Wojak

Wojak
Trollface variant
Origin	Vichan
Creator	The Polish
Based on	Trollface
Gender	Male

Wojak (pronounced "vo-jack", not "woah-jack") is a meme character of a drawing of a bald men with a melancholic expression, whose main purpose is serving as a generic stand-in for specific kinds of people in various image macros. Over the year, Wojak became one most recognizable and influential characters in the history of internet memes, alongside the likes of Pepe the Frog, Trollface and its descendant Soyjak.

History

Wojak is speculated to be derived or at least partially inspired by Trollface, originating from the Polish imageboard Vichan, but gaining prominence after being reposted on the german imageboard Krautchan. The character's nonspecific expression, much like Pepe's, made it useful as a generic reaction image or thread starter, often used as a vessel for express simple emotions, or alternatively as a representation of the average introvert as "the feels guy". Wojak's easily modifiable appearance made it extremely versatile to create edits of him, turning the depiction of a common man into a canvas for the creating drawings of any kind of person, animal or even object, as long they fill the standards to be considered a Wojak. The avalanche of variants created of it receive the categorization of WA (Wojak adjacent). Although the definition of a Wojak can be considered vague and up to interpretation, it's a consensus that for a Wojak variant to be uncontroversially identified as such, it must fulfill at least some of the following requirements:

If it's a direct edit of the classic Wojak, if it contains some features taken and edited directly from it (eyes, nose, etc.), if it's drawn on the same or a very similar artstyle as the original (brush size, simple shapes, etc.) and if it's created for the explicit purpose of being used as a Wojak. With this definition in mind, it's debatable whether all Soyjaks can be considered Wojak variants or just some of them.

Soyjaks

Soyjak is arguably the Wojak's most widely shared variant, combining the apperances of the original Wojak and the Soyboy stereotype, it has the intention of creating a figure that represents weakness and infantilization. Created by a Swedish artist, Soyjak spread like wildfire on 4chan and other sites, becoming a sub-category with as many edits as Wojaks themselves. Soyjaks are largely at fault for the disdain some 4chan users have for Wojaks, specially from the (at the time) flourishing subculture. The /qa/ had largely abandoned Wojaks in favor of Soyjaks, as the latter had a certain memetic potential, cultural s and ideological baggage that contained the opportunity for developing a more niche and unique shitposting style that regular Wojaks simply couldn't replicate due to their focus on broad appeal. Specially with the development of the Sharty, Wojaks had to be concisely segregated from soy culture with rare exceptions. This was done by the development of the IAS vs. NAS classification, which excludes the vast majority of Wojaks.