It's Even Better in Person / Come See the Building

About

It's Even Better in Person, also known as Come See the Building refers to a fan-made absurdist SpongeBob SquarePants comic by Absolutenutcase162 in which SpongeBob visits Eastern Europe and sees the panel urban housing of the Socialist era, commenting, "It's even better in person". In 2023 and 2024, the comic saw use as a meme format, with users putting SpongeBob into various countries and cities.

Origin

On June 9th, 2023, Instagram^[1] user Absolutenutcase162, known for his absurdist webcomics based on SpongeBob SquarePants characters, posted a two-panel comic titled "Eastern Europe". In the comic, SpongeBob visits a generic Eastern European country where he observes a block of panel urban housing of the Socialist era, with the billboard saying "Come see this building" placed in front of it. SpongeBob comments, "It's even better in person". The comic (shown below) received over 21,000 likes in one year.

Spread

In 2023 and 2024 image saw viral spread online through reposts: for example, on October 26th, 2024, X^[2] user @zoebroog posted it, gaining over 1,400 reposts and 18,000 likes in three weeks.

On August 4th, 2023, Redditor TrueSnowMexican posted the earliest known edit of the original comic, a joke about the Canadian province Saskatchewan that received over 3,000 upvotes in the /r/EhBuddyHoser^[3] subreddit in one year (shown below). Later on August 4th, iFunny^[4] user Epic_Dabbing_Steve reposted the meme, gaining over 6,000 smiles in one year.

In 2023 and 2024, more edits of the comic were shared online, with users editing SpongeBob into various nondescript urban and country locations. For example, on October 28th, 2024, X^[5] user @y0cuando used the format for a joke about Vancouver that received over 1,400 reposts and 20,000 likes in three weeks (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References