About

Hey, I Doubt It, refers to an exploitable image macro series featuring from SpongeBob SquarePants in which people use a series of pictures of SpongeBob and the fish Gus (a character from the show) to cast doubt on various situations.

Origin

The scene used for this series comes from the episode of SpongeBob SquarePants called "Boating School," which first aired on August 6, 1999.^[1] In the episode, Gus the fish expresses that he had just received his driver's license. Spongebob expresses optimism about getting his next. Gus quickly expresses doubt, saying "Hey, I doubt it."

Spread

The earliest known variation of the meme appeared on Memecenter^[2] on October 8th, 2012, using the Navy Seal Copypasta (shown below, left). However, most subsequent variations tended to be focused on video game news, as gamers would react to announcements of new games and characters using the template. For example, a 2015 post about Fallout 3 and Half-life 2 showed Fallout 3 excited about its sequel, while Half-life 2, as Spongebob, says "I'm getting mine next!" (shown below, right).

The format has continued to see use as a popular template in video game culture through 2019. Recent examples include a June 15th, 2019 post to /r/pokemon relating to the Bring Back National Dex controversy that gained over 4,400 points^[3] (shown below, left). A June 5th, 2019 post about the recent lack of news about Animal Crossing gained over 5,300 points in /r/AnimalCrossing^[4] (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References