The Internet Loves 'SpongeBob SquarePants' Memes, But Why?
Note: This post originally ran on March 23, 2018. We're re-posting today, May 1, 2019, it in honor of Mr. SquarePants' 20th anniversary
The first episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants," titled "Help Wanted," premiered on May 1st, 1999. Over 18 years later, the internet is still churning out new SpongeBob-inspired memes with reckless abandon. This week, comparing two things to the perpetually warring Krusty Krab (good) and Chum Bucket (bad) burger restaurants is all the rage. Last week, everyone used a scowling picture of Patrick Star to express their most devilish intentions.
But long before these two hit memes captured our imaginations and racked up retweets, a whole host of "SpongeBob" jokes have peppered the greater arc of internet humor in a way that may or may not show where millennial humor is headed. Is there something bigger than just Bikini Bottom here? Digg editors Mat and Joey discuss:
Mat: I think it's about time a pair of doofuses team up to overanalyze the crap out of why memes about an 18-year-old Nickelodeon cartoon are so popular, don't you?
Joey: There is literally nothing I'd rather do. I think about this all the time. What did we do to be so blessed as to receive such beautiful and creative SpongeBob memes as often as we do? Like, there are more SpongeBob memes than memes from anywhere else, right?1 Am I crazy or does it feel that way?
Mat: As someone who generally stays away from any meme or shitposting groups, it certainly feels like SpongeBob stuff hits the mainstream more consistently than other cartoons and TV shows. I think we'll get into how "SpongeBob SquarePants" is ripe with meme fodder, but on a surface level it feels like the show's peak in popularity came at the right time for perpetually-online folks in their twenties. Kids who're about to graduate high school now weren't even born when the show premiered! The timing has to explain some of this.
Joey: Yeah, that feels pretty true. The last thing I was doing before obsessively trolling gaming forums and obsessively AIMing my friends dumb links was obsessively watching "SpongeBob." Maybe that's just the natural progression of the Online Millennial: step 1) Watch and internalize "SpongeBob;" 2) immerse oneself in the weird and absurd humor of the internet; 3) apply that deep-seated "SpongeBob" knowledge to said weird and absurd humor.
Mat: The absurdity baked into every episode has to be part of the phenomenon, right?
I'm a big fan of "The Simpsons," and a lot of memes stemming from that show center on directly quoting it (think "The goggles do nothing" or "No, it's the children who are wrong"). You and I put together a list of the most prominent SpongeBob memes and most of them don't have anything to do what a character is saying. With memes like Blurry Mr. Krabs or Sleeping Squidward there aren't associated quotes from the show. SpongeBob memes also seem to come in twos: one will get really popular, then another blows up right after that. What's up with that?
Joey: Yeah, the frequency and grouping here is a little odd. The other odd thing is these are all pretty much meme superhits. There are no deep cuts here.
Mat: Forgive the dorkiness of what I'm about to suggest, but it's almost like there's an Overton Window for SpongeBob stuff. One meme will gain traction and hit its peak in popularity, people are a little more primed to be receptive to SpongeBob memes, a bunch of memelords chum the waters of online with their best jokes and one of them piggybacks off the success of the first meme.
That could explain why we've seen two memes pop off in the last month, but it doesn't really get at why there are communities like r/BikiniBottomTwitter (home to almost half a million subscribers!) circulating new SpongeBob memes all the time. What separates the winners from the losers? Can we even tie the appeal of some of these memes to the show, or are they so removed from context that it doesn't even matter?
Joey: One of the things that strikes me about these memes (especially the newer single frame ones, like Blurry Mr. Krabs, Mocking SpongeBob, Savage Patrick, etc.) is that they really are completely divorced from any and all context the show might have given them in the first place. Like, take the Patrick screenshot, which was really popular earlier this month. It's for jokes where someone is being particularly devious or evil… but in the episode that particular frame is pulled from is about Patrick trying to catch SpongeBob with a jellyfishing net.
I think it's pretty weird — but also kinda awesome — that the internet is pulling all these memes from a source material that is so widely known and then just chopping off any context associated with them. Like, so many people have seen "SpongeBob" that pretty much anyone on the internet could piece together a visual gag containing a few characters from the show. But most of these memes don't even require that much knowledge, which I think is sort of curious considering it keeps happening over and over.
As you said, A LOT of people are online making SpongeBob jokes, but maybe only the most (I hate to use this word, but here goes) relatable of those can really become hall of fame-worthy memes. And that would mean the ones that have no context attached at all are the most likely to take off.
Mat: I think "SpongeBob's" core humor helps make the show more malleable for meme makers. Think about the "guy checking out another girl meme" — that's just a really funny stock photo, a single image that makes us laugh. A single still like the Mocking SpongeBob is taken out of context, but with Handsome Squidward and Sleeping Squidward those still frames are the joke in the show. The creators of "SpongeBob" love cutting away to detailed drawings and live-action elements for the sake of a gag.
It's almost like "SpongeBob" taught us to make jokes with a single frame, and because of that people are inclined to take from it…
… and then sometimes, a guy in a Squidward costume dabs and it's just great. Are we just obsessed with SpongeBob memes because it's fun to see these characters say or do something weirder or more foul than they would in the show? How does this reflect on our generation?
Joey: I think it's easy to take enjoyment out of corrupting previously benign characters and memories on the internet. A lot of the "Arthur" memes we went crazy for a year ago were actually really, really foul. But the thing about "SpongeBob" is that, unlike "Arthur," the show itself has always been a little subversive. We forget now, but in the mid-2000s there was a sort of conservative moral panic centered around SpongeBob pushing a "homosexual agenda". That adds layers to a Patrick meme about having gay sex. Even if the creator of the meme isn't thinking about that moral panic, you can take a look back on the whole thing and it certainly adds another (depraved, dark) layer of humor. Which, unfortunately for our brains is not only super in style, but also has been for years and likely will continue to be well into the future. I think it may be our generation's contribution to humor as a whole.
Mat: So we've gone from straightforward remixes of "SpongeBob" jokes to decontextualized gags that work on everything from sex jokes to simple writerly faux-pas. I wish Vine was still around so the perfect 6-second comedy sketch could be the hallmark of (here's that word again) relatable millennial humor, but I guess I'll settle for good memes. Especially if they're from "SpongeBob."
Uh, Joey, does it feel like we might have spent too much time thinking really hard about memes?
Joey: dOeS iT fEeL LiKe We MiGhT hAvE sPeNt ToO mUcH TiMe ThInKiNg ReAlLy HaRd AbOut MeMeS? ??
Mat: Alright, point taken.