About

SpongeBob Boiling In a Pot of Shit or SpongeBob In Chili is a series of memes using an image of SpongeBob SquarePants floating in a pot of chili that is often represented as feces with the caption "SpongeBob boiling in a pot of shit." The image first became the subject of memes on Reddit in 2020 and gained viral spread over the following years.

Origin

On January 29th, 2020, Redditor u/dankbob_memepants_ posted an image macro to /r/BikiniBottomTwitter^[1] using an image of SpongeBob rising from a pot of chili, taken from SpongeBob SquarePants season 3 episode 45, "Doing Time," with a caption about someone getting famous then canceled, garnering over 17,000 upvotes in four years (shown below, left).

On July 1st, Redditor u/RedneckBroTX posted a screenshot of what appears to be a 4chan post of the same image of SpongeBob titled, "spongebob boiling in a pot of shit.jpg" to /r/comedyheaven,^[2] garnering over 21,000 upvotes in four years (shown below, right).

Spread

The meme was reposted across social media numerous times throughout the 2020s, including to /r/Spunchbob^[3] and Instagram,^[4] also being reposted numerous times to 4chan.^[5] On February 26th, 2024, an anonymous 4chan^[6] user posted a photoshop titled "shitbob boiling in a pot of sponge" to /s4s/, which was reposted to /r/4chan^[7] the next day, garnering over 100 upvotes in a week (shown below).

On March 5th, Instagram^[8] user owen_kung posted a side-by-side image of both versions of the meme, garnering over 12,400 likes in a day. That day, X^[9] user @JustinWhang reposted the meme, writing, "Inside you there are two wolves," garnering over 22,000 likes in a day (shown below).

The post inspired several variants that day in @JustinWhang's comments section. For example, that day, X^[10][11] users @BR0THERBAPH0MET and @SmitzJoeyThe1st posted memes that gained over 500 likes in a day (shown below, left and right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References