A couple took 'breakup photos' and they're still pretty sad about the whole thing
Harrison and Jackie broke up in 2015.
At the end of 2016, they had a photoshoot. A breakup photoshoot. For their breakup.
They dated in high school, tried to make it work while attending college separated by a few thousand miles of farmland, and eventually the distance drew them apart. three and a half years into their relationship, they ended it.
Fast forward to New Year's Eve 2016. If you're doing the math along with me, you'll note that's a bit over a year since the breakup, and for reference, they hadn't seen each other since then.
"I had this idea," Harrison said.
"I see my friends who are in relationships doing really nice professional photography photoshoots," he said. "I had the idea of doing the same thing in the same setting, but post-relationship, in a different way."
So they had a thesis. Harrison had a camera and a tripod and an eye for photography. Oh, and they also had just, like, a lot of emotions?
"It was actually kind of funny, we were getting along extremely well," Harrison said of the photoshoot.
He recalled that while at first they were "faking" their emotions, as the shoot went on, "it ended up being really real emotions and we got kind of sad."
When asked for comment Jackie agreed, saying without prompting: "Taking those pictures felt like slipping right back into our relationship -- the good and bad. Looking at them now, I am reminded of every thing about him I fell in love with."
The intensity! Honestly, we should've expected it. You don't do a forest photoshoot at dusk memorializing the end of your relationship, even partly in jest, without some level of emotional tension.
Harrison posted the photos to his Facebook page on Feb. 20 and they were almost immediately lifted onto Twitter.
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People proceeded to stumble upon them and immediately lose their minds.
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Some aptly noticed the resemblance between Jackie and another sad female protagonist:
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People also loved to point out the sheer drama of it all.
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On becoming an internet sensation, Harrison said that after the pictures got posted to Twitter ,"shit started getting weird."
He's seen himself and his ex become a meme of a dramatic couple when really, "it started off as a joke," something that their, "friends [would] think is funny and ironic," and that would be it.
Sometimes, when you post a picture where you're nestled into your ex-girlfriend's stomach in the middle of a road at twilight, you get misinterpreted as dramatic.
You live and you learn and you become a meme. It's the way of the world.
