Distracted Boyfriend Meme Sexist?

The New York Times published an article yesterday that said Sweden’s advertising ombudsman, an industry body, classified the distracted boyfriend meme as sexist and a “comment on the interchangeability of women.” The organization found that internet service provider Bahnhof had broken gender discrimination rules by using this image. The meme under fire captioned the man as “you,” the woman that captured his attention as “opportunities at Bahnhof,” and the ignored girlfriend as “your current workplace.” They reasoned that the woman was being depicted as a sex object to represent job vacancies and to perpetuate the stereotype that women are interchangeable, like jobs.

The Chief Executive at Bahnhof, Jon Carlung claimed the decision was an overreaction and was shared with no sexist intent. He mentioned the head of the communications division was a woman. An article from Quartzy commented on the issue by comparing this trope to white people using gifs of black people. Commentator have said that these are nothing more than digital blackface. What are your thoughts? Is there an intrinsic problem with this, or is it not that serious because it is an old, overused meme?