TV

Homophobes Are Mad That Nickelodeon Announced That SpongeBob Is Part Of The LGBTQ+ Community

We stan an asexual yellow sponge king!

by Michelle Rennex  15 June 2020
spongebob gay reactions

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

In celebration of Pride Month, Nickelodeon has announced that SpongeBob SquarePants is part of the LGBTQ+ community through a social media post.

Nickelodeon shared the photo of SpongeBob alongside other queer icons like Korra from Avatar spin-off Legends of Korra, who is bisexual, and actor Michael D. Cohen from Henry Danger, who transitioned to male over 20 years ago.

The network tweeted: “Celebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month.”

While Nickelodeon did not explicitly say whether SpongeBob was gay, people online assumed his inclusion with other iconic queer icons meant that he was part of the LGBTQ+ community too.

Back in 2005, Stephen Hillenburg, the late creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, shared that SpongeBob was neither straight nor gay when conservative Christian activist groups criticised the character for “promoting homosexuality” in the diversity and tolerance-focused music video remake of Sister Sledge’s ‘We Are Family’.

In response, Hillenburg denied these claims and said: “We never intended [the characters] to be gay. I consider them to be almost asexual. We’re just trying to be funny and this has got nothing to do with the show.”

But even with Hillenburg’s assertion that SpongeBob is asexual, the characters sexuality has long been debated in the 15 years since. And because Hillenburg died in 2018 from an ALS-related heart condition, he has not been able to comment on Nickelodeon’s latest tweet or on what the character identifies as.

But the sheer excitement over the slightest possibility that SpongeBob could be gay resulted in “SPONGEBOB GAY” trending right after the the initial announcement was made.

But as with anything even a little gay, homophobes online started to get mad that the “homosexual agenda” was being pushed onto the youth through children’s cartoons.

All too familiar cries of “why does everything have to be sexual?” and “this ruined my childhood” rung out online despite all the people complaining being fully grown adults, who haven’t watched the show in years.

In defence of the little LGBTQ+-identifying sponge, people started sharing SpongeBob’s greatest queer moments to prove that his sexuality had always been present in the show and part of his personality — regardless of whether they noticed at the time or not.

But while people assumed SpongeBob was gay, asexuality does fall under the banner of LGBTQ+ and should be respected as such. Asexuality is defined as a person who has no sexual feelings or desires, and is actually one way that sea sponges — the animal SpongeBob is based on — can reproduce in the wild.

So while people use images of SpongeBob and Sandy getting married to push the “straight agenda” or screenshots of SpongeBob in a dress walking along side Patrick to peddle the “gay agenda”, SpongeBob’s relationships with both the male and female characters can very easily be purely platonic.

Plus, for anyone using either image to prove their points: The wedding scene was actually part of a play and the dress clip with Patrick was from the episode where they were pretending to be parents. Anyway, stan our asexual king!