Mocking SpongeBob

2017

Date: 5 May 2017 · Place: Twitter; still from SpongeBob SquarePants episode 'Little Yellow Book' (2013) · Figures: SpongeBob SquarePants, character · @OGBEARD, Twitter user credited with viral post · Tags: Reaction, Template, Cartoon 01. Chicken-Posture SpongeBob On 5 May 2017 @OGBEARD posts a still from the SpongeBob episode Little Yellow Book, originally aired 5 January 2013, in which SpongeBob hunches like a chicken with one foot raised. The caption mocks an opposing argument by typing it in MiXeD CaSe. Within a week the template is the default for sarcasm. MiXeD cAsE typography becomes its own punctuation, transferable to any sentence without the image. 02. Punctuation Migration Mocking SpongeBob succeeds at something most reaction images don't: it migrates from image into typography. The capitalization survives the loss of the picture. Tweets without the SpongeBob still still read as mocking, because of the case alone. The format is the cleanest example of the era's tendency to compress an entire affect into a pure formatting convention. Sources • @OGBEARD, Twitter post, 5 May 2017 • Brian Feldman, New York Magazine, 'The Mocking SpongeBob Meme', 9 May 2017 • KnowYourMeme entry, 'Mocking SpongeBob SquarePants'