This weekend, Nickelodeon confirmed that SpongeBob SquarePants is, in fact, a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Celebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month,” wrote the network on Twitter, alongside a picture of SpongeBob, transgender Canadian actor Michael Cohen, who played Schwoz Schwartz in Henry Danger and Korra from The Legend of Korra, who is bisexual.
Quickly, “Spongebob is gay” became a trending topic on Twitter.
And while some fans thought Nickelodeon was confirming that SpongeBob is gay—although they didn’t specific what our favorite yellow sponge identifies as—the network could possibly be referring to the “A” in “LGBTQIA.”
After all, in 2005, SpongeBob Squarepants creator Stephen Hillenburg told Reuters, per People, that he never intended for SpongeBob or his best friend Patrick Starfish “to be gay.”
“I consider them to be almost asexual,” he explained. “We’re just trying to be funny and this has nothing to do with the show.”
