The graffiti then spread beyond the locality of Saska Kępa, emerging as a meme found on walls throughout Poland.

By 1993 the graffiti had become so recognisable that Józef Tkaczuk was used as a satirical candidate by electors in that year's elections.

Józef Tkaczuk graffiti has been reported in many locations outside of Poland including the Alps, Cape Town, Egypt, New York City, and Paris.

[2] The graffiti has been labelled a pop-culture icon in the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper,[3] whilst the poet Juliusz Erazm Bolek has used Józef Tkaczuk as a synonym for the everyman, describing the graffiti's appearance during the Norse colonization of North America, when Yuri Gagarin travelled to outer space, and when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.

[4] The anthropologist Olga Drenda has described the phenomenon as a typical visual icon of Poland's transition from communism.