Celebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month 🌈
(🎨: by @ramzymasri) pic.twitter.com/pENmTaQB0h— Nickelodeon (@Nickelodeon) June 13, 2020
Nickelodeon started a controversy over the weekend when they made the tweet above, including Spongebob on their LGBT characters list. The other characters are well known, Korra on The Legend of Korra, an Avatar: The Last Airbender sequel is bisexual and Michael D. Cohen is a transgender man who plays Schwoz Schwartz on Henry Danger. What about Spongebob though, is he gay, bi or just an ally? Nickelodeon could have put Squidward on there and no one would have blinked, but they chose Spongebob instead, limited comments to people they follow and caused a huge controversy.
TMZ declared Spongebob gay, but so many people on Twitter pointed out that Spongebob’s creator, Stephen Hillenburg (he passed away in 2018) has said that Spongebob is asexual. While some LGBTQ orgs consider asexual people part of the community, others do not. Nickelodeon might have just included Spongebob as an ally. Either way Nickelodeon is trolling and people had fun with it.
Everyone remembered when Spongebob married Sandy and of course he’s super close with Patrick:
spongebob is asexual biromantic, thank you for coming to my tedtalk. pic.twitter.com/3K5wJDdBE4
— 𝖛𝖊𝖊 (@banditovee) June 13, 2020
I don’t care if Spongebob is gay, straight, bi, or poly he taught me that “I’m ugly and I’m proud” for that I owe him my life
— Michael Tannenbaum (@iamTannenbaum) June 13, 2020
Everyone who is "shocked" that SpongeBob is gay doesn't remember this episode pic.twitter.com/dQ08Ai39H7
— week old beer (@babyfino) June 14, 2020
This is hilarious. The end made me laugh so hard!
Spongebob is gay??? I DONT THANK SO pic.twitter.com/MeambxWZKa
— Brent Terhune (@BrentTerhune) June 13, 2020
photos from Twitter and photo on frontpage via Nikko Sumooc
“I’m ugly and I’m proud” LOL, that’s one of my fave episodes.
This isn’t new with Spongebob. I don’t know it you all remember but a few years ago there was a children’s book written that was based on an episode of Spongebob celebrating Valentine’s Day with Patrick.
Spongebob being Spongebob went all out for his friend on that day. Now, as an a adult with sense, I saw it as it is okay for you to spend and celebrate that day with family and/or friends. Valentine’s Day is just about being with a romantic partner.
But other people did not, some clutched their pearls and here were are.
Yes, he’s gay.
Great!🌈
Spongebob is definitely queer. He has had boyfriends and girlfriends. He lives in a pineapple under the sea and runs around in his tighty whities. It’s a spectrum anyway – look up the Kinsey Scale.
I agree that he’s queer but I don’t ever remember him having a girlfriend?
I have no idea why lgbt groups would reject ace or aromantic, it’s part of the spectrum.
Go spongebob
SpongeBob has been a gay icon since he started on Nick. It’s awesome.
Also I hope everyone knows that video from Brent is satire. He’s a comedian.
I’m not a spongebob fan, so maybe I’m missing the point. But honestly, who cares? If somebody wants to say that a poorly drawn talking sponge with the voice of a Mouseketeer on speed likes the dudes then go for it. I have no problem with the gay or bi factor and have more of a problem with the fact that a talking sponge has somehow got more of a career than I do at this point.
Ace or nonbinary was my guess, since sponges are hermaphrodites and gender presentation would be a choice. Seems small, but when you think about how young the audience for that show skews, that’s a big shift in our ideas of what’s acceptable to teach to children about LGBT+.
Compare/contrast with Sesame Street and how many people rushed to the defense of their insidiously homophobic nonsense over Bert and Ernie and how they just HAD to clarify they weren’t gay and you were wrong if you’d made that assumption. As if even if two foam puppets happened to be gay and living together, that was somehow inappropriate. Because, you know. LGBT+ are purely defined by their sex lives and literally no other personality trait.
Spongebob for president!