Demise of Polish Social Media

This week’s Culture.pl newsletter offers retrospectives on its 25-year history of reporting on cultural developments in Poland. Here are some excerpts from a 2025 retrospective by Patryk Zakrzewski, translated in 2026 by Agnieszka Mistur, offering A journey to the graveyard of Polish social media – before Meta products took over the world. Before the word ‘selfie’ became established in the Polish language, the Fotka.pl service was launched (the portal was inaugurated on Valentine’s Day – 14 February 2001). According to the INNPoland portal, the beginnings of the website were entirely analogue – its creator, Rafał Agnieszczak, had to register the domain by sending an appropriate application to the Research and Academic Computer Network by regular mail and paying a 200zł fee. The inspiration was an American website, Am I Hot or Not? We can learn about the beginnings of Fotka from Bartek Świderski’s review of the website, ‘Żylety i pasztety (Bombs and Hags; the website sexy.onet.pl was…