This Tweet Is Why People Think SpongeBob Came Out as Gay

Hmmm.

Mikelle Street

Mikelle is the former editorial director of digital for PrideMedia, guiding digital editorial and social across Out, The Advocate, Pride.com, Out Traveler, and Plus. After starting as a freelancer for Out in 2013, he joined the staff as Senior Editor working across print and digital in 2018. In early 2021 he became Out's digital director, marking a pivot to content that centered queer and trans stories and figures, exclusively. In September 2021, he was promoted to editorial director of PrideMedia. He has written cover stories on Ricky Martin, Miss Fame, Nyle DiMarco, Jeremy O. Harris, Law Roach, and Symone.

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Mikelle Street

June 13 2020 6:36 PM EST

May 31 2023 4:18 PM EST

MikelleStreet

If you ask the girls on Twitter, SpongeBob SquarePants is gay. Not just because of like how he is depicted on his hit series, but because of a new tweet from the Nickelodeon account celebrating Pride month. Let's look into it.

"Celebrating Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month," the network wrote in a post. The post also included photos of SpongeBob, Schwoz Schwartz from Henry Danger and Korra from The Legend of Korra. They are all presented wearing some version of rainbow colors.

\u201cCelebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month \ud83c\udf08 \u2063\n(\ud83c\udfa8: by @ramzymasri)\u201d
— Nickelodeon (@Nickelodeon) 1592054553

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Korra is canonically queer as per their script. So that's that on that. Michael D. Cohen, the actor who plays Schwoz, is a man of trans experience. So the inclusion of those two is pretty easily explained. But what about SpongeBob?

As TMZ points out, in the early 2000s show creator Stephen Hillenburg said that Spongebob was asexual.

"We never intended them to be gay," Hillenburg said of SpongeBob and Patrick in 2005. "I consider them to be almost asexual."

That would definitely go within the + part of LGBTQ+. Maybe they could have changed their minds and made SpongeBob some other letter underneath the massive umbrella but it's important to realize that those who are asexual are queer as well and are just as welcome to dawn rainbows and celebrate Pride this month.