If the word gay is simply taken to mean happy, then Spongebob Squarepants is one of the gayest, if not the gayest cartoon characters in existence.
But now, to celebrate Pride Month, Nickelodeon has implied that the pineapple-dwelling cartoon character is a member of the LGBQ+ community.
The revelation was made on Twitter where the studio wrote: "Celebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month ?."
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The tweet also included pictured of Schwoz Schwartz from Henry Danger, and Korra from the Avatar spin-off show Legend of Korra.
Now, Korra is canonically queer as per their script, and Michael D. Cohen, the actor who plays Schwoz, revealed that he is a transgender man back in 2019. So that explains their inclusion in the post.
But what about Spongebob (who is rather beautifully highlighted by a rainbow background)?
Cast your mind back to the forever catchy Spongebob Squarepants theme song:
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With Spongebob being one of the most well-known and highly recognizable cartoon characters in the world, the implied revelation did not go unnoticed by social media users - even though Nickelodeon later turned off comments on the post.
One Twitter user joked about how unsurprising they found the revelation, writing: "Spongebob gay? I mean he literally had a baby with Patrick."
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However, another said that the tweet shouldn't be taken as evidence that Spongebob is gay, writing: "since i'm one of few people who can reply to this tweet i gotta say this: did any of you read the part where it says 'lgbtq+ AND their ALLIES'??? they never said spongebob was gay and why would it matter if he was?"
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Whereas one person simply wrote: "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."
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This tweet comes after Spongebob's creator Stephen Hillenburg stated in 2005 that SpongeBob was more "asexual" in 2005.
"We never intended them 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," he said in an interview with Reuters cited by the Daily Mail.