About

Tough Spongebob also known as “*I Only Cried For 20 Minutes*,” is an advice animal image macro series based on a still image from an episode of the children's animated TV series Spongebob Squarepants. The captions typically describe an unfortunate situation brought on by oneself, beginning with “I’ll have you know” and concluding with “and I only cried for 20 minutes.”

Origin

The still image used in the image macro was taken from Spongebob Squarepants' Season 3, Episode 8 titled “No Weenies Allowed,” which originally aired on March 15th, 2002. In the episode, Spongebob tries to get into a stereotypically tough club known as The Salty Spitoon with his friend, Sandy. After repeatedly being turned down by the bouncer, Spongebob tells him a story about a time he stubbed his toe while watering his spice garden and that he "only cried for twenty minutes."

On August 14th, 2012, an image macro titled “Tough Spongebob” was submitted to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[1] subreddit with a caption asserting that the poster had deleted a saved Pokemon game file that had a completed Pokedex and only cried for 20 minutes (shown below). However, the post only received 8 upvotes and 7 points overall prior to being archived.

Spread

On the following day, another instance about improperly removing a USB flash drive from a computer (shown below) was submitted to /r/AdviceAnimals^[2] with the same title, gaining 6,608 upvotes, 1,010 points overall and 91 comments prior to being archived.

On August 17th, an instance of the image macro describing stepping on a LEGO brick was shared on We Know Memes^[3] with the title "I'll Have You Know Spongebob." By November 2012, several compilations of Tough Spongebob instances had been shared on Smosh^[4], Dump a Day^[5], The FW^[6] and Thumbpress.^[7] Additional instances can be also found on Tumblr under both #Tough Spongebob^[8] and #I Only Cried For 20 Minutes.^[9]

Notable Examples

As of September 2013, there are more than 27,000 instances of Tough Spongebob hosted on MemeGenerator^[10] and an additional 18,000 variations available on Quickmeme.^[11]

Search Interest

External References