Twitter is all...uh, atwitter after Nickelodeon posted a tweet suggesting SpongeBob Squarepants might actually be gay.\
To commemorate "Pride Month," the kids TV channel posted a tweet saying they're "Celebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month," along with a three rainbow-tinted pictures of three Nickelodeon characters - including SpongeBob.
Celebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month 🌈
— Nickelodeon (@Nickelodeon) June 13, 2020
(🎨: by @ramzymasri) pic.twitter.com/pENmTaQB0h
The rainbow-colored SpongeBob picture was accompanied by two other LGBTQ characters from the network: Korra from The Legend of Korra, a cartoon who’s apparently bisexual, and and actor Michael D. Cohen from Henry Danger, who’s said he “transitioned” from female to male some 20 years ago.
Of course, the inclusion of the popular children’s cartoon character in their LGBTQ “allies” tweet doesn’t necessarily mean SpongeBob is gay – a theory that’s already circulated back in the day when fans wondered if the square-shaped sponge in pants was in a couple with his starfish buddy, Patrick.
As Yahoo! notes:
Although the folks on Twitter have made SpongeBob into a gay icon, it’s more likely that Sponge’s inclusion in the LGBTQ+ community is that he’s asexual, which falls under the “+” in LGBTQ+.
In the early 2000s, the show’s late-creator Stephen Hillenburg said that Spongebob (and Patrick) were both asexual, after fans wondered if the show’s twosome were a couple.
“We never intended them to be gay,” Hillenburg said in 2005. “I consider them to be almost asexual.”
It’s right about here that I find it compulsory to note that Spongebob is…well, he’s a sponge. He’s not a person. He’s not even real. He’s a cartoon sponge, who lives in a pineapple in the ocean and whose best friend is a starfish with the IQ of a banana.
But when it comes to the alphabet people and their agenda to indoctrinate children into their endless world of “inclusion,” that’s not much of a factor.