Gangster SpongeBob

Gangster SpongeBob refers to the popular trope of depicting cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants as a criminal on fanart.

These fan depictions would gain more traction later, especially on ironic memes, reflecting on the tawdry and vulgar nature of these illustrations.

While the earliest artwork’s creator and origin are unknown, the trope started emerging online in the mid-to-late 2000’s, on MySpace profiles, mostly seen as wallpapers.

Videos depicting collections of “Gangster SpongeBob” artworks as well as songs, revolving around the trope were also uploaded to YouTube, starting in 2007.

Before Mocking SpongeBob fan arts became a meme, “Gangster SpongeBob” and Patrick appeared on a plethora of fan arts, where one can see that The Secret Ingredient is Crime.

These would be uploaded to sites like sites like DeviantArt, WallpaperList and other wallpaper sites.

In September 2011, a Facebook page titled “Gangsta spongebob” was launched, with posts revolving around the trope.

The first meme on the phenomenon was shared on Twitter by @MKW_18 on June 10^th, 2014, pointing out the common nature of the theme on MySpace wallpapers.

“Gangster SpongeBob” memes started becoming viral on the r/okbuddyretard subreddit in early 2019, spreading to other subs, like r/dankmemes and r/memes, as well as other sites like Twitter and 9GAG.

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