Kekistan

About

Kekistan is a fictional country invented by users on 4chan’s /pol/ board as the tongue-in-cheek ethnic origin of “shitposters” known as “Kekistanis” who worship the ancient Egyptian diety Kek. In late January 2017, Kekistan began widely circulating on Twitter following its promotion by YouTuber Sargon of Akkad.

Origin

On 4chan, the name “Kekistan” has been suggested for various imaginary geographic locations many times since as early as December 2015, when a flag with the filename “kekistan.jpg” was submitted to the /int/ (international) board.^[7] On December 14th, 2016, a thread regarding buying an island in the Caribbean was submitted to /pol/, to which several users suggested the land be named “Kekistan” (shown below).^[6]

On January 30th, 2017, YouTuber Sargon_of_Akkad tweeted that “shitposters meet the British govs criteria of an ethnicity,” claiming he would register the group on the British census (shown below, left).^[9] After asking followers what the ethnicity should be named, he settled on “Kekistani,” describing the fictional group as a “disparate and dispossessed people” (shown below, right).^[10]^[11]

Spread

That day, the Republic of Kekistan Twitter^[1] feed was launched, declaring itself “the official Twitter account of the Kekistani Republic.” Within 48 hours, the feed gained over 5,000 followers. Meanwhile, the site Kekistan.com^[5] was launched, including a “Kek manifesto” (shown below).

Meanwhile, other Twitter users began tweeting the hashtag #FreeKekistan^[3] along with jokes denouncing normies and professing their pride in shitposting (shown below).

The following day, YouTuber The New Memedia uploaded the song “Shadilay” under the titled “The National Anthem of Kekistan” (shown below). Meanwhile, the /r/kekistan^[4] subreddit was launched, with the description “There is only one God (Kek) and Pepe is his prophet.” On February 1st, a page for “Kekistan” was created on Encyclopedia Dramatica.^[8]