Polandball
You might remember it as countryballs, Poland cannot into space
Poland is always drawn with its flag upside down
Biggest memes ever32 of 32
2009·Early YouTube·informative
An entire genre of geopolitical satire drawn in MS Paint, in which every country is a ball wearing its own flag.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- countryballs
- Spread in
- 2009
- Format
- Meme
- Made by
- A British user of the German imageboard Krautchan called Falco
- Where it started
- Krautchan
- What it said
- Poland is always drawn with its flag upside down
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
Countries are spheres painted with their flags, and they talk to each other in deliberately broken English about history, borders and grievance. The comics are drawn crudely on purpose. Poland's ball is always drawn with its flag upside down, and its running theme is that Poland cannot into space.
Polandball outgrew its origin board entirely and lives now on Reddit and Facebook with communities in dozens of languages, and with an internal rulebook about how the balls may be drawn that is enforced more strictly than most professional style guides. The upside-down flag has become the genre's signature rather than an insult.
Why it matteredWhat changed
Countries drawn as balls with eyes, in deliberately clumsy lines, became a whole genre of jokes about history and national character, with rules strict enough that newcomers’ first comics need approving.
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asA Polish creation.
ActuallyThe first comics were drawn by a British user to wind up a Polish one.1
Why it is here: copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
ConnectedFollow it further
- Refers to WojakMeme · 2010
The first Polandball comics were drawn to tease a Polish user of Krautchan called Wojak, the same user whose name passed to the Wojak drawing.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things