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The style soon grew in popularity on the internet as a whole as a meme, having dedicated communities on platforms such as Reddit and Facebook.
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After this, creating countryballs cartoons became popular among other users on the board, particularly Russians. The beginning of the countryballs format proper is credited to Falco, a British user on the German imageboard who used Microsoft Paint to create a meme of Wojak – a Polish Internet troll on the same board who contributed in broken English. The circular canvas constrained the flag in such a way that it became a literal 'Poland ball.' Countryballs has its roots on, a website that allowed Internet users to draw whatever they want on a circular canvas called a 'drawball.' At one point in August 2008, thousands of Polish netizens managed to take over the entire drawball with an illustration of the Polish flag.
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