About

"How Many Diapers Could He Possibly Use?" or SpongeBob Hmm?! refers to a memorable scene from SpongeBob Squarepants in which Patrick Star dismisses how many diapers his adopted scallop could go through. SpongeBob then shows how his house has become littered with dirty diapers. The scene is frequently used as an object-labeling meme to rebut claims of something with increasingly dramatic examples to the contrary.

Origin

On March 29th, 2002, the SpongeBob Squarepants episode "Rock-a-Bye Bivalve" premiered in the United States.^[1] In the episode, Spongebob and Patrick adopt a baby scallop which they name Junior. SpongeBob stays home to take care of Junior, while Patrick goes off to "work." Patrick consistently does not help SpongeBob with Junior. When confronted by Spongebob about only changing his diaper once, Patrick responds, "He's only this big. How many diapers could he possibly use?" SpongeBob proceeds to show Patrick the massive about of diapers Junior has gone through.

Spread

The scene began seeing use in memes in 2015. On August 31st, 2015, Redditor reconninja posted an example to /r/pcmasterrace,^[2] gaining over 6,000 points (shown below, left). On November 13th, 2015, Redditor Todeswucht^[3] posted a meme about Europa Universalis IV to /r/eu4, gaining over 1,200 points (shown below, right).

The template continued to see use over the following four years. Recent examples include an Imgur post about video games not causing violence (shown below, left) and a history meme in /r/historymemes that gained over 8,000 points (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References