Patrick Star

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Patrick Star is the pink starfish from Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants who became one of the most-captioned cartoon characters online. Since first appearing in 1999, screengrabs of him fuel long-running meme formats including Push It Somewhere Else Patrick, No This Is Patrick, Surprised Patrick, and Savage Patrick.

Overview

Patrick Star is the dimwitted pink starfish from Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants and the title character's best friend1. His lovable stupidity and long list of quotable one-liners made him a favorite source for image macros, reaction shots, and catchphrase edits spanning nearly two decades1. Meme-makers pull from specific frames of the show, usually close-ups where Patrick delivers a bad idea with complete confidence4.

Distinct formats built around the character include Push It Somewhere Else Patrick, Surprised Patrick, Savage Patrick, and the phone-call catchphrase No, This Is Patrick12. Each format pulls from a different episode, but they share the same appeal: a starfish landing on the worst possible idea at the worst possible time1. ScreenRant noted that Know Your Meme catalogs over 14,000 SpongeBob-related meme images, and Patrick shows up across a large share of them3.

How It Spread

In 2007, a YouTube edit by user @ItamiBukoto combined the No, This Is Patrick scene with the This Is Sparta clip from 300, giving the catchphrase a second wind on the platform2. Momentum picked up again in May 2015 when an r/AskReddit thread asking for favorite SpongeBob quotes drove waves of users to reply with the Patrick line2.

From 2016 onward, SpongeBob memes surged across Twitter and Reddit as a whole, and formats like Surprised Patrick and Savage Patrick spread with them3. The subreddit r/BikiniBottomTwitter, dedicated to SpongeBob-cast memes, grew past four million subscribers3. In August 2017, Buzzfeed ran a compilation of Patrick's funniest moments4. On December 8, 2017, YouTuber Preston Ward Condra uploaded a supercut of every time Patrick had been arrested on the show, pulling in over 1.5 million views before it was taken down4.

For the show's 20th anniversary in 2019, Nickelodeon released a line of SpongeBob figurines based on popular memes, including Mocking SpongeBob and Handsome Squidward, which sold out almost immediately after launch3. Patrick's Facebook page still lists over 25 million likes, and the r/pictureswithpatrick subreddit hosts photoshopped edits placing him into unrelated images4.

How to Use This Meme

Patrick Star meme formats typically pair a specific screenshot from the show with a caption that plays off his blank confidence. Push It Somewhere Else Patrick uses two panels and a "Let's take all the [blank] and put it in [blank]" template1. Savage Patrick works as an angry-face reaction to a petty grievance, often shared as a single image macro. No, This Is Patrick is used as a nonsequitur reply to any question that could be misheard as a phone call2.

Frequently Asked Questions