Polandball on YouTube

YouTube is an American video-sharing social media website founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. The website was originally intended for dating, but eventually shifted to (almost) any form of content. As of now, YouTube is the second most visited website on the internet and the most visited social media and video website, having over 2.7 billion users since 2024.
It shouldn't be a surprise as by Polandball's longevity and popularity since 2009, the website also hosts a significant amount of videos of Polandball, and arguably enough has the largest Polandball community on the internet, even surpassing that of :/r/Polandball's, with numerous amounts of videos of the meme having millions of views.
==History==
Around three months after FALCO created the first batch of Polandball comics to troll Wojak, the earliest-known video of the meme was uploaded on December 31, 2009, by the user Berndlauert, where the video showcases a recreation of Polandball being placed on a firework during a snowy day. The firework then launched into the sky, before exploding in the sky. A similar video was uploaded a few hours later on January 1, 2010 by cirnoget, where cirnoget creates a paper craft figure of Polandball, before attaching it to a firework at dark, presumably during New Year, at a park.https://mattw.io/youtube-metadata/ (Copy-paste the video links and note the time it was posted, as seen on the top section of the snippet)
On 2013, there was the first wave of content involving Polandball surging on the website. One notable example included the earliest known series involving countryballs was made by Hunter's Studio, titled Polandball: The Animated Series, where Hunter's Studio posted the pilot episode based on the War of 1812. The series continued on for two seasons before ending in 2017. A remaster for both seasons were uploaded on 2017 and 2019 respectively with all episodes included on those reuploads.https://www.youtube.com/@HuntersStudio/videos
On 2015, a second surge of Polandball content emerged. Notable faces from the Polandball community that managed to get over 10,000 subscribers included Raphaël Melki,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ6R70szK7Y Kaliningrad General,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6NGNcq_swc and PWAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFtijmw7K9k joining and making countryball content beginning this year. Starting from this period, Polandball have also became popular for YouTubers interested in geography (also known as GeoTubers), especially those who make alternative history and future videos of the world. The rise of Polandball content continued during this period, but it wasn't until the end of the 2010s where larger surge of Polandball content happened.
During the early 2020s, a third surge, arguably enough, the largest surge in Polandball content emerged. The COVID-19 pandemic had caused people to not be able to go outside, locking down the entire planet in the process. This led to more people using the internet, especially YouTube, in order to communicate with others while staying in their homes. As more people began to use YouTube thanks to the lockdowns, this also led to Polandball getting more attention as more people discover new things on the internet. Around this period, YouTubers such as Drew Durnil,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zhJYu82uJc MrSpherical,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tr_5A-L-HY Ace Animations,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv65_TEB1_0 and several others, joining in the community or managing to gain in millions of views, with even the former two both having over one milllion subscribers as of 2024.
On September 17, 2023, the :/r/Polandball subreddit launched their YouTube channel. On October 1, 2023, the channel uploaded its first video announcing that they are now on YouTube. The channel is lead by one of the subreddit's moderators, DickRhino.
==Criticism==
The YouTube side of the Polandball community is, without a doubt, also met with criticism from both inside and outside the Polandball community. Several criticisms included the breaking of art rules of the meme, which included using perfect circles for the balls, incorrect interpretations of non-ball characters (such as Israelcube, Kazakhstanbrick, Nepalrawr, and Tringapore), mouths, hair, and several parts of arms and legs being included in the videos, as well as Polandball being depicted with its regular flag instead of the upside down version seen in the comics, blatant amounts of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in the community, alongside the supporting and worshipping of such regimes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and several other brutal dictators.
==Notes and references==
===Notes===
#The inputs "before:YYYY-MM-DD" and "after:YYYY-MM-DD" were used in order to find videos made during specific dates.
#It should be worth mentioning that there might be many content involving Polandball that end up becoming lost, as there are several users on YouTube who got terminated or those who private or unlisted their videos that involve countryball content.
===References===
==See also==
Category:Websites
Category:Community