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Polish Memes 101

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  • lrdgcklrdgck
    edited 2018-12-13 21:58:19
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    All translations mine. By three dots in brackets - [...] - I mark significant removed content. I've also provided some additional information for the benefit of non-Polish readers.

    By Alexpistoletov
    CENZOPAPA

    ----(A lazy man's definition)----

    Cenzopapa (or censopapa) is a funny modified image of the pope John Paul II. It was born on Polish chans in 2009.

    _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

    ----(An ambitious man's definition)----

    Censopapa is an image, animation, video, a song or a story (pasta), by assumption vulgar or funny, in which the pope John Paul II is insulted, ridiculed, or at best, made fun of. Censopapa has its beginnings in, used by anonyous users of image boards such as vichan or karachan, the practices of posting the characteristic "yellow face" of John Paul II in offensive contexts. It is possible that the first irreverent montages involving the Polish pope came to be at earlier dates, but they were episodical, niche, and by definition not censopapas (see: Etymology).

    At the core of censopapas lies their mocking and offensive overtone. John Paul II is presented as, among others, a paedophile, war criminal, dictator, conductor of mass murder of Poles in Volhynia, death camp overseer. He is also placed in more abstract contexts, e.g. as an animal, a vegetable, or any other item. The form of presentation is limited only by the users' imagination.

    The acronym "JP2GMD", "Jan Paweł II gwałcił małe dzieci" ("John Paul II raped/had been raping small children"), has achieved wide popularity.

    In a broader sense censopapa is a meme, a trope of the Internet community, and even a part of the identity of a growing segment of Polish society. It was and still is a motif exploited by younger Poles to vent off the disapproval or even frustration towards the monumentalisation of the Pope in public debate and space, or just for fun and common trolling.

    1 GENESIS

    > 1.1 Critique of John Paul II during his lifetime

    Some cases of questioning the Pope's authority happened over the course of his lifetime. In 2000 in the Zachęta National Gallery in Warsaw, a sculpture depicting John Paul II crushed under the weight of a meteorite was presented. It caused a huge controversy.

    In 2002 Jerzy Urban in an article "Obwoźne sado-maso" ("Itinerant BDSM") published in the magazine "Nie" called the Pope "a fading god" and "the Brezhnev of Vatican".

    In the meantime, there arose other critical voices, concerning themselves with the opposition of the Pope towards the use of condoms in Third World countries, by which he was assumed to promote the spread of HIV in Africa. The pope was also criticised for a lukewarm response to the cases of paedophilia among the Catholic clergy. The critical voices of certain groups during his lifetime caused much commotion in the conservative and religious Poland.

    > 1.2 The birth of censopapa

    Censopapa as a practice of trolling the netizens with distasteful montages was born in 2009, in the shadiest deeps of Polish internet, on Polish chans.

    > > 1.2.1 Chans and anons

    The chans are image boards devoted to varied topics, which differ from the standard forums by, among others, the possibility of anonymous posting. Chans, in particular the board /b/, gather around themselves a peculiar Internet subculture, whose members exhibit a similar nihilistic attitude and use a characteristic slang ("chanmowa", "chanspeak"). Because of that, members of these circles consider themselves social outsiders and non-conformists. /b/ boards on chans play the part of slums on the edges of Internet, where anonymous users gather to exchange opinions and have fun at the expense of others.

    It would however be an error to assume that "anons" are a coherent social group. Generalising and treating them as separate is merely a pretext for the purpose of describing their actions in this article. Anons are simply young netizens paritcipating in anonymous image boards and exercising freedom of speech in ways contrary to the social convention. Anyone can become an anon.

    Anon is not synonymous with troll, however many of them are cyber-hooligans, and sometimes also in the real world. For that section of anons the primary entertainment is the destruction of existing social norms, which is done by performing acts of trolling. This happens in various ways - from provocations such as raids (mass spamming of other sites with vulgar images and comments), insulting dead people, manipulating web-based polls, hacking other people's accounts or websites, to stalking others and tormenting them e.g. by using their personal information to order massive amounts of erotic paraphernalia or bathroom installations (usually sinks) at their home addresses.

    The anons have found in the late pope a great potential for trolling. The unquestionable authority and the aura of holiness around the Polish pope (by then still in the process of beatification and canonisation) in the first few years after his death made him a natural target for mockery, giving the anons a chance for creative venting their antisocial frustration at the expense of random netizens.

    There was no ideology behind the mockery - it was fueled merely by the desire to cause maximum shock and outrage of netizens for the smallest cost. Using Internet slang - to cause mass butthurt among normies. While anons never admitted that, the severity of their attacks on John Paul II was in fact a recognition of his unquestionable impact on the history of Poland and the world, and that he was the subject of considerable respect. Without that, he would not be attacked so much.

    The additional factor was that the police could do nothing, as tarnishing the dead pope was subject to no legal consequences. Even now, after his canonisation, it is most likely that no author of censopapas was ever convicted under the Article 196 of the Penal Code.

    > > 1.2.2 Etymology

    In the beginning, the "yellow face" of John Paul II was placed on pornographic images in such a way that the Pope played the part of censoring the genitals – hence the name. Soon however the reproductive organs came to be exposed.

    A shortened form „censo” is often used. It is however imprecise, as it can mean montages involving other people. In 2015, a new Internet phenomenon – censoduda - was born.

    2 HISTORY OF CENSOPAPA

    First censopapas, those of 2009-2010, were extremely vulgar and unrefined. Anonymous users of Polish 4chan varieties – vichan and its inheritor karachan – took to flooding the site wykop.pl and other "sites with funny images" with crude montages. The famous "yellow face" graces the shots from pornographic films. The images were often captioned with fragments of John Paul II's encyclicas and sermons, in some way correlated with the content of the picture. On Youtube, less or more (the latter much rarer) sophisticated Pope-insulting productions were published. The titles referred to political, sport, or show business events, so as to goad a netizen to start watching. One of the more ambitious was a 7-minute video published in 2012, made in the convention of a true crime documentary TV show. It suggested connections between the Pope and Ugandan criminal Joseph Kony, and the former's part in child trafficking for the already easily guessed purposes.

    The forced promotion of censopapa also took the form of raids where trolls spammed forums and blogs with indecent images and comments.

    There have been cases of placing obscene Pope-related content in public spaces, e.g. on walls of buildings.

    For the fun of it and to spread misinformation, anonymous trolls very often attributed the authorship of uncensored content to the sites such as wykop.pl, as well as kwejk.pl, komixxy.pl, joemonster.org or sadistic.pl; in their eyes they were an emanation of opportunistic, politically correct, unambitious and - in a word - pathetic humour for pedestrian, uninitiated consumers of Internet content ("normies"). Anons were also irritated by the opinion, popular on wykop.pl, that "Wykop is a sort of Polish 4chan, except in better taste and made of cleverer people". It was expressed by Michał Białek, a member of the Wykop administration and himself a target of dislike and jokes among the anonymous.

    It is worthy of pointing out that during that time (circa 2010) Wykop was not yet mainstream and could still be a worthy of attention and growing place, contrary to what it is now. Only with the passage of time it fell and turned into a seat of younger and younger trolls, racists and admirers of uncouth youtubers. In short - a garbage pile better left avoided by people of good taste.

    Participants of Polish chans concentrated their attacks on these sites, while simultaneously using their infrastructure to spread new censopapas.

    Anons-trolls also pretended to be members and sympathisers of political parties associated with Janusz Korwin-Mikke (Kongres Nowej Prawicy, KORWiN), and Nationalist circles (Ruch Narodowy) etc., and their provocations even misled the administration of the fronda.pl Christian news site.


    > 2.1 Censopapa in the media

    In the history of "censopapism" one can note several milestones and tipping points bringing out the underground phenomenon to the light of day and making it into an Internet fad.

    > > 2.1.1 Mainstream beginnings

    The trend of mocking the Pope was first noticed in mainstream media in March of 2011, when the newspaper "Rzeczpospolita" published an article "Internauci na YouTube obrażają Jana Pawła II" ("Netizens insult John Paul II on Youtube"). It obviously caused the enthusiasm of anons and gave them energy for further trolling.

    In May of 2011 the tabloid "Fakt" and echodnia.eu informed, that an outraged Internaut called the police after stumbling upon some montages involving the Pope.

    The spreading phenomenon of mocking the Polish pope could not have been unnoticed by the crew of Catholic broadcaster Radio Maryja. In September of 2011 the radio's website wrote of "filthy videos and recordings" and "gutter captions" in the context of provocatory materials about John Paul II published in the web.


    > > 2.1.2 Michał Tuziak and "You John Paul"

    In May of 2011 a scandal starring Michał Tuziak erupted. This inhabitant of the city of Radom stumbled onto several recordings of a youtuber Testoviron and became convinced that they were authored by "MłodySocjalista", another Youtube user who reposted the videos. He also encountered several comments, vulgar and very unflattering towards the Polish pope, left by trolls of nicks "TrupJP2" ("JP2sCorpse") and "Popiełusznik" (Father Popiełuszko was a priest murdered by the Communist secret police in the Eighties and is held a a national hero and an exemplar moral character).

    Outraged Tuziak published an emotional recording titled "Do Młodego Socjalisty. TrupaJP2 i innych pedałów obrażających Boga i Wiarę... (Mirror)" ("To MłodySocjalista, TrupJP2 and other faggots insulting God and Faith... (Mirror)"), where in the defense of the Catholic religion and the Polish pope, in highly vulgar terms he attacked the supposed offenders. Over 8 minutes and 48 seconds he uttered 122 k-words, 37 p-words, 23 anti-homosexual slurs, 18 ch-words, 7 accusations of passive homosexuality and a single He-man. The recording contains multiple unfortunate, unintentionally funny expressions.

    The anons' reply was not to be awaited long. In a few hours, a manipulated recording was published, in which Tuziak himself appeared to insult the Pope. The recording began with "Ty Janie Pawle..." ("You John Paul..."); this phrase soon became an inalienable part of the Pope-mockery and gave birth to a multitude of derivatives, e.g "You John Cube, right prism" – although few people were aware of the original quote.

    [...]

    3 MUSIC

    Under the banner of censopapas, along with videos and images, one can also count music. It includes the remixes of known hits as well as newly composed tunes. The lyrical topics generally include matters related to chans, memes and in-jokes understandable only to members of this community. John Paul II takes one of the leading roles in these productions.

    On Youtube, there is a number of so-called censosets, often containing multiple hours of music.

    Probably the best known "censopiece" is a tune based on the repeated phrase "John Paul II raped small children". It is unofficially known as "Barka" or "Wykop's Barka" (referring to the late pope's favourite song) and became a fountain of remixes and modifications. A certain anon performed multiple versions - hip hop, drum'n'bass, house, ambient, metal etc. Their quality implies their author is more than an amateur.

    > 3.1 Wykoprecords

    The site wykoprecords.bandcamp.com/music provides over 20 albums of electronic music relating to the chan culture and the censopapa. One can say that they not so much refer to John Paul II, as, with irony, to the phenomenon of insulting the Pope. The pieces exhibit high artistic level. The albums „Vatican 2137” and „2138” show real commercial potential, and with minor corrections would not stray in quality from the classics of electronic music.

    [...]
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    edited 2018-07-19 02:19:13
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    (Continued from above post.)

    5 CENSOPAPA IN SPEECH

    Making fun of the pope spread into spoken word. An example of that could be the expression "Co tu się odjaniepawla?" ("What the John Paul II is going on in here?" or "What is Johnpauling in here?").

    A wide popularity is also observed for expressions such as "Jeszcze jak!" ("Indeed so!"), "Jest możliwe" ("Is possible"), "Tak jak Pan Jezus powiedział" ("Like Lord Jesus said" - in Polish, the word "pan" has the dual meaning of "lord" and "mister", giving the phrase directly translatable as "Lord God" a highly informal sense), "Z warkoczykami albo bez warkoczyków... też ujdą" ("With or without braids... will do"), "Okrutnik" ("The cruel one"), "Jak mi dadzą, to jem" ("When I'm served, I eat") and many more. They come from a recording of the Pope's meeting with children during his pilgrimage to Poland in 1991, which enjoys renewed popularity since 2014.

    Many jokes involve the number 2137, which is the Pope's exact time of death (9:37 PM).

    A phrase "Rozum i godność człowieka" ("RiGCz" for short, "Reason and the Dignity of Man") is also commonly used. It comes from an emotional reaction of an outraged netizen to some censopapa he encountered. As a prime example of butthurt, it is often reposted in entirety on various occasions. The phrase "RiGCz" itself became a synonym of something positive (outstanding, sensible, creative etc.).

    [...]

    In the link above, which contains the original post in Polish, there are references listed at the end. While I omitted the references, I added some links to Wikipedia in this text.

    (Edited once since posting. Edit reason: minor corrections in the text.)
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    From a post by "NoKoments" (wykop.pl). All translations mine.
    It evolved from the fact that some 10 years ago, on 4chan, there was a "censocat" - pornographic images in which a cat's head covered the intimate parts. Naturally the meme spread onto Polish turf.
    During the summer holidays of 2009 Polish anons began to look for something that would cause strong and universal butthurt among all Poles, in the beginning the proposals included the disabled, Adam Małysz, other celebrities. Then an idea to mock Catholics arose [...]
    These in turn evolved into the pictures of John Paul II captioned with Hitler quotes, and then some mad genius came upon the idea to add the Pope to the censocat and posted several pornographic images with Wojtyła's head covering the vags and tits - hence the name "censopapa".
    The whole idea was so hardcore in the beginning, that even a segment of the chan's administration had butthurt over it. But the anons encouraged by the "positive reception" (ie. massive butthurt) of all to stumble upon the censopapa took to creating tons of various content, competing for the greatest desecration of JP2's image - by that moment also the phrase "JP2GMD" and the first videos appeared.
    The logo of Wykop, Komixxy and Demotywatory began to appear in the videos because a) someone had to be framed, b) chans traditionally hated the normie portals, which "stole" chan content and released it into mainstream.

    Of course in the end even so rude a meme as smearing the papa also reached the mainstream, as the anons got bored with it, and the rest of the audience got used to it.
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    edited 2018-07-19 14:29:26
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    As a corollary, "odjaniepawlać" (which was also seriously referred to in Catholic circles as a stark outcome of the lack of attention paid to the actual philosophical stances of John Paul II, discarded in favour of his folk image) was voted 2017's Youngsters' Word of the Year and can be found in the web-based Dictionary of the Polish Language run by the Polish Scientific Publishing House. Link here. By my translation:
    Original definition: used to refer to unexpected events

    Linguist's opinion: Doing something nonsensical, occasionally harmful to others. Sometimes used to express surprise [...]

    (Edit reason: typo.)
  • fourteenwingsfourteenwings
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    Polish anons began to look for something that would cause strong and universal butthurt among all Poles

    A noble pursuit.

    As a person who has been on the internet this long, it really shouldn't surprise me that "Trying to achieve the S-rank in Negative Attention" is the primary goal of some netizens, but it does.
    or bathroom installations

    Weirdly specific thing to order via identity theft.
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    ----(An ambitious man's definition)----
    holy crap this is friggin' ambitious. Doesn't even fit in one post! And I'm pretty sure I set the character limit at 9001 characters.
    Over 8 minutes and 48 seconds he uttered 122 k-words, 37 p-words, 23 anti-homosexual slurs, 18 ch-words, 7 accusations of passive homosexuality and a single He-man.
    Arson, murder, theft, libel, money laundering, racketeering, human trafficking, and...jaywalking?
    b) chans traditionally hated the normie portals, which "stole" chan content and released it into mainstream.
    310039.jpg
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    holy crap this is friggin' ambitious.

    And to think I cut a fair portion of the content! However, these were mostly descriptions of specific cases, which is less important in relation to the whole.
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    fourteenwings wrote: »
    or bathroom installations

    Weirdly specific thing to order via identity theft.
    Unfortunately, @lrdgck specified sinks, or else I could make a squatting joke.
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Quoting Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonka):
    On 16 June 1999 pope John Paul II mentioned that after he had completed his matura exam, he had kremówkas with his colleagues in his home town of Wadowice. They wagered who could eat more. The future Pope ate eighteen kremówkas but did not win the bet.[6]

    And there was a cake shop. After the matura we went for kremówkas. That we survived that all, those kremówkas after the matura....
    — Pope John Paul II[8]

    This was publicized by media, and "papal" kremówkas from Wadowice became popular in Poland.[5][7][6]
    The confectionery shop where the Pope ate kremówkas was owned by Jewish cake maker Karol Hagenhuber, who came to Poland from Vienna.[6] It was located in Wadowice Town Square.[6] Some speculated that the original papal kremówkas contained alcohol, but this was denied by Hagenhuber's son.[6] According to him his father's cakes were regular, non-alcoholic kremówkas, although made with all natural ingredients, using a traditional recipe.[6] Either way this led to renewed, and even international fame for the cake, rebranded as "papal".[5][7][6]

    In 2007, to celebrate Pope John Paul's II 87th birthday, a giant kremówka was baked in Rzeszów.[9]

    Kremówkas remembered by Pope John Paul II were filled with vanilla milk pudding (custard) cream.[10]

    So, I'll try to elaborate a bit on the memetic impact of that confession.

    Since then, the kremówka became a symbol of the pope's human side. Pope John Paul II was, I believe I can safely say so, a common man's pope - he refused to be restrained by all the pomp that had grown around his office over the years, always ready to talk to children or other random people or to crack jokes and divulge personal anecdotes. This was one of those anecdotes. Like I said, it became a shorthand for his down-to-earth image for good and bad; in this context, the bad is more important. You see, there are many things to say about the man. You can see him as a moral authority, a brilliant theologian, a cunning politician, a man of faith whose trusting nature prevented him from recognizing the depravity of certain clergymen, so on. But that would require some deliberation, while the easy way out is to treat him as a celebrity, a showman you love to see but barely pay any attention to his message (how many of Bono's fans send money to relief funds?).

    So, the image of "kremówkarz" (loosely translated: "the caker" - I'd say "the creampier" if not for the association of the words "cream pie" with porn) was born - on one hand among his critics who believe that, either, he focused on the entirely wrong part of being a pope, or that he used his popular image to deflect criticism of his policies; on the other, by those who would rather see him treated seriously.

    So, let's generalize. I think it can be safely said that if not for the problem described above, "cenzopapa" would not go mainstream. The superficiality, intellectual emptiness of the cult of John Paul II reduced to the level of kremówkas, street names (some cities have one for John Paul II and one for Karol Wojtyła) and brain-numbingly ugly monuments of him placed in every possible public space (foremostly but not exclusively in front of parish churches) meant that instead of being a shocker as intended, parts of the cenzopapa fad were accepted by youth mainstream.

    (Among my sources was an article by Maciej Zięba, a Dominican friar: http://www.rp.pl/Opinie/180519394-O-Maciej-Zieba-Dlaczego-sie-odjaniepawla.html)
  • fourteenwingsfourteenwings
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    I thought "the creampier" sounded super adorable before I finished reading that sentence.
    how many of Bono's fans send money to relief funds?
    I genuinely thought the whole thing about Bono was the sunglasses/accent and I only just found out via Google about the charity work.
    or that he used his popular image to deflect criticism of his policies
    Does this make Francis "John Paul II.0?" I feel like I used to hear about the pope more when it was John Paul II, but then again I mostly make an actual thing of not paying attention to pop culture outside the realm of stuff posted on Just Jared or Tigerbeat and I have heard about his visits to places on the news at least once every quarter.
    a man of faith whose trusting nature prevented him from recognizing the depravity of certain clergymen
    I didn't know this was a defense that was a thing.
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Does this make Francis "John Paul II.0?"

    Sort of, I guess. He has a number of critics within the Catholic Church that he actually has no policy (ie. one they want him to have) and he just makes up for it with the act. I don't know if those critical of the Church in general have spoken out against Francis in any notable way, but if they had, I dare say they would use the argument you quote.
    I didn't know this was a defense that was a thing.

    Yeah, it's been making circles. You know, the problem is that the pope either knew, or he didn't know. Would be hard to defend him if he did know about the pastimes of folks like Marciel Delgado, and there is no proof he did, so if you want to defend him from accusations you say he didn't know. This, in turn, opens a whole new can of worms, because you'd expect him to actually know what's going on in the organisation he runs. So if you don't want to assume his complicity, but you also don't want to call him a poor administrator, you're left with the notion that he was actually too kind to even consider someone being that crooked. Which is eerily similar to the old Russian adage of "the Tsar is good, it's his advisors who're evil!".
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Since it's been tangentially mentioned in the entry on cenzopapa, I'd like to write a bit on cenzoduda. My primary source for this is the recording "Historia Memów - Andrzej Duda" by youtuber BadzmyPowazni, but this time it's not going to be a direct translation, so no quote blocks.

    CENZODUDA

    The presidential elections of 2015 (wiki here) saw the victory of Andrzej Duda, a candidate of PiS. (I refer you to my old post for some background.) Personally a lawyer, he was pretty much nobody who showed up from time to time in the background of first line politicians before he was appointed as the PiS candidate.

    Now, you may ask, so what, so here's the story. Duda, unlike almost all of his opponents, is a relatively young guy who can speak with the Internet population on their own terms, post a Lennyface, take part in a pre-election AMA on wykop.pl (which, as I explained in the previous entry, can be considered the Polish equivalent of Reddit) and so on. Also, he has a highly memetic face and a pretty daughter. This means that memes about him differ from the typical political memes in that they generally aren't overtly aimed against him or his policies.

    So, memes involving him started circulating while he was still a candidate. I have no hard intel on this, but it's pretty obvious the name "cenzoduda" was coined in reference to "cenzopapa", which by then no longer had anything to do with censoring anything and everything with making silly pictures out of a photograph of someone meant to be respected.

    First memes likely were a parody of pro-PiS graphics posted on Facebook by normies who couldn't into internet (Americans might think of naive sorts of pro-Republican content) and usually took the form of a picture of Duda with a made-up or falsely attributed quote related to something unwholesome, like war crimes. One of the more colourful ones bore the quote "Hey, here's another one!" - which, with the attribution to 1943 in Volhynia, implicates Duda as a war criminal involved in ethnic cleansing of Poles (wiki). Others "quoted" him as calling for release of Barabbas, telling snipers in the siege of Sarajevo to shoot at kids too, and so on. Then, once he became president, lots of memes appeared that made use of photos of him and his faces at various public functions.

    Cenzodudas quickly developed into several different strains. One presents him as the miscreant kid at school, the class clown who pulls pranks at teachers' expense. In these memes Duda's wife Agata is usually presented as his mother, while the previous PiS prime minister Beata Szydło, a woman in her fifties, as a stereotypical stern teacher or school headmaster. Another one, that built from the fake posters I mentioned above, made him into a (sometimes former) war criminal, and a bloody tyrant who keeps harems, sends internet jokesters into gulags or sics death squads on them, and executes people by opening umbrellas inserted into their anuses. The motif of Sarajevo is frequent in this type; one meme was a photo of his daughter Kinga and her boyfriend, then with a broken leg, captioned with words "I told you not to bring up Sarajevo!".

    Talking about Kinga. A number of memes present Duda as your typical dad joke-slinging dad fond of pranking his daughter, but she deserves a separate mention. Born in 1995, she is similar in age to a typical wykop user. Add to that that a) wykop draws most of its userbase from the same segment of population as Reddit, 4chan, /r9k/, and other cesspools of internet; and b) Kinga is quite pretty, and you can see where this is going. But to be honest to wykop dudes, unlike what you might've expected, they treat her rather respectfully. She remains the mythical "good girl" that they would love to but can never hope to have, and so they adore her from distance.

    On her part, Agata Duda is much less memetic. The most popular meme involving her uses a photo of her greeting some Church officials, on which she was caught taking a step and bowing her head at the same time. This photo was later sold by the presidential pair on an auction for a charity, making quite a sum.

    Like I said, memes overtly hostile to him are rare. That's not to say he doesn't receive his share of criticism, but even three years and many politically dubious actions in, it's a rare occurence for it to go memetic. The best-known memes that approach hostility towards him are, as far as I can say, a photo of him from a TV newscast with a fake caption "Andrzej Duda shits in front of French Embassy", and a recording of him laying flowers at a monument played backwards and posted on youtube under a title "Pijany Prezydent Andrzej Duda kradnie kwiaty spod pomnika Romana Dmowskiego! SZOK! xD" ("Drunk President Andrzej Duda steals flowers from the monument of Roman Dmowski! SHOCKING! xD"). The latter's poster - who didn't even make it in the first place - faced criminal charges for that. Again, Duda maintained his internet credentials by publicly condemning this action of the law enforcement.
  • fourteenwingsfourteenwings
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    quickly developed into several different strains.

    That school one is way specific.

    Oh my gosh they made a president's daughter into a Japanese net idol.
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    lrdgck wrote: »
    The presidential elections of 2015 (wiki here) saw the victory of Andrzej Duda, a candidate of PiS. (I refer you to my old post for some background.) Personally a lawyer, he was pretty much nobody who showed up from time to time in the background of first line politicians before he was appointed as the PiS candidate.
    So basically he was...a Some Duda.
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    That school one is way specific.

    I believe it came to be thanks to the fact that most of the internet community either still has fresh memories of their school time, or by now gets into the nostalgic memories phase. Can't say when the first Duda-as-class-clown meme was created, though.
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    :-D jon pal dosbox bobe
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    So, like I promised, I'm giving you the third entry. My primary sources for today are mostly Wikipedia and some Polish journalism, I'll sprinkle the links at the end. Mind you, I'm not really willing, at least at the moment, to conduct a vigilante investigation of my own, so it's fortunate I found that article. What I will tell you is intended to convey not every detail, but the general idea, the story behind the meme. But, anyways. Ladies and gentlemen, before you...

    ZBIGNIEW STONOGA & STONOGAWAVE

    This is the story of a man whose entire life led him to become a meme.

    0004F1Q9HO13AAIQ-C116-F4.jpg

    --the beginning--

    Zbigniew Stonoga is a Polish enterpreneur, vlogger, freelancer journalist, a social and political activist, and a (mostly failed) politician. Also, his last name means "centipede". Coming from a poor family from some place of no importance whatsoever, at the end of the communist system he started a small business. As he claims, he got a taste for country-level politics thanks to the Pope's official visit to Poland in 1999. In early 2000s however, he got entangled in several shady dealings involving state agencies (a sadly all-too-common occurence) that were the beginning of his problems with the law - in more than one way. Having an activist streak, he wastes no time in publicising his problems, writing letters to important people, calling upon the Attorney General, and so on and so forth. When the polite way didn't work, he didn't hesitate to use strong language; this would become the basis of his memetic popularity. He claims to have ended up with more than 100 acquittals (I believe that by today it's gonna be 116) and a non-negligible number of (not acquitted) cases of contempt of the court and public officials.

    --the dark knight--

    In 2012, his new business venture failed, for which he blamed the tax office's unwillingness to give him a tax refund. (Mind you, this sounds like it was his own damn fault, but Polish bureaucracy all-too-often behaves like it was its sacred duty to fuck up everyone who's doing too well, so I'm at least willing to consider his view on the matter.) His reaction to that was to rent billboards with the text "we were fucked by the Warszawa-Targówek tax office". This catapulted him into the public eye - and along with another case, led him to the use of media against his enemies.

    --the dark knight rises--

    This was also the time when he spewed a string of profanities onto a cop who parked on his lawn. The recording of the whole event - "a little culture you fucking bastard, get the fuck outta the gate!" - was published on Youtube, instantly becoming viral among the younger netizens, ACAB-scribbling underage wangstas, hooligans, chavs etc. etc. This was the beginning of his memetic popularity. But his big day was yet to come.

    --Stonoga returns--

    In February 2015, he set up "Gazeta Stonoga" ("Stonoga Gazette"), apparently as both a means to publish his vigilante findings (in addition to political activism, he also hunts for paedophiles) and to provide him with legitimacy of a registered journalist. He made a big fuss this way, when he published classified data on one of that time's political scandals (the so-called "bugging scandal" in which the police and Poland's internal security agency were accused of illegal phone tapping). As you can imagine, this didn't exactly endear the state bureaucracy to him either. An amusing outcome was that by a not much later point, pretty much nobody knew which side he is on. Everyone believed he's a man of the other faction, with the more paranoid actually believing he is a front for some (internal or external) black ops operation intended to discredit them and spread overall confusion.

    --Stonoga forever--

    But now, 2015 was the year of presidential and parliamentary elections. A short time before that, he joined and left the primary (at the time) Polish right-libertarian party. While his political loyalties clearly lie with that crowd (not surprisingly, given his encounters with the state), he decided to start his own and run in the elections. His meager result led him to share some thoughts on Youtube. These thoughts, his Magnum Opus, came to be known as "the Great Improvisation". Lamenting the limited scope of English profanities, I'm providing the translation:
    Good evening. Something's... something's wrong and I couldn't be heard, so I'll repeat one more time.

    The results of the Stonoga Committee are some sort of failage, I think that this Polish, fucking Polish society, this fucking band of imbeciles who voted for these fucks maggots from PiS [the winners of the elections], this is some fucking embarrassment. If it means so much to you... if it means so much to you, folks, such social engagement, as mine, where I risked my family, my life, my business, everything else, and for you it meant only those fucking 70 or 80 thousand votes, then you ought to be fucked, fuck, you ought to be fucked as much as only PiS can fuck you. Platforma [Obywatelska, PO, the party previously at the helm] didn't ever fuck you as PiS fucking will. So that your nuts will fucking itch from the pain.

    This is a fucking outrage. This is an outrage, that in this anti-human country, in this country where the media fucking weren't able to say that Zbigniew Stonoga was dishonored, that this man has 118 acquittals, that the whores in the courts of law, I repeat, whores in the courts of law, whores in the courts of law had this man unduly accused and acquitted years later, that this is not something worthy to elevate this man into the Parliament.

    PiS will fuck you in the ass, will PiS fuck you fucking such as Platforma never fucked. This bitch, this little maggot, fucking Kaczyński [Jarosław, leader of PiS] piece of shit, will destroy you. Sumlińskie, Kanie, Rachonie, Telewizje Republiki [all PiS-aligned journalists and media - I believe you Americans may think of Fox News] will be fucking taking the joy from your lives you fucking idiots. National, Polish idiots. All of this my cunt, I can fucking afford everything. I'm gonna live fucking like this! I'm fucking outta here right today, a ticket out of Poland already bought and I'm gonna fucking laugh at you Polish suckers, that you so stupid are, such fucking morons, who this PiS whorehouse elected. Not Korwin [Janusz Korwin-Mikke, Poland's most prominent right-libertarian-equivalent], not Stonoga, but for some fucking Petru [Ryszard, a liberal new face in Polish politics at the time], some buggered fucking Jews, fucked-up Kukizes [Paweł Kukiz, a punk rocker-turned-populist politician] voted.

    This is exactly this whore Poland. Because of this whore Poland, because of you fucking dicks nothing will change in this land, because you're worth nothing and you are to be fucked, buggered [he actually used two words expressing pretty much the same concept] and to be made cash from, because you are a bunch of national bitches, losers. Do you get it? And to you all, my dear, who have voted for me, who have supported me, thank you. Because it's a handful of Poles, a handful of Poles, today it's 70 thousand people, maybe 80 thousand.

    (Switch off that phone, or I'll switch it off for good. [Spoken to someone offscreen])

    Yes, yes, only this in this whore Poland applies. To say in your face at last, you stupid dicks, that you are primitives, that fucking your fucking credit cards are your majesty, your dignity. Job at a fucking corp and a debit card, this fucking is you Poles, fuck you all. It wasn't fucking worth it, wasn't worth it doing anything... that would... ah, waste of fucking words, waste of my yapper really. May you... Listen. Those of you, who have you fucking bitches voted for PiS, pox on you, you're worth shit, anti-Poles you are. Good night.

    (What, you faggot? What did you want to say? [to that same offscreen person])

    Yeah. Well, so long, I'm fucking leaving. Fuck, pity the nine criminal cases, pity revealing the bugging scandal. Stupid Poland, stupid Polacks, you only to be led to Auschwitz, switch the ovens on. Pity fucking anything for you, you stupid dicks you.

    Yeah.

    As a corollary, in 2017 he was arrested for some things he did circa 2009-2011. Last time I have heard of him striking the media was a recording of him was published. In it, he appears in prison window, cursing Kaczyński in his typical language.

    --Stonoga & Stonogavawe--



    Now, this could be the end of the story, especially with the corollary. But as you can see, it is not so. You see, at some point (I'm not sure but it might've been around 2016), somebody spliced the voice of Stonoga taken from his many Youtube outbursts with a song. This was soon repeated by other internet pranksters. And so, a new genre was born, one that in the fashion of other musical internet phenomena came to be known as Stonogacore or, yes, Stonogawave. The music for these comes from various sources, but reflecting the nostalgic currents in modern internet culture, some of the most prominent examples derive from 80's and 90's pop.









    --sources--

    https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Stonoga
    http://wiadomosci.dziennik.pl/wydarzenia/artykuly/475076,zbigniew-stonoga-kontra-sokolowski-i-sld-wojny-zbigniewa-stonogi.html
    https://www.wykop.pl/wpis/15883187/wrzuc-ktos-tekst-stonogi-ʖ-ten-z-halo-cos-mnie-ro/
    https://pl.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Zbigniew_Stonoga&oldid=474198
    "Zbigniew Stonoga vs Policjant Rozmowa z Policjantem Wypierdalaj Chamie ZA BRAMĘ!!",
    "Zbigniew Stonoga wyzywa polskich wyborców 10/2015", (link broken, reposted as "Wielka improwizacja Zbigniewa Stonogi", )
    https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wielka_improwizacja
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_in_film
    http://www.porcys.com/article/antologia-polskiego-stonogawaveu-20-najlepszych-remixow-zbigniewa-stonogi/
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    How To: Achieve Immortality By Being Persistently Idiotic Enough To Be Remixed Into Music Videos
  • StormtroperStormtroper
    As a corollary, in 2017 he was arrested for some things he did circa 2009-2011.

    Should've went through with his statements about leaving the country.
  • fourteenwingsfourteenwings
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    His reaction to that was to rent billboards

    Maybe this sort of reaction was why his business ventures kept bleeding money.
    How To: Achieve Immortality By Being Persistently Idiotic Enough To Be Remixed Into Music Videos

    This only works if you're lucky enough to re-emerge in the futuristic post-internet zeitgeist.
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Should've went through with his statements about leaving the country.

    Media say he did, but Monte Carlo is close enough for EU-wide arrest warrants. Too bad. He could still be posting from a no-extradition country.
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Apparently, by now, "odjaniepawlać" can be encountered in junior high school-level textbooks for Polish language lessons. "Comment and evaluate these phrases in respect to the propriety and context of the scene shown below." Effing normies or not, I feel like I should mention it here.
  • fourteenwingsfourteenwings
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    Everybody's gotta be up with the kids.
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    edited 2018-09-07 19:15:02
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    lrdgck wrote: »
    Apparently, by now, "odjaniepawlać" can be encountered in junior high school-level textbooks for Polish language lessons. "Comment and evaluate these phrases in respect to the propriety and context of the scene shown below." Effing normies or not, I feel like I should mention it here.
    does that word mean that phrase?
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    It looks like this:

    image.jpg
    On the right picture:

    "Yo, what the John Paul is going in here?"
    "What an epic party!"

    Apparently the chapter is called "Values and Choices".
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    I think you might find it interesting that Duda had just a few days ago reposted a cenzoduda meme. Not a particularly good one, but still. Netizens find it amusing, but more serious-minded commenters have rather mixed feelings.
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    lrdgck wrote: »
    I think you might find it interesting that Duda had just a few days ago reposted a cenzoduda meme. Not a particularly good one, but still. Netizens find it amusing, but more serious-minded commenters have rather mixed feelings.
    ...of the "our meme is becoming mainstream and thus jumping the shark" sort of sentiment?
  • lrdgcklrdgck
    edited 2018-10-03 15:15:01
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Naaah. I mean more like "the President should be more serious". When it comes to net cred, Dudie actually comes off as quite genuine. At least, it's generally easy to spot someone who tries too hard, especially when it comes to memes, and I haven't found any complaints.

    edit: paradoxically, I've seen a comment along the lines of "trying too hard" - but from one of those serious journalists.
  • fourteenwingsfourteenwings
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    "the President should be more serious"

    I feel like right now all the non-Donald Trump presidents have a looooot of room to act ridiculous (Prime Minister but same difference).
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    edited 2018-11-09 09:53:16
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Not a Polish meme but a meme about Poland.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/biomememes/comments/9tm72s/weźże_come_to_cracow/
    lgcvbo10dyv11.png?width=1024&auto=webp&s=8db49c99a5ece49e40a743c8cdeccd1053c209e6
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