About

I Have 3 Dollars, occasionally formatted as I Have Three Dollars or I Have $3, is an image macro in which the Spongebob Squarepants character Patrick Star expresses his lack of money. The image became a reaction image used to react to costly scenarios or items.

Origin

The meme originates from the Spongebob season 3 episode "One Krabs Trash" aired on February 22 2002, in a scene during which Patrick barters with the character Mr. Krabs and ends up overspending on a toilet plunger.^[1] The original line is "I only have seven (dollars)" but as he holds up three physical notes, the meme generally uses the number three.

Spread

On May 22 2012, the YouTube user Aaron Pietsch uploaded a clip of the scene (shown above) and it has amassed 21,000 views since then.

The image macro can be dated to around August 2014. Meme Generator created a generator for the macro on August 6 2014, which they refer to as "Patrick Star Three Dollars", and it has been used to create over 390 posts since then.^[2] On September 15 2014, an image was submitted to WeKnowMemes.com featuring the line in reaction to "trying to buy the iPhone 6".^[3] On December 6th, 2016, the Instagram page BuzzfeedVideo^[4] posted a variation that paired the image with the caption "If I had a dollar for every good thing that happened in 2016."

Various Examples

References