History YMMV / Polandball

* BrokenBase: There are many disagreements within the fandom itself as to how to portray the countryballs, the biggest divide being the rift between Facebook and Reddit. The latter generally produces high-quality comics but has very strict rules and moderation, which many people feel infringes on the creative quality and freedom of the content creators. The former does not follow such rules and admins of respective countryball pages have their own guidelines for content, and therefore the quality of content may vary (except when Israel is involved). Facebook users generally see Reddit users as snobbish due to insisting on strict accordance to their rules outside of Reddit, and Reddit users generally look down on Facebook users for poor and non-humorous content.
** There has been quite a few [[FlameWar flame wars]] even within the Facebook community itself. There have been cases of people [[StartMyOwn starting their own pages]] due to having vastly different views and opinions from the admins. There also have been cases of people using ''Polandball'' as a platform to air their political views, incidents where certain pages have been doxxed by ultra-nationalists, and frequent purges by the Facebook authorities themselves for [[NoSwastikas any content that seemed slightly offensive, especially anti-Semitic]] (earning it the name "Faceblock")
*** The fact that admins of Facebook Polandball seems to be divided between National Communists and Traditionalists with the few moderates getting the brunt from both sides doesn't help tone down the flame wars either.
*** Clashing between countries that are [[UsefulNotes/MisplacedNationalism real life enemies]] is pretty common on Facebook, to the point where their communities will mass report each other getting the pages taken down, or "Zucced" (slang term named for Mark Zuckerberg).

** The Scandinavian countries are another area that is popular, along with central America.

* FriendlyFandoms: There's a lot of overlap between Polandball fans and Webcomic/ScandinaviaAndTheWorld viewers. In fact, several of SATW's formats have been done in Polandball format, and there's a healthy exchange of memes.

* UnconventionalLearningExperience: Despite how silly some of the comics are, you can actually learn a bit about world history and politics from reading them.
** The Polandball wiki has a much more streamlined (and more to the point) list of countries international relations than, say wikipedia.
* ValuesDissonance: The users and comics on Facebook Polandball are highly prone to unironic ultra nationalism, while Reddit Polandball users tend to mock and parody such tendencies. PoesLaw indeed.

** Mauritania, mostly due to his nearly-memetic [[PerpetualSmiler perpetual, jubilant smile]]. Like Suriname, he also gets [[https://imgur.com/a/7QABB his own comic series]].

* FanNickname: Singapore is sometimes referred to as [[IncrediblyLamePun Tringapore]].
** Kazakhstan is occasionally referred to as [[IncrediblyLamePun Kazakhbrick]].

* GeniusBonus: If you suck at remembering flags you'll have trouble finding the comics funny. Consider then that many also include references to history, geography, politics, languages, dialects, slang, religions, movies, literature...

* FandomRivalry: With ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'', both of which have a somewhat similar premise but are derided by many ''Polandball'' fans for [[LighterAndSofter sugarcoating]] the countries and certain aspects of history (and the less said of the two series' boatloads of HoYay, the better). Fans of APH in turn call ''Polandball'' fans unimaginative and accuse them of having unsavory politics. The rivalry is toned down.
** Polandball fans also have a rivalry against the Countryhumans fandom, which was derived from the Polandball fandom.

* FandomRivalry: With ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' and ''Webcomic/ScandinaviaAndTheWorld'', both of which have a somewhat similar premise but are derided by many ''Polandball'' fans for [[LighterAndSofter sugarcoating]] the countries and certain aspects of history (and the less said of the two series' boatloads of HoYay, the better). Fans of APH and [=SatW=] in turn call ''Polandball'' fans unimaginative and accuse them of having unsavory politics.

* FanPreferredCouple:
** Finland and Estonia.
** Poland and Lithuania to some extent.
* FriendlyFandoms: There's a lot of overlap between Polandball fans and Creator/ParadoxInteractive players. In fact, several Paradox [[AfterActionReport After Action Reports]] have been done in Polandball format, and there's a healthy exchange of memes. This also extends to the more prominent mods of Paradox games, such as ''Videogame/KaiserreichLegacyOfTheWeltkrieg'' and especially ''Videogame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope''.

* PoesLaw: Is very susceptible to this. The line between tongue-in-cheek parody, CulturalPosturing and flat-out racism is rather blurry.
** Somewhat averted on Facebook pages where admins of pages will often be explicit about what they believe and like, so there's a good chance that the comics they post may be what they actually think if it's in line to their previous statements.
* SelfFanservice: Countryhumans, a branch of Polandball which gives the balls a human body (or even [[{{HumanityEnsues}} humanize]] them) and makes them more susceptible to fanservice thus.
* SpotlightStealingSquad: Comics involving the Anglosphere and European countries tend to be more popular than those which feature African, Asian or South American countries.
** [[DefiedTrope Defied]] by r/polandball's "[[DayInTheLimelight Lesser Known September]]", when using the more featured countries is banned.

* AscendedMeme: the term "clay" for land, especially in relation to landgrabs, has spread into slang well outside of Polandball.

* AcceptableTargets: Every country, really. Often [[SelfDeprecation by the people who come from the country that's being made fun of]].
** Poland is always portrayed as the ButtMonkey of everything, and cannot into space.
** '''Islam''', or in Polanball lexicon, ''Kebab''. Due to the faith's negative reputation caused by extremists, and further amplified by the [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/serbia-strong-remove-kebab Remove Kebab]] meme, and of Europe's (especially Serbia's) historical conflict with the religion up to this day (due to the immigration crisis), Islam gets the worst of the Polandball community's parodying. Whenever a Muslim country is featured there will inevitably be countryballs and commenters calling them Kebab and mocking them with all forms of stereotypes such as them as terrorist Jihadists (or wearing burkas if female)
*** Speaking of religion, the Vaticanball is portrayed consistently as a child molester and a closeted self hating gay that feeds Poland bad advice.
** Any portrayal of Japan will inevitably be followed by comments attacking {{Otaku}}.
** Gypsies/Roma, to the point where [[Website/{{Reddit}} r/polandball]] seriously considered banning gypsy comics.
** Russia. You'll be hard pressed to find any comics where he isn't a violent sociopath... unless they are themselves made in Russia, of course.
** Facebook banned the Polandball page numerous times for offensive content about Israel but only led to its portrayal as one of Poland's arch-enemies, Faceblock.