Websites & Forums
Where it all happened. Demotywatory and Kwejk, Wykop and its wykopki, JoeMonster, the forums and the imageboards, and the sites that shaped the Polish internet.
Part of Polish culture
11 moments in this segment.
- - Gadu-Gadu Launched. August 15, 2000. GG launches, Poland's ICQ. Orange-and-yellow smiley becomes a generation-defining icon. "GG numer?" replaces phone numbers. Foundation of Polish-internet socialisation through late 2000s.
- - Tlen.pl (GG Competitor). 2001. Tlen.pl, Onet's GG-competitor. "Tlen vs GG" choice becomes an early-Polish-internet tribal-identifier; "ja na tlenie" / "tylko GG" debates rage on Onet forums.
- - pl.wikipedia.org Launched. September 2001. Polish-language Wikipedia goes live. Becomes both source-of-truth and meme-source, "źródło: Wikipedia" jokes + the recurring "Robert Lewandowski [potrzebne źródło]" edits.
- - Onet Czat ("Pokoje"). Early 2000s. Onet's chat rooms, every Polish teenager's first internet-stranger experience. Spawns "asl plz" / "ascii art" / forum-troll subculture that later seeds wykop/cebulion archetypes.
- - Fronda.pl / Polish Right-Wing Web. ~2005 onward. Fronda + Niezależna + Niezalogowani.pl seed the conservative-Catholic Polish meme-web subculture; mirror-image of the left-leaning Wykop/Sok-z-Buraka axis that emerges in parallel.
- - Wykop.pl Founded. October 2005. Wykop launches as Polish Digg. Pluses ("+1"), "mirko" microblog, "znaleziska". By 2010 it's the centre of Polish-internet political + nerd discourse. "Wykopki", both identifier and insult.
- - Nasza-Klasa.pl (NK). November 2006. Maciej Popowicz launches Nasza-Klasa, Polish Classmates.com. By 2008: 11M users (29% of all Poles). The "wpis na nk" + the "kto cię odwiedził" feature define a generation's privacy disasters.
- - Allegro "Kup Teraz" Memes. ~2007. Allegro.pl's "Kup teraz!" + the lemur-mascot ad campaigns become ironic-quotable. Screenshots of absurdly-titled Allegro listings ("używana tylko 1 raz, na imprezie u Karyny") become a permanent Polish-meme-format.
- - Kwejk.pl Founded. 2008. Kwejk launches as Polish 9gag. User-submitted captioned images, comics, "kacze memy". By 2013: most-trafficked Polish meme site. The Sebix / dresiarz / "ja pierdolę" reaction-image canon all originates here.
- - Polandball / Countryballs. 2009. Geopolitical-satire webcomic genre originates on Krautchan as anti-Polish in-joke (drawn ball Poland is upside-down because Poland can't into space). Polish users adopt and weaponise the format. Polandball becomes one of the most enduring global internet meme formats; spawns the entire "countryball" genre.
- - Sok z Buraka. 2013. The political satire portal launches. Cynical, profane left-leaning takes on Polish politics; the "sok z buraka" tag becomes shorthand for ironic-left meme commentary that defines mid-2010s Polish twitter discourse.
