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". The video was subsequently removed. 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]

Destiny 2 Armor

On September 12th, 2017, the official Bungie Twitter feed announced they would be removing a piece of gauntlet armor in the game Destiny 2 for sharing "elements with a hate symbol."^[14]

That day, Redditor TheLittleMoa submitted a post about the tweet to /r/DestinyTheGame,^[15] where Redditor xxbiohazrdxx speculated that the Road Complex AA1 legendary gauntlets were removed for containing imagery resembling the Kekistani flag (shown below).

In the comments section of the post, many Redditors mocked Bungie for thinking the flag was a symbol of hate. That day, Polygon^[13] and Kotaku^[12] published articles calling the Kekistan flag an "alt-right" and "white nationalist" symbol.

Gregory Ramos Facebook Page

On November 16th, 2018, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that 15-year-old high school student Gregory Ramos had been charged with first-degree premeditated murder for allegedly strangling his mother after getting into an argument over a poor grade at school. Two other teenagers appeared in court in connection to the murder, who were accused of staging a burglary to cover up the murder.

On November 16th, BuzzFeed News reporter Joe Bernstein tweeted^[17] a screenshot of Ramos' Facebook page, highlighting the Kekistani flag displayed as his cover image (shown below). That day, the news site Raw Story^[16] published an article about Ramos, which included an embed of Bernstein's tweet.

Search Interest

External References