I think most of us "losers" (and it was by far the vast majority of entrants don't forget! 😉) felt this way despite all of the numerous pieces proclaiming how they entered for a laugh/didn't care about the result one bit. Also don't forget the actual winners were...not really the stuff most Medium members write or are interested in reading. And the way Medium treated the honorable mentions was genuinely lame, they posted it as an afterthought without highlighting why the entries were chosen, when many of them were brilliant and better than the winning entries imo. The whole thing was weird. It was a good exercise in forcing myself to try to write something decent and as perfect as I could make it, and I am still proud of mine too. Writing four is amazing, I am sure you flexed those writing muscles and it has improved and formed your writing to enter challenges like these, as disappointing and frustrating as they can be!