Cristiano Ronaldo Bust

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Cristiano Ronaldo Bust is a 2017 Twitter meme built around a botched bronze sculpture of the Portuguese soccer star, unveiled at Madeira's airport by artist Emanuel Santos. Its lumpy face and small eyes looked almost nothing like Ronaldo, and photos of him posing beside it triggered a wave of photoshops within hours.

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Overview

Cristiano Ronaldo Bust is a photo-based meme built around a bronze sculpture of the Portuguese soccer star that looked almost nothing like him1. The likeness had a squared jaw, undersized eyes and lumpy features, and it appeared during the March 2017 ceremony renaming his hometown airport in Madeira1. Photos of Ronaldo posing next to the sculpture created an instant before-and-after gag that spread within hours3.

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The joke worked because the bust stood beside the real Ronaldo at the unveiling, giving press photographers a ready-made contrast shot1. Users treated the sculpture as generic monster material, pasting its face onto famous villains and characters known for looking unsettling1. Ronaldo's public grooming and image obsession added to the humor of the mismatch3.

How It Spread

By the afternoon of March 29, the Cristiano Ronaldo Bust was a trending Twitter topic3. Editors photoshopped the sculpture's face onto Ronaldo's body, then mashed the bust into pop-culture nightmares like Sloth from The Goonies, Han Solo frozen in carbonite, Batman's Two-Face, BioShock's Andrew Ryan and the clown from IT1. The Verge dubbed the mangled piece "Calamity Ronaldo" and compared the reaction cycle to the 2012 Botched Jesus Fresco1.

Mainstream outlets ran roundups within 24 hours, including The New York Times, Buzzfeed and The Daily Dot3. Emanuel Santos was interviewed about the reception and asked for a chance to try again3.

Exactly one year later, on March 29, 2018, sports account @brfootball posted a video showing Santos alongside a second, more accurate Ronaldo bust2. The tweet drew more than 37,200 likes and 15,700 retweets in its first 24 hours, and a Twitter Moments page collected the reactions under the headline "Artist who made meme-able Ronaldo bust finds redemption in a do-over"3.

How to Use This Meme

The Cristiano Ronaldo Bust meme is typically shared as a side-by-side image pairing the sculpture with a photo of Ronaldo or a stylized character. A common convention swaps the bust's face onto other figures to draw a comparison to villains or monsters.

Frequently Asked Questions

Cristiano Ronaldo Bust

2017image macroclassic

Cristiano Ronaldo Bust is a 2017 Twitter meme built around a botched bronze sculpture of the Portuguese soccer star, unveiled at Madeira's airport by artist Emanuel Santos. Its lumpy face and small eyes looked almost nothing like Ronaldo, and photos of him posing beside it triggered a wave of photoshops within hours.

photoshop memes football memes fail memes so bad its good memes unwilling celebrity memes

Overview

Cristiano Ronaldo Bust is a photo-based meme built around a bronze sculpture of the Portuguese soccer star that looked almost nothing like him1. The likeness had a squared jaw, undersized eyes and lumpy features, and it appeared during the March 2017 ceremony renaming his hometown airport in Madeira1. Photos of Ronaldo posing next to the sculpture created an instant before-and-after gag that spread within hours3.

Loading tweet...

The joke worked because the bust stood beside the real Ronaldo at the unveiling, giving press photographers a ready-made contrast shot1. Users treated the sculpture as generic monster material, pasting its face onto famous villains and characters known for looking unsettling1. Ronaldo's public grooming and image obsession added to the humor of the mismatch3.

How It Spread

By the afternoon of March 29, the Cristiano Ronaldo Bust was a trending Twitter topic3. Editors photoshopped the sculpture's face onto Ronaldo's body, then mashed the bust into pop-culture nightmares like Sloth from The Goonies, Han Solo frozen in carbonite, Batman's Two-Face, BioShock's Andrew Ryan and the clown from IT1. The Verge dubbed the mangled piece "Calamity Ronaldo" and compared the reaction cycle to the 2012 Botched Jesus Fresco1.

Mainstream outlets ran roundups within 24 hours, including The New York Times, Buzzfeed and The Daily Dot3. Emanuel Santos was interviewed about the reception and asked for a chance to try again3.

Exactly one year later, on March 29, 2018, sports account @brfootball posted a video showing Santos alongside a second, more accurate Ronaldo bust2. The tweet drew more than 37,200 likes and 15,700 retweets in its first 24 hours, and a Twitter Moments page collected the reactions under the headline "Artist who made meme-able Ronaldo bust finds redemption in a do-over"3.

How to Use This Meme

The Cristiano Ronaldo Bust meme is typically shared as a side-by-side image pairing the sculpture with a photo of Ronaldo or a stylized character. A common convention swaps the bust's face onto other figures to draw a comparison to villains or monsters.

Frequently Asked Questions