Nickelodeon’s Pride tweet reignites debate on SpongeBob’s sexual orientation

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Nickelodeon is celebrating Pride month with a tweet that has social media buzzing about SpongeBob Squarepants’ sexual orientation – again.

“Celebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month,” the network tweeted Saturday along with photos of SpongeBob, Avatar Korra from “The Legend of Korra” and Michael D. Cohen from “Henry Danger.”

Cohen shared that he transitioned from female to male about 20 years ago and Korra identifies as bisexual, leaving social media to speculate that SpongeBob is part of the LGBTQ+ community as well.

Nickelodeon turned off comments and replies to their tweet, but it didn’t prevent Twitter from coming to conclusions.

“I don’t care if spongebob is asexual, bisexual or gay, I stan him,” tweeted @ApolloLXXXIX. 

Others pointed out that the late Stephen Hillenberg, who created the series, never intended SpongeBob to be gay.

“For the record since “SPONGEBOB IS GAY” is trending off that Nickelodeon Tweet, this is a quote from Hillenberg himself: “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,” wrote @RiseFallNick.

Some people brought out the fact that SpongeBob’s sexual orientation has already been a topic of discussion over the past decade.

“Spongebob gay? i thought yall knew this already,” tweeted @Carti4Pres.

Another user by the name of John wrote: “Everyone shocked that nick tweeted out spongebob gay, when this literally was in an episode.”

SpongeBob’s sexuality has been a topic of discussion for many years now and certain episodes have probably contributed to the speculation.

The 2006 episode “That’s No Lady” probably did little to stop those nagging questions about SpongeBob and Patrick’s sexuality. In it, dim-witted Patrick disguises himself as a woman, Patricia, and attracts the affections of both co-worker Squidward Tentacles and boss Mr. Krabs.  

‘SpongeBob’ trivia deep dive:  Sea-list guest stars, gay rumors and ‘Lost’ connections

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