Woman Admits to Cheating / Was It the Guy

Submission 18,330

About

Woman Admits to Cheating refers to an artwork by ReeseRoyce215 in which a woman admits to her partner that she had had sex with another man. Following frequent Facebook reposts in 2015, the artwork went on to become a popular subject of parodies, with the exchange between the characters humorously edited. Online, the artwork is known under several names due to a variety of format iterations connected to it, including The Answer That Will Literally Take a Man's Soul, Was It The Guy and I Thought You Would Like It.

Origin

Prior to May 11th, 2015, artist Reese Royce^[11] (ReeseRoyce215) posted an artwork of a man holding his face in his hands as his partner admits to cheating on him (shown below). On May 11th, 2015, Instagram^[1] user spacekid_timmy made the earliest repost of the artwork currently available online.

Spread

In the period between 2015 and 2016, the artwork was widely circulated online on Facebook and other websites, with the posts often asking readers about how they would act should the situation occur to them. For example, on May 11th, 2015, Instagram^[1] user spacekid_timmy reposted a Facebook post of the image asking "Fellas, yall taking her back or no?" (shown below, left). The post received 400 likes in four years. On July 9th, 2015, Naujaloaded^[2] posted the image, with the post accruing over 250 replies in four years (shown below, right).

Before August 22nd, an unknown user posted the image with the post reading "The answer that will literally take a man soul from his body!". In the following years, the post was widely circulated on social media, with reposts to Reddit,^[3] Twitter,^[4] 9GAG^[5] and other websites (shown below, left). A September 1st, 2016, 9GAG^[6]^[7] repost copying the caption received over 21,800 points in three years (shown below, right).

On September 4th, 2016, 9GAG^[8] user the_5cm_guy posted the first known meme based on the image, with the post receiving over 29,300 points in three years (shown below, left). Starting in September 2016, the format gained popularity in memes on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, with the exchange between the characters humorously altered. For example, a November 12th, 2016, post by Instagram^[9] user kingking9597 received over 650 likes (shown below, center). A post by Facebook^[10] group Gym Memes received over 5,500 reactions and 2,600 shares.

In the following years, the format maintained notable popularity on Instagram, Facebook and other online platforms, going through several format iterations such as "Was It The Guy With" and "I Thought You Would Like It."