Spengbab

2006character / fan artclassic

Published September 28, 2026

Spengbab, also known as Spengbob, Sprengebrob and Splenborg, is grotesquely deformed fan art of SpongeBob SquarePants that surfaced online in late 2006. The character became a recurring fixture in YouTube Poop videos and creepypasta lore, growing into one of the earliest sustained SpongeBob shitpost archetypes.

Overview

Spengbab, also spelled Spengbob, Sprengebrob or Splenborg, is a catch-all name for horribly warped drawings of SpongeBob SquarePants3. The art style favors lumpy proportions, dead or bulging eyes, off-model teeth and colors that look drained or rotten, and the character is usually paired with unsettling audio in video form. Urban Dictionary contributors described Spengbab as SpongeBob turned 'incredibly creepy and twisted,' with soundtracks pulling from Azumanga Daioh, German number stations and the German SpongeBob theme2.

The format lives mostly in YouTube Poop edits and standalone shock animations, where the deformed SpongeBob is looped, screamed at or forced through nonsense dialogue3. Fan artists on DeviantArt and Tumblr later fed the same visual language, and an Encyclopedia Dramatica entry recast Spengbab as a creepypasta figure with an invented backstory3.

Origin & Background

Platform
DeviantArt / YouTube (early appearances), 4chan /b/ (popularization)
Date
2006

The exact origin of Spengbab is not documented, but the earliest known trail begins in late 2006. In November 2006, YouTube user russxl uploaded a video titled 'spongebab' that stitched together many deformed SpongeBobs; the clip was still online with more than 350,000 views by March 201613. About a month later, in December 2006, DeviantArt user LusoSkav posted a piece of grotesque SpongeBob fan art that carried the earliest recorded use of the word 'Spengbab' itself3.

A parallel origin story credits 4chan's /b/ board with popularizing the character, and an archived Wikipedia list of 4chan memes says the term first appeared in a YouTube video before spreading through /b/3. Because the drawings passed through anonymous imageboards, no single artist can be confirmed as the meme's creator.

How It Spread

Through 2007 and 2008, more Spengbab videos and drawings piled up on YouTube and DeviantArt, with clips slowly collecting tens of thousands of views3. A Myspace page went up around 2007, and the character kept surfacing as a stock ingredient in YouTube Poop edits, where its off-model face fit the genre's love of jarring visuals3. One related animation by OneyG, cited on the KYM entry, had passed four million views by March 20163.

Encyclopedia Dramatica's 2011 entry codified the creepypasta version of the character, giving Spengbab a fake backstory that fans then reused in their own edits3. Urban Dictionary submissions from the same era treat Spengbab as an 'up-and-coming meme on 4chan' and a purely evil version of SpongeBob, showing how quickly the name detached from any one artist2. A YouTube Poop Wikia entry was created in late 2014, and search interest picked up again around the time the Know Your Meme article was written in 20163.

Frequently Asked Questions