After circulating mostly in Latin America, a Russian speaker noticed that the Bumblebee looked like Toomas Hendrik Ilves, then the president of Estonia. The photo ricocheted across multiple national internets, a real-life butterfly effect that was amplified by social media. Years later, it reemerged in Russia as a homophobic meme aimed at the president of Estonia. It was taken by a wire photographer at a gay pride celebration in Buenos Aires in 2011. Is he supposed to be a butterfly? A bumblebee? Regardless, the image is ridiculous, just the kind that the internet loves. Arms bent, golden antennae cocked, he grins at the camera with unadulterated joy.

He stares right at us, this bespectacled older man in his zany homemade costume.