This is Bob

Confirmed 640,824

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About

This is Bob is a Unicode-based copypasta of a stick figure character named "Bob," which is most commonly used to spam the comments section on YouTube.

☻/ This is bob. Copy and paste him so he can take over youtube.
/▌
/\

Origin

The precise origin of the very first "Bob" character remains unclear, but the earliest known instances of the copypasta began appearing in YouTube comments sometime between June 2008 and April 2009, according to Google Trends and numerous forum discussions about the spam.

How to Make a Bob

Step 1: Alt + 2 = ☻
Step 2: Add a slash ☻/, then press enter and add another
Step 3: Alt + 221 = ▌
Step 4: Line break and add slashes

Spread

On April 10th, 2009, a sudden, noticeable influx of the copypasta on YouTube led to more than a dozen of queries about the stick-figure character on Yahoo Answers. Like with most chain e-mails or spam comments, Bob was instantly met by hostile responses from the rest of YouTube community, leading to frequent clashes between those who endorse Bob and those who flag the comments as spam. The copypasta continued to permeate the comments section of videos on YouTube, eventually reaching its second highest peak in terms of Google search interest circa June 2010 before declining gradually over the following years.

On April 18th, 2009, YouTuber SpongeBobRocks00 uploaded a short video of the stick figure character, declaring that the meme "has officially taken over YouTube."

2013 YouTube Spam

The "Bob" character saw its largest resurgence yet in November 2013, when the YouTube community began spamming the comments section with the copypasta in a protest against the new requirement of a Google+ account in order to comment on any YouTube videos. Usually accompanied by a military tank or an AK-47 rifle depicted in Unicode, the revamped version of "Bob" also features a new message urging YouTubers to copy and paste "Bob" all over YouTube to protest against the Google+ mandate.