Even the Fastest Man Alive can’t outrun a viral meme. Grant Gustin played the scarlet speedster Barry Allen in nine seasons of The Flash between 2014 and 2023, the long-running superhero show crossing over with Arrow, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, and Batwoman as part of The CW’s Arrowverse. But it was the series finale of Arrow — which memorialized Stephen Amell‘s Oliver Queen, who died in the five-part crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths — that birthed the meme of Gustin flashing the peace sign next to Queen’s grave.
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The image, which originated on Arrow co-star Echo Kellum’s Instagram in January 2020, first went viral on Reddit and quickly became a meme:
“There’s been some captions attached to it I wish weren’t attached to it,” Gustin said when asked about his favorite version of the meme at Chicago FanExpo 2025. “But I don’t know, I feel like sports-related ones are always funnier to me, because I’m a sports guy. Like whenever someone’s been eliminated from the playoffs, when it’s a team I don’t like, at least.”
“It’s been used [a lot],” he continued. “For a while there, it was sent to me once a week. It’s sent to me by people I’m hearing from for the first time in years. Because it reaches different corners of [fandom]. Suddenly, someone sees the meme because it’s about something they care about. It’s touched every corner of the internet, I feel like.”
Gustin has embraced the now iconic meme. “I’ve joked that when I die, that will be on my tombstone,” he added. “I feel like I’m more famous for that than anything I’ve ever done.”
Elsewhere during the panel, Gustin recreated the Flash run and reflected on playing the DC superhero for nearly a decade. “He just changed a lot, evolved a lot. But I never felt like I was trying to find him,” he said of Barry Allen. “I always felt like I was bringing a lot of myself to him, and following the guidelines of the writers who worked on our story. It was just very natural, and I grew as the character grew.”
During a previous appearance on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast, Gustin told his fellow DC alum he’s “of course” interested in potentially playing the Flash in the newly rebooted DC Universe. “There’s a lot of things that I’d have to like ask… not for, but about,” he told the former Smallville and Justice League star. “I’d be more interested in the [creative].”
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