Third Place Celebration Meme Template

This 6-panel comic was created by the Russian artist Ilya Kuvshinov (though often associated with the style of artist Anton Gudim) in 2020. It depicts an athlete celebrating his bronze medal with an absurd level of intensity—biting the medal, kissing a woman, spraying champagne, and flipping off the crowd—only for the final panel to reveal he is in 3rd place, while the 1st and 2nd place winners look on in confusion. In meme culture, it is the definitive visual for celebrating a mediocre achievement, "winning" at a low level, or being overly proud of a bare-minimum effort.

• Panels 1-5: A series of high-energy celebrations, representing The Hype, The Ego, or The Internal Feeling of Success.
• Panel 6 (The Punchline): A wide shot of the podium showing the athlete in the lowest spot while everyone else is calm, representing The Reality Check, The Actual Ranking, or The Bare Minimum.
• The Contrast: The spray of champagne versus the stoic silence of the actual winners creates the Irony.