Wait, I Thought It Was a Joke

About

Wait, I Thought it Was a Joke refers to a screenshot of a worried-looking blue fish from an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants often used in image macros and as a snowclone accompanied by a variation of the text, "Wait you guys are actually racist? I thought it was a joke." The meme first appeared in 2019 and grew in prevalence over the following years.

Origin

On October 5th, 2001, the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "The Bully" premiered in the U.S., which contains the image used in the meme.^[1] In the episode, a character bullies SpongeBob, and as he flees the bully's threats, a crowd sees him running by, including a blue fish with a worried expression (shown below at timestamp 00:18).

On December 23rd, 2019, iFunny^[2] user Taamo uploaded an image macro featuring a screenshot of the blue fish looking worried along with the top text, "Wait you guys are actually racist," and bottom text reading, "I thought it was a joke," garnering over 440 smiles in a year (shown below). This is the earliest known version of the meme.

Spread

The meme didn't see any significant traction until months later when users started editing the text of the original meme in various ways to change the context. On April 21st, 2020, Redditor /u/CMakAttacks posted a version of the meme with the words "are actually racist" crudely replaced with the words "actually hate women" to /r/IncelsInAction,^[3] garnering over 880 upvotes in 10 months (shown below). This is one of the earliest known versions of the meme used as a snowclone. On April 24th, Redditor /u/Piipperi800 uploaded a version of the meme to /r/MemeTemplatesOfficial^[6] requesting the template.

On April 27th, Instagram^[4] user Boomer.Jim uploaded a version of the meme replacing "racist" with "sexist" garnering over 79,000 views in 10 months (shown below, left). On April 28th, Instagram^[5] user a11ens posted another version of the meme replacing "racist" with "British," garnering over 1,300 likes in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

On June 26th, Instagram^[7] user moist.tumblr uploaded another version of the meme replacing "are actually racist" with "actually are14 years old" garnering over 39,000 likes in seven months (shown below, left). On December 10th, Tumblr^[8] user rhythmtengoku posted a version of the meme referencing the video game Cyberpunk 2077 garnering over 43,000 notes in two months (shown below, right).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References