Analysis of "Ight Imma Head Out" SpongeBob Meme: Sophie Hargrave

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“Ight Imma Head Out” SpongeBob Meme


This frame of SpongeBob comes from the show’s episode “The Smoking Peanut” which aired on American television in 2001.  The scene shows SpongeBob sitting down in his chair, but the screenshot was interpreted by users as the character getting up from the chair.  It was not until July of 2019 that the image was shared in conjunction with the phrase “ight imma head out” by Twitter user @_Jasmineimani__.  This caption refers to the previous Twitter-trending phrase “alright bro I’m boutta head out,” which was first used on the social network to describe people who consume “excessive amounts” of marijuana only to sit in silence for 30 minutes and then simply declare that they are going to leave soon.

The meme then began to circulate mostly on Twitter as a “reaction photo” to certain statements.  Users would tweet the original meme-- as well as their own versions of it-- as a reaction to specific situations.  I believe that the popularity of this particular meme was a product of the emergence in popularity of the entire category of SpongeBob memes that consist of single-frame screenshots from various episodes, taken out of context and used as reaction images.  Some examples of memes of this category are “confused Mr. Krabs” which gained popularity on Twitter in 2016 and “mocking SpongeBob” which became popular on Twitter as well in 2017.

Bratich references Freud in his analysis of jokes and our perception of them: “The internal form of the joke is thus a microcosm of metalinguistic practice, a transformation within limits that, according to Freud, ‘bewilders and illuminates,’” (Bratich, 2014).  The use of slang in the form of contractions gives this meme, in my opinion, the essence of its humorous qualities.  By combining this use of slang with the image of a character who generally speaks eloquently, a paradox is formed which contributes to the bewilderment and enjoyment of the audience.


  1. Bratich, J. (2014) Occupy All the Dispositifs: Memes, Media Ecologies, and Emergent Bodies Politic. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies Vol. 11.

  2. Ight Imma Head Out. (2020, October 02). Retrieved October 09, 2020, from https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ight-imma-head-out

Comments

  1. RosanaOctober 14, 2020 at 8:10 PM

    I love how different communities reappropriate and re-signify images from popular culture and commercial culture through memes. Your meme, is a great example of that, and of how context is key to understand how memes work. I really like your comment about the paradoxic element in any meme: there's definitely humor in the de-contextualization of the original meaning.

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