Nickelodeon announce that Spongebob is part of the LGBTQ+ community

15 June 2020, 14:01 | Updated: 15 June 2020, 16:01

"SpongeBob is asexual biromantic, thank you for coming to my TedTalk."

In case you were wondering, SpongeBob SquarePants is officially part of the LGBTQ+ community.

In a tweet posted on Saturday (June 13), Nickelodeon wrote: "Celebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month," alongside pictures of SpongeBob, Schwoz Schwartz from Henry Danger (played by Michael D. Cohen) and Korra from Avatar: The Last Airbender spin-off Legends of Korra.

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Michael D. Cohen (who plays Schwoz) previously opened up about his own transition, and Korra identifies as bisexual.

While most people were surprised about SpongeBob's LGBTQ+ identity, many fans pointed out that SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg previously revealed to Wall Street Journal in 2002 that he intended the characters on the show to be asexual.

And in 2005, he doubled down in an interview with Reuters after a conservative group said the show was promoting a "gay agenda", saying: "We never intended them to be gay. I consider them to be almost asexual."

Many fans were absolutely thrilled to see SpongeBob included in the tweet, with people who identify as asexual also applauding Nickelodeon for including asexuals in the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

Fans were also living for the fact that Nickelodeon turned off the replies on the tweet, leaving no room for negative comments under the celebratory post.

In the words of Tyler Oakley, "asexual spongebob is a queer icon".