About

The Lust vs. Love Comic is a webcomic by Shea Strauss and Karina Farek, published on CollegeHumor in September 2016, showing several scenarios between a couple that illustrate lust vs. love. The first example shows the man telling his partner she's beautiful in lingerie under "lust" vs. telling her she's beautiful while eating a burrito in bed under "love."

The comic went viral over the following decade and inspired edits and memes as it became an exploitable format. In July 2026, the first two panels of the comic went viral on X / Twitter after they were reposted, inspiring memes and discourse regarding relationships.

Origin

On September 6th, 2016, CollegeHumor^[1] published a comic by Shea Strauss and Karina Farek titled "Lust vs. Love." The comic displays six different examples of lust vs. love in a relationship between a man and a woman.

The first example displays lust as the man calling his partner beautiful in lingerie, and love as the man calling her beautiful while dressed more casually and eating in bed.

Spread

The comic spread over the following years. On July 17th, 2017, it was reposted to Cheezburger. ^[2] On June 15th, 2019, the CollegeHumor Facebook^[3] page reposted it to over 3,600 shares in seven years.

On July 17th, 2022, Redditor ArdhamArts posted an edit of the comic to the /r/shitpostemblem^[4] subreddit that references the video game Fire Emblem, garnering over 3,200 upvotes in four years.

On July 9th, 2026, X^[5] user @Real_Ravenx_ posted the first two panels of the comic collection without context, garnering over 17,000 likes and 1,300 reposts in six days.

On July 12th, X^[6] user @ThiccEarthGirth posted an edit of the meme that increases the woman's weight and has the man tell her to eat more, representing a "feeder and feedee" relationship, gaining over 9,000 likes in three days.

Later that day, X^[7] user @JoeLongBalls posted, "somethings always rubbed me the wrong way about the 'okay we've dated for 5 months I can just do gross shit now' comedy that's very prevalent in the millennial circle," garnering over 98,000 likes in three days.

On July 14th, 2026, X^[8] user @nikicaga posted an edit of the comic that replaces the "love" panel image with an excerpt from a news story about the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Hillary and Bill Clinton, garnering over 100,000 likes in a day.

On July 15th, X^[9] user @Timcast, conservative political pundit Tim Pool, quote-reposted the comic, writing, "this was written by a woman fantasizing about doing whatever she wants without consequence," garnering over 3,500 likes in under a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References