Content Warning: The following entry contains examples of racial stereotypes, including imagery.

About

Ukrainian Flag Pig, also known as Pigposting, refers to video memes based on 2D and 3D images of a bouncing pig painted blue and yellow after the flag of Ukraine. Originating from a long-running series of nationalistic Russian imageboard memes that offensively compare Ukrainians to pigs, in 2022, some videos based on the image were used to express solidarity with Ukraine, with the misuse of the meme and the current change of its meaning in part stemming from trolling tactics.

Origin

Although the Ukrainian Flag Pig has been predominantly used in instances of showing solidarity with Ukraine, primarily by Western users, this meme stems from a larger archetype of offensive memes that negatively compare Ukrainians to pigs. The memes have been primarily used on Russian-speaking imageboards, primarily 2ch (Двач) since at least the early 2010s and, more actively, following the 2014 Ukrainian conflict and subsequent Russian occupation of Crimea that year. The memes themselves are a development of Soviet and Russian jokes about Ukrainians^[7] in which they are described as having a strong affinity for Ukrainian national dish salo (cured slabs of pig's fatback), revering it akin to a treasure.

Examples of memes negatively depicting Ukrainians as pigs can be discovered as early as January 2010, when Polandball was the era-appropriate way to discuss geopolitics (shown below).

Spread

The use of pig memes saw a gradual increase on the Russian imageboard 2ch in the years following the 2014 Ukrainian conflict in Crimea, becoming a major trend in the 2020-2021 period. Such memes could often be found in online arguments between Russian and Ukrainian users on 2ch's /po/ (politics) board, with such discussions known as "khokhlosraches" ("хохлосрачи"), with "khokhol" being a Russian derogatory term for a Ukrainian.

Among a variety of pig memes, reaction images were used to disparage an opponent's opinion via an ad hominem attack (not unlike Soyjak memes). The trend, which originated on 2ch in approximately late summer 2020, saw the use of pig reaction images in order to disparage users arguing in favor of any country rather than just Ukraine, with reaction images (known as "боевые свиньи" / "weaponized pigs") normally combining a pig, a flag of a certain country (or any other background identifying a certain group or community) and a speech bubble. For example, on November 15th, 2020, a thread for the purpose of sharing such reaction images was created on 2ch's /b/ board, gathering 59 replies. On May 28th, 2021, an anonymous user launched a thread in which they shared three sticker packs.

Another subgenre of "weaponized pigs" is so-called "warning" reaction images in which users are "warned" about a person from a certain country being present in the thread. In these memes, the users are referred to as "X-swine" and "X-schwein," with "schwein" being German for a pig (for example, "khokhloschwein," "shlomoschwein," "anarchoswine," etc.). The earliest image within the trend, created in late summer 2020,^[1] is also the likely originator of the Ukrainian Flag Pig image (shown below, left).

The exact first instance of the use of the 3D model of Ukrainian Flag Pig is unconfirmed. On June 2nd, 2021, the first recorded version of the Ukrainian Flag Pig, a 3D pig model painted the colors of the Ukrainian flag, was reuploaded to YouTube^[2] by the channel Spiffy, which had Thomas the Tank Engine theme music in the back, but remixed (shown below).

This alert style message was used for the last time when it was uploaded as a Drip Car edit on June 9th, 2021, by the YouTube channel Rukas^[3] (shown below).

On November 17th, 2021, the TikTok^[4] account buk05xd uploaded a video of the Ukrainian Pig bouncing around to music, which quickly became the dominant format for posting the meme (shown below).

Use In 2022

At the onset of the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine, the dancing pig video began seeing use in posts expressing solidarity with Ukraine. For example, on February 24th, 2022, YouTuber SBH_TX posted a Wojak Trying To Sleep meme featuring the pig keeping a Russian soldier awake, gaining over 100,000 views in one month (shown below, left). On March 7th, YouTuber Micah posted a video showing pigs dancing in Ukraine in the face of Russian soldiers, gaining over 90,000 views (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References