SOME PEOPLE JOIN Facebook. Some people were on MySpace--as was I for about two weeks. Or perhaps MyYearbook, a social networking site where you could create kitchsy, 2000s-esque profiles with cursors, backgrounds, and favorite songs and take "Spin the Bottle" quizzes where you'd end up with a random emo guy in a certain scenario. Others act cool for not having any social media to begin with.
My first social media experience? A cartoon forum.
It wasn't until I hit middle school that my family began to get into Spongebob. I'm not sure how it happened, because I never liked cartoons other than Arthur. But soon we all loved the antics of the little yellow sponge.
We had our favorite episodes (my mom loved the one where Squidward is obsessed with a claw machine and the Camping Episode with the sea bear) and even some inside jokes to go along with them. There is an episode where Spongebob is supposed to say hi to a whale named Pearl, but misunderstands and greets a pole instead, saying "Hello, pole." That phrase became a staple of ours. If the car door hit the pole in the garage? "Hello, pole." If our dog wrapped her leash around a street sign? "Hello, pole." You get the drift.
Perhaps the best character was Fred. He was a background character, known for the running gag of shouting "My leg!" whenever there was a crash, explosion, or something else that caused damage. One of our favorite scenes of his was when he tried a Krabby Patty with jellyfish jelly and was singing around the restaurant, telling everyone how great it was. We laughed so hard we cried the first few times.
Eventually I carved out my own little path of Spongebob love. But why would you join something that looked like a sterile discussion board? Here's why.
1. Graphics
When it's a soggy spring day and there's nothing to do, nothing will brighten your world like some flashy emoticons, and profile backgrounds. I'd already seen some of this through MyYearbook, but I was about to get a new crash course too.
Forums were ever-present in all the fansites I'd visited throughout my life. (A forum, for those of you too young to remember, is like Reddit on a much smaller, community-minded scale. There were designated sections you could visit where you'd post a "thread," or discussion topic.) There were plenty out there---once, in a fit of extreme fangirling, I bookmarked every Harry Potter website I could find. Mario was a good source for fansites, too. Kelly and I loved to play Mario games on our Game Boys, and flash games were fun too.
But what I never got about these sites were the accompanying forums. They were bland, sterile-looking places to discuss many topics relating to the subject of the website. The text boxes were huge, the colors stark, the text often small, and they often hurt my eyes to look at.
Where I wasn't expecting one was a Spongebob website. I didn't do too many activities online relating to the yellow sponge, but BikiniBottom.com was different. It had some fun songs and trivia that I caught up on sometimes.
I was so excited at the prospect of online friends to discuss episodes with (I was just starting to get into Webkinz, but it wasn't the same when it came to online discussion) and made a beeline to sign up. I chose the username pop_princess, as I still liked to sing at the time, and often listened to the Hannah Montana soundtrack on the bus home from school. And when I saw the cool profile features, text, and avatars that were available to me, I was thrilled.
#2: Discipline
Let's face it: reading the rules to a forum after you sign up, as a middle schooler, is like reading the Terms and Conditions anywhere else. You bypass them, eager to get started. So you run around the site for a while acting like a maniac.
I can't think that the admins were impressed with me. I went back through the list of discussion threads and made posts in the ones that were months old. I think the first thread I commented on was a game thread, and I wrote the post in super tiny text, trying to be quirky. On the other hand, if I was excited, I would reply in 48 pt. fonts.
Speaking of fonts, those too provided opportunity: the mask of the internet allowed me to design a new persona. I tried to emulate a cutesy personality by typing my posts in that tiny pink text. For example, Toadie might comment on a fansite that I happened to like too. Or, thrilled that someone else I knew had the same interest, I'd drop all pretense and go, "OMG YOU KNOW THAT SITE???? what's ur fave section???"
Sometimes, I felt conflicted. I knew that people laughed at me sometimes, like when TattleRattler called me a hypocrite after I talked about liking Ben. He and his brother, Mister Sir Doctor Patrick, were well-liked in the community. I knew that I knew the meaning of the word hypocrite, but it didn't even make sense in his context. I guessed being a thirteen-year-old girl just wasn't cool online. Looking back, though, I feel that I came off as more of a ten-year-old. Forums have the ability to store every single post you've made there, and you can see the date and time you posted them. This is both a blessing and a curse. I did love having a place to share my opinion, though, and never hesitated.
I wanted to be like the cool guys. I wanted to get in with Dougie, who was well known for his fanfiction and an original character, Sally the Jellyfish. At the time, I thought it was very well written, and I'd try to make some fanfiction myself. It didn't get a lot of views, and little to no comments.
Would my popularity status change?
#3 Friends
During my four months at a high school in Connecticut, I spent a lot of downtime during breaks in the common area of the main school building, browsing my laptop. Friends or no close friends, I logged in and joined in with the daily antics.
From Dougie frantically trying to get the attention of the mods in the shoutbox when his newest fanfiction wouldn't post to Molly spreading the latest Pokemon joke, a trip to BB was a great escape. And, of course, reviewing Spongebob episodes together was great. Whenever my mom sent me an email detailing news at home, even going into minor details about Emily's haircut, I wished beyond belief that I could be there too. But then I'd change tabs to BB, which was like being home in front of the desktop computer again.
I won't claim to have a lot of close friends on BB, but I did get to know a few people. SquiddyLove and I were close in age, and her love of dogs allowed us to bond. QUEENIE was young, but she wanted to be friends, so why not? It was someone for my friend list. Boston4Life was my age, but we didn't have a lot in common.
My first real moment of triumph was in a discussion thread on music, titled "Artists That Make Crap." Two artists that came to mind were The Naked Brothers Band and the Kidz Bop Kids. I made a post detailing this, and Mister Sir Doctor Patrick praised me, writing: "Kudos to pop_princess!" I was getting attention, and it wasn't negative.
Others, I was merely jealous of. LaurelSponge, who had recently become a moderator, was about my age. From the Post Your Picture threads, I could tell she was prettier. She wore tons of jewelry and emo-chic outfits, and got a lot of attention for them. I tried to emulate people like her in my online presence, using tiny pink text and emoticons. Of course, I couldn't change my looks. So I focused my energy on discussions, talking about the important stuff. Did Spongebob and Sandy deserve to be together? What did we think of Patchy the Pirate? Why is Good Neighbors such a bad episode? (Correct answer: it's not.)
Still, I spent time on BB through my sophomore year of high school, and towards the end of that period, two twin girls joined the forums. Bookie and Bookish were goody-goodies, and they sort of reminded me of myself when I first started. They loved books, Twilight, and musicals. They had their own annoying behaviors, such as spamming pictures of their favorite cartoon, Total Drama Island, in the Post Random Pictures thread. However, as their post count went up, they became more popular themselves. I felt a wave of affection for Bookie when she stood up for me in a thread. We became semi-friends, too.
But did close friends matter? We were a community, and maybe that was good enough. It could be hard enough to have a coherent conversation anyway. With all the "Reply to Posts" going on, discussions could derail quickly, and if you didn't understand Internet lingo like "pwned!" and "n00b," you were done for. Or at least the discussions would lose something.
#4 Memories
It's hard to say when I stopped logging on. High school took over, and when I started at the New Jersey school, I had moved to watching Spongebob episodes with Danielle, my roommate. The forums were soon forgotten.
When I was in college, though, I was curious. I didn't log in, but one evening I visited the site to see the goings-on. There were very few signs of life from any of the members I knew and loved. It seemed like a new generation was taking over.
The forum did get a facelift, though. It had colorful fonts and backgrounds from Bikini Bottom itself. It was no longer the boring, sterile message board I'd come to associate with forums. There was also a new subforum for "top ten" lists, a phenomenon that TattleRattler had started by counting down his top 100 Spongebob episodes. He never got to number one, but it was legendary in its time.
Two years later I peeked at it again. That night, in my "one line a day" journal, I wrote, "I'm never coming to BB again. I like to visit, but I'm done. That's a part of my past now."
Naturally, I logged in the very next day.
#5 Restarting
When your password for a Spongebob website is "spongebob," it's not hard to hack your way in again. As soon as I entered my credentials, I got chills. Here I was, years later. Was anyone going to notice me?
I'd have to make it so. No longer was I the socially awkward chick of middle school. I went to the Intro subforum and made an "I'm Back!" thread! Most members seemed happy to see me and thought nothing of it; after all, they didn't know me back then. One of the admins, though, who had taken over as head honcho, greeted me with a post of wide-eyed emoticons. Oh, those emoticons! Just seeing them brought me back. Now I had something new to look forward to!
Oh, and I changed my password as well.
#6 New People
Bookie and Bookish weren't there anymore, but some users still made appearances. Boston4Life popped in and out, sometimes to post a very well-written story he was working on. And we shared the same taste in baseball teams! LaurieSponge and Poppin were still there too, as moderators, but didn't visit as frequently.
One of the site's biggest presences was Olimar, a frequent poster who was most known for his love of winter. He was a friendly guy, even if he disagreed with you. Olimar defined the times, not just by his presence but by his Pianta avatar (a side character in the Mario franchise). There was also Kaa, a Disney guru I got on well with; Katrina, a popular and mature college student my age; Sponge Boy, a lovable autistic teenager; and a variety of other members who came and went. The forum had nearly 10,000 members, but only a relative handful were active at a given time, around 50 or so. Nevertheless, it was enough to keep the place bustling.
Another user was a YouTuber in the process of reviewing every single episode, proving that you didn't have to be a young duck to enjoy Spongebob. A film major, EatCakeforBreakfast's ideas were well-thought-out, even if I too disagreed with his opinion of Good Neighbors. Everyone would flock to his videos to hear his opinions on all things Spongebob and Nickelodeon, and he became a well-respected member. Everyone eagerly counted down to his newest videos.
But something of mine had to change, too. I didn't want to be a professional singer anymore, nor did I want the Hannah Montana association. After much thought, I decided on the new username PinkPearl.
And so the new era had truly begun. Without trying to create a new persona, I aimed to further discussions and create thought-provoking posts.
#7 Games
I may have started my forum experience participating in a game thread, but other games were just as fun. Coloring contests were popular, but so were the monthly "Post Your Desktop" threads, which I got to start participating in once I had my own computer in college, and the 1,000-question survey which people used to up their post count.
I especially enjoyed the member map the Head Honcho admin placed on display, which allowed members to put a dot in the area they lived in. This got spammed. Hard. There was a dot in the North Pole for Santa, a dot in Antarctica for a penguin, a dot in the Pacific Ocean for a creepy photo of Spongebob saying I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU, PATRICK! and more. It gave us all a good laugh until Head Honcho took them down.
My favorite, though, was discovering that two members lived a very short distance from me. I eventually also gained the courage to participate in forum traditions, like the Praisebook, Yearbook (filling out a post with fun facts about yourself with a South Park version of you), and even posting a few pictures of myself, which got a surprising amount of "likes."
They weren't the only fun games. I also became addicted to arcade games that the forum offered, spending lots of time on bowling, eventually getting a trophy. I also owe a lot to Pac-Man for keeping me company when I was sick for three weeks in college.
#8 Learning To Deal
I never liked drama. I steered clear of it in high school. But it wasn't always easy online, especially with the arrival of the Sponge Task Force.
This "group" consisted of members whose sole purpose seemed mainly to criticize the way the forums were being run. They used lots of formal, technical language and took everything way too seriously. They were in with one member called BetaAlphonse, who spent lots of time here as a member already, while the others seemed to follow his lead and be site critics. Multiple bans were issued, but there were other problems too.
Take BryanTheCat. This guy was a normal member, la-de-da. All that changed one day when he started sending creepy messages to Katrina. He was obsessed. Katrina was good about it, but when posts started escalating so every member could see them, it got real, as they say.
He was banned, of course, but things didn't stop there. He posted threatening YouTube videos saying "I'll get you, Bikini Bottom!" Things like that. He was a young teenager so you couldn't take him seriously, but it was quite scary and exciting all at once.
Of course, some friends of banned members weren't always cool about their friends being forced out. There were fights with the staff; demands to forgive. Eventually, the staff caved, allowing a bunch of members back to give them a second chance. This caused another firestorm with the members who weren't standing up for the banned members.
You just couldn't win!
And then there were some who caused problems. Take the case of one member. Lieutenant Fred was a popular, longtime member. He was a nice guy despite one or two issues leading to suspensions. He always was willing to go to bat for his friends who had gotten punishments, but the staff got sick of it pretty quickly.
Suspensions and bans were so frequent in 2016 that entire threads were being created about them. Sponge Boy was responsible for most of them, which the staff would promptly lock. It was a rough summer, and we made it through, but rumors about the site "going downhill" would sometimes persist. People would start threads explaining why they were "done" with BB and were leaving. These seemed to snowball. One person would complain about how bad everything was, and then many other members would chime in until I had no idea what we were complaining about anymore.
#9 Leadership
Just after completing my senior year of college, the Head Honcho admin messaged me and asked if I'd like to become a moderator.
I jumped at the opportunity and said yes. After thinking about it, of course. I went about my normal life business. It was funny how your real life and online life were two totally different things, I thought. I considered my immature early days on BB and laughed. How far I'd come! I'd had many posts with at least 7 likes, marking them "Popular." I'd even won some forum awards. But responsibility would increase, too.
As moderator, you're asked to do several things. If members weren't behaving, you could give them a warning point. You might help lead a contest. You would lock threads that were too old to be posted in or ones that were turning into political arguments. And if you needed to check something over with the rest of the staff, there was a secret forum for that.
Leadership wasn't always easy, as you can see from the drama kings who liked to attack the staff mentioned previously. Not everyone was happy at my appointment. But it was worth it. Staff members were granted secret subforums with extra goodies and places to communicate about official business.
(Technically, I am still a staff member. Though my status has probably been lessened to Friend, a staff member/user who hasn't logged on much, if a member found out about this, I may still get in trouble for talking about what's in the secret forums. Use your imagination!)
Mostly, looking out for good behavior was our responsibility and something we could apply judgment towards. One of the greatest things I did was tell a political thread that was getting heated that I would be watching it like a hawk, and that everyone should be respectful. This was around the time of the 2016 presidential election. Nobody was particularly happy with any of the candidates, but that didn't mean that discussion couldn't get heated. Then there were warnings. I hated having to give out a warning point to Lieutenant Fred after our history together, but it was my job to suck it up and do it.
And then there were the cases of banned members who kept trying to make new accounts, but thanks to IP tracking, we were able to get them out of there. I was never courageous enough to wield the mighty banhammer, though. I left that to my fellow staff members.
I couldn't help thinking back to my high school history teacher and community service leader. They had seen leadership potential in me. Even though I had lost the presidential run for the community service group (which was fine by me, because I didn't want to be president), they continued putting me in other leadership roles to fulfill my "potential." But it wasn't until becoming a moderator that I found that I got there.
#10 Growing Up
It was now nearly ten years from my initial join date. When the day came, I wrote a blog post about it, as people were apt to do with their forum-versaries. I would often wonder to myself how much longer I'd be staying put.
Besides, the question was looming. I was getting older. Katrina was talking about the day when she might leave. Cupcake458 was also taking a break, a sweet member who I had come to get along with. Olimar, too, was spending less and less time on the forum.
What about me? I was an adult and most of my social interactions were happening on BB. Still, I found that people don't "decide" to leave a forum unless they're going through something. Usually when they announce a long break or hiatus, they're back in three days. One day, I'd just log off and wouldn't return. In the meantime, though, I'd enjoy the community. Katrina was still there, after all, and Boston4Life--though less frequent like Olimar.
It just happened sooner than I thought.
Dramageddon was continuing, with many of the teen boys staging their uprising against the staff, including me. I felt like I had been pummeled back into my past of apparent unpopularity (which wasn't as bad as I thought. There were many threads being made about "cringy posts that you made in the past." I had some iffy ones, but others' posts were worse.) with a slight uprising. Upon being announced as a mod, some people were mad. Brent simply wrote a post saying "No," though I never knew what I'd done to offend him. We didn't talk much, but we got on okay and frequently "liked" each others' posts.
Other users felt differently. Apparently I'd made a post upsetting Lieutenant Fred with something I said about meme creation being childish or annoying or unprofessional or...something. I think he took it the wrong way, but I apologized and tried to move on. He kept hedging on it, though, and his friends' opinion of me didn't change.
(Actually, going back and looking at the comment, I was off base. Sorry, bud. I really don't know. That isn't like me and I swear I don't even remember writing it. He hopefully knows that that wasn't like me, but the ensuing drama was still out there.)
So the following September morning, when a wonderful neighbor starting mowing his lawn at 7 AM, I decided to get up and ask for advice about Lieutenant Fred, who was continuing to give me grief over various things I don't remember now. I dashed off a post in a tired state, not thinking much about it. Maybe it got out somehow, because I was getting messages from other members, including BryanTheCat, with condescending subject lines like, "Umm..."
I never liked drama. Now, does running away solve all your problems? Not necessarily. But sometimes, it helps. If you need something toxic to be removed from your life, for example, running away can help.
I would take a small break. Just for a while, then I'd deal with the stupid messages. Maybe by then, they'd blow over.
****
I didn't return.
I guess the drama just got to be too much. I considered logging back on several times, but I just never felt like dealing with messages from angsty teenage boys. Quite frankly, too, the average age was getting younger. I still had adults to talk with, but the discussions themselves were dwindling. There were still some talks, off and on, about BB being in a "slump" or "going downhill." Also, meme culture was getting bigger, which was the basis for a lot of the inside jokes. It wasn't humor I really understood. Either way, my days on BB were finished, at least for the time.
And it seems that BB's life is slowly dying off, too. It's much slower than I've ever seen it. But I have to give it props for outlasting most forums in popularity and longevity by a long shot.
It was great while it lasted. The Internet may be a safe space for drama kings and bullies, but it also allows you to connect with other people you'd never meet otherwise, even ones you wouldn't like in real life. You can log on and have an entirely different social life and meet different people than the ones in your real life. Roommate issues? Upset seeing your crush with another girl who you think was following you on campus? Escape into your virtual social life. There are no politics, and if there are, they usually don't impede with ruining an already formed relationship. Nobody on BB cared for Nintendooooo's Trump support, but in other threads outside of the political subforum, everybody could get along.
I joined other communities later. Reddit was one that I came to especially like, and just recently, I was able to participate in a Secret Santa program that allowed users to send each other Christmas gifts. While it's a vast community without the sense of closeness that BB had---you'll rarely run into another member twice---I'm still grateful for it. There are always people willing to share stories and advice and connect. Even if that forum is Spongebob-based.
(Necessary author's note: I actually did run into a BB member on Reddit without even looking. Right in the r/Jeopardy! community. There he was, complaining about Dr. Oz being one of the show's guest hosts.)
I still love Spongebob, by the way. I can't think of that one line that goes "Big. Meaty. CLAWS!!!" without remembering the member of the same name. I can't see that still of a wide-eyed Patrick without thinking of that particular emoji we had. Sometimes I will go back just to look around. And sometimes, other members do the same. To me, it's a sign of the strength of a community that grown adults (even more grown than some of us were even then) come back to say hello, even when things aren't as prosperous as they were before.
In the words of Sandy Cheeks...
So long, Bikini Bottom
I can't leave without a goodbye,
but please don't think bad of me
if'n I start to cry
So long, Bikini Bottom
I really hate to go
but the thing I'll miss the most of all
are the friends I've come to know.