About

My Eyes! or SpongeBob MY EYES! is a reaction taken from a scene in the 2004 SpongeBob SquarePants movie in which King Neptune reveals his bald spot to SpongeBob as the light reflected off his head burns the eyes of the fish close to him, including one that screams, "Bald! My eyes!" The image and clip of the fish's smoking and burning eyes first became the subject of memes as early as 2010, becoming increasingly popularized over the following years as a reaction image, GIF, video and image macro for content related to getting surprised or blinded by seeing something absurd. It is also sometimes used in more literal instances, such as solar eclipse events.

Origin

The SpongeBob SquarePants movie premiered on November 14th, 2004. In the film, King Neptune wears a brown paper bag on his head to cover his bald spot after losing his crown, which SpongeBob convinces him to take off, causing his head to reflect light strong enough to burn the eyes of the fish nearby him. One fish in particular screams in surprise, "Bald! My eyes!" while his eyes are being severely burned and smoldering.

The earliest online mention of the scene (shown below, left) was uploaded on April 26th, 2009, by YouTube^[1] user @Bornflyhuhu, which amassed roughly 43,000 views and 60 likes in 15 years. On October 9th, 2013, YouTube^[2] user @IAmHufff posted the isolated burning eye fish clip (shown below, right), amassing more than 1.2 million views and 9,800 likes in 11 years.

Spread

The image was popularized as a reaction and image macro meme in 2013. For instance, on October 10th, 2013, an unknown Imgur^[3] user posted a still image of the burning eye fish (shown below, left) paired with the caption "MY EYES!!!!," which amassed more than 64,000 views in 11 years.

On November 8th, 2017, Redditor^[4] zyyp posted the "My eyes" still image paired with the caption "When u check ur phone in the middle of the night at max brightness," which amassed over 25,000 likes and 180 comments in seven years (shown below, right).

On April 8th, 2024, the scene resurfaced online as people commented about the 2024 solar eclipse event. For example, TikTok^[5] user @trapdragon.z posted the "My Eyes!" scene with the overlay text "When you try to watch the eclipse without sunglasses on." The post (shown below, left) amassed roughly 1,200 plays and 20 likes in a few hours.

On the same day, TikTok^[6] user @mr.ferguson58 posted a similar video (shown below, right), garnering more than 700 plays and 90 likes in a few hours.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References