Polandball
This page is about the internet phenomenon. For the country, see
Poland.
Polandball, also known as Countryballs, is a geopolitical 
satirical art style, genre, and 
internet meme, in which countries or 
political entities are personified as anthropomorphic balls with hollow white eyes, decorated with their national flags (or logos or any symbols if flags aren't available).
Countryballs have been adapted in a lot of forms of 
art and genres like standalone-art, animations, 
video games, etc. However, the most common countryball art form are online comics strips, which feature the characters in various scenarios, mostly poking fun at 
national stereotypes, 
international relations, and 
historical events. Other common features in Countryball strips include non-
English countries speaking in 
broken English with vocabularies of their national languages included. Many comics include political incorrectness and black comedy. Strips are generally created using 
Microsoft Paint or more advanced graphic art software, somtimes made to intentionally look crudely-drawn.
History
Pre-Comic Origins
Countries being depicted as balls and circles was not an idea that Polandball's creators invented. As such, Polandball has had several spiritual predecessors. One of the earliest examples of this is the cartoon "Italy vs Europe" made by Bruno Bozzetto in 1999, where 
Italy and 
European Union are represented as circles.
The roots of Polandball could be traced back to an event dubbed a 'cyber-war' among 
Polish internet users on a website called drawball.com, which occurred in August 2009. The idea of βdrawing the Polish flag on the entire canvas of Ball 2 rallied thousands of Polish internet users together, and they were able to paint the entire canvas with a red top and white below, with the word "POLSKA" written in the middle. This coordination devolved into drawball's familiar chaos soon afterward when it was raided by 
4chan to cover it with a giant 
swastika.
The First Comics
The beginnings of the actual Polandball meme began a month later, on 
Krautchan, a 
German-language imageboard website based off of 4chan. It's unknown on which Polandball comic came first or the exact date of it (one of the earliest files relating to Polandball was shown as to be made on 30 September 2009), but one of the earliest Polandball comics to be created to be commonly accepted as the first one was crudely drawn MS Paint comic by a user dubbed FALCO on the English board of /int/, depicting Poland holding an ice cream and 
Germany trying to rob the ice cream, causing it to fall to the ground. The ice cream comic is believed to be one of the first Polandball comics, however there is no evidence of it being the first comic since multiple comics were floating around at that point.
These comics was made to troll one of the users in board with the pseudonym " Wojak", who is a 
Polish-British 
frequenter of the /int/ board who was known for posting images depicting a black and white image of a bald man known to many at the time as the "Feels Guy". Wojak was speaking of his poor employee contributions and nationalism for his former country in a rambling style. Eventually, he began talking about how superior Polish 
women are to women from other countries. FALCO created the first Polandball comics to satirize this, along with several others later, and they became the most foundational stereotypes attributed to the character Polandball. Notably, Poland was drawn with an inverted Polish flag (looking like the flag of 
Indonesia or 
Monaco), which some have debated on whether or not was intentional, or Falco being unaware of Polish flag's color pattern.
Polandball caught the interest of many users of the board, who then began spreading and imitating FALCO's comics across the internet. 
Russians espoused it the most, themselves creating their own stereotypes of 
drunken enjoyment and obsession with making fun of Poland. These stereotypes were placed into the character Russiaball. In a similar fashion, many other stereotypes began forming for the various other characters of Polandball.
Later History
Polandball, after being established by the community from Krautchan, began spreading across other websites in addition to cementing the popularity on Krautchan. On Krautchan, the meme became so widespread that the managers and moderators of the website established markers for the anonymous users' home countries using countryball icons instead of flags. This later became a feature among many other /int/ boards on other imageboards and is also an optional feature.
Polandball would establish different communities across social media. The most famous in 
r/Polandball on 
Reddit, known for strict rules for how comics and comments are posted and shared. Many regard the subreddit as a source for high-quality comics, while others criticize it for the heavy moderation. Controversial rules include the banning or temporary banning of certain jokes and a heavy comment policy that bans the use of any meme (including subtle meme references and even having a meme title for a comic).
One reason for the popularity of the art style is Polandball's ability to convey short stories about different cultures simply and humorously. Another common format for Countryballs are 
history/alternate history videos, often involving maps of the world changing to show a scenario to a 
war or conflict. These videos are famous on 
YouTube Polandball community, alongside short edits.
On July 2015, the 
Facebook community had over 215,000 members, although the main community has been occasionally banned due to the constant usage of hate symbols including the swastika. The r/Polandball subreddit reached over 250,000 subscribers at around the same time. The 
Polandball Wiki had 480,159 edits before the wiki's deletion by 
Fandom in 2021 and immigration to 
Miraheze.
Rules
There are several rules when drawing Polandball, and some of them are more widespread/enforced than others.
- No lines between the colours of flags. It just looks ugly, despite the first comics breaking this rule.
- No limbs, pupils, mouths or facial hair. If they do have hair it must be with a price tag to indicate that it's a wig. If arms are really needed they could be added via an "arm pole", a stick with a white glove attached to it.
- Poland must be drawn with his flag upside down in the ball. The first comics have Poland drawn upside down, it's unknown whether intentional or not. Nevertheless, this tradition has been kept.
Comics & Art
Art and comics are the main content of the Polandball genre. Lines are often used to indication the characters' communication instead of the speech bubbles. The panels are created often by horizontal lines instead of square boxes. These factors generate a since of non-seriousness and simplicity.
Some common tropes in Polandball comics include:
Poland cannot into 
space- Poland attacked/bullied by
Germany 
and 
Russia 
- Germany working ("wΓΆrk")
France surrendering- Russia or
Finland being 
drunk
Relationships
Friends
r/Polandball - Mine main hub nowadays with lots of high quality content. But you persecute creators outside of your rules too muchβ¦
Polandball Wiki - Lots of content, sometimes low quality but mostly fine. Information hub for 
artists too.
Frenemies
Countryhumans - Yuo of mine descendent, but is kind of cringeβ¦
Facebook - At least yuo unbans meβ¦
WikiGrid - He hosts and takes care of my wiki and siblings, 
PCB and 
PCBA and now they are the biggest wikis on his platform so he really likes me! Thanks for saving me from 
Miraheze but plz don't betray me like her. But there's one thing... why are you dead for long time?
Enemies
Fandom - SCREW YUO FOR BANNINGS ME!! 2021 NEVER FORGET!!! WORST YEAR OF MY LIFE IN WIKIS! YUO COULD'VE JUST BANNED THE POLANDBALL WIKI ONLY BUT YUO HAD TO BAN EVERYTHING BALL-RELATED AND OUTLAW ME COMPLETELY! EVEN she DIDN'T DO THAT! YUO DON'T CARE ABOUT COMMUNITIES AT ALL!!!! At least planetballs still manageβ¦- Miraheze - YUO ALSO BANNED ME!!! You saved my wiki from this pig and helped until 2023 but then you became a big betrayer and got mad at him for "moderation issues" and "trolls" AND THEN BANNED ME COMPLETELY! Banning the wiki is one thing, but banning new wikis related to me ENTIRELY? THAT'S IT, NOW I AM MOVING TO WikiGrid AND HE IS ACTUALLY OF PROUD OF ME FOR MAKING HIM FAMOUS UNLIKE YOU!
Oh well, at least you didn't ban everything ball-related like him.-
*suddenly dies without a reason*
How to draw
Polandball has a drawing rating of trivial.
- Draw a ball.
- Fill the top half of the ball with red.
- Fill the bottom half of the ball with white.
- Add eyes and finish.
| Color Name | HEX | |
|---|---|---|
| Red | #DC143C | |
| White | #FFFFFF | |
Gallery
-
Original infobox image -
Polandball being banned by Fandom, art made by Irish. -
Ditto, but new version.
