Making a Meme

It began in Holland.

In the spring of 2016, Dutch sculptor Margriet van Brifort created Homunculus Loxodontus (Latin for something like “elephant in human form”), a sculpture placed at the Leiden Academic Hospital that was inspired by people she saw sitting in the queue to see their doctors.

Part blob, part sea elephant, in January of this year, the Homunculus burst into Russian meme-dom and has been making Forrest Gump-like appearances in everything from fine art to government meetings. And it has been given the Russian name Zhdun (from ждать – to wait). In Ukraine it has also been called Pochekun.