeW posted two memes based on the format that gained over 80 and 60 smiles in four years, respectively (one upload shown below, right).

In the following years, the format has occasionally been used in memes on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other platforms, with some posts going viral. For example, on October 6th, 2020, Instagram^[6] page blank_gehry posted a meme that received over 7,500 likes in two years (shown below, left). On March 26th, 2021, the Facebook^[7] page reposted a Doge version by an unknown author, with the post gaining over 1,300 upvotes and 2,600 shares in one year (shown below, right). On April 25th, 2022, Twitter^[8] user @mask_bastard made a Last Saved Image thread based on the post that gained over 60 retweets and 1,600 likes in three months.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References