Squidward Crushed by Spike Rollers / What Is the Purpose of This Machine?

Submission 18,164

Part of a series on Squidward Tentacles. [View Related Entries]

About

Squidward Crushed by Spike Rollers, also known as What Is the Purpose of This Machine? refers to a scene in season 5 of SpongeBob SquarePants in which Squidward gets hit by SpongeBob, flies out of his car (boat) and then gets crushed by a steamroller-like vehicle with spikes. The scene became a meme on TikTok, Twitter / X and elsewhere in the early 2020s as people humorously questioned the purpose of the vehicle in Bikini Bottom, calling it a "device" or "contraption" akin to torture. The scene also became a central part of the Pairing Songs With Squidward Accident Scenes trend.

Origin

On July 23rd, 2007, season 5, episode 84b of SpongeBob SquarePants titled "Boat Smarts" aired on American television.^[1] In one scene, SpongeBob crashes his boat into Squidward's boat, causing Squidward to fly out and get crushed by a steamroller-like vehicle with spike rollers (YouTube^[2] upload shown below).

On November 10th, 2019, the X^[3] account @spongecaps2 posted a screencap of the scene, showing the moment when Squidward gets crushed (shown below, left), gaining over 4,300 likes in five years.

Soon after, creators used the screencap for memes. Currently, the first known memetic usage was uploaded by Redditor epicgamesbrr to the /r/Terraria ^[4] subreddit, gaining roughly 4,700 upvotes in five years (shown below, right).

Spread

Going into 2020, video memes surfaced with the scene. For instance, on May 25th, 2020, YouTuber^[5] @cheerioholes8421 posted a moldy GIF Caption reading "joe biden" with Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" playing, gaining over 49,000 views in four years (shown below). The video is currently the first known upload.

Soon after in 2020, it was posted to X^[6] and made into a GIF on Tenor.^[7]

[This video has been removed]

On November 14th, 2022, X^[8] user @notghostgum posted the screencap with the caption, "Why do they have this device in bikini bottom," earning over 1,200 likes in two years (shown below, left). On November 17th, Instagram^[9] user @new.incognito.tab reposted the tweet, gaining over 39,000 likes in two years.

On March 8th, 2023, X user @ruggyscruggy posted a tweet (since deleted) that captioned the screencap, "what even was the point of this vehicl," gaining an unknown yet likely viral amount of likes indicated by replies^[10] and reposts on iFunny ^[11] (shown below, right).

On March 6th, 2023, TikToker^[12] @spogob posted a low quality version of the scene paired with the Hunger Games song by Minecraft YouTuber Bajan Canadian, gaining over 1.5 million plays and 240,600 likes in 10 months (shown below, left).

In early 2024, videos on TikTok that used the scene became increasingly commonplace, evident in a video shared by TikToker^[13] @mrfliggle on January 14th, 2024, that paired the scene with Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight," receiving over 2.3 million plays and 401,900 likes in nine days (shown below, right).

More viral videos referencing the scene surfaced on TikTok^[14] later in January 2024.