Squidward's Suicide

2010creepypastaclassic

Published September 28, 2026

Squidward's Suicide is a 2010 creepypasta about a supposedly unaired SpongeBob SquarePants episode in which the character kills himself with a shotgun after a bleeding-eye breakdown. First posted to 7chan's paranormal board, it grew into one of the defining lost-episode creepypastas and later spawned the Red Mist Squidward image used in Don't Ask Who Joe Is jokes.

creepypasta memesspongebobhorror memes4chan memeslate 2000s memes

Overview

Squidward's Suicide is framed as a first-person account from a Nickelodeon Studios intern who claims to have watched a rough cut of what was supposed to open SpongeBob SquarePants' fourth season2. The story opens normally, with Squidward bombing a clarinet recital, before the animation glitches into hyper-realistic bleeding eyes, spliced photos of dead children, a whispered command to 'do it,' and a shotgun blast ending on his corpse4. The horror hinges on the framing device: real Nickelodeon staff supposedly saw the tape, and no one can explain who inserted the gore.

The story became a template for the entire lost-episode subgenre of creepypasta, sitting alongside titles like 'Suicidemouse.avi' as canonical examples of the format5. Its most enduring visual is 'Red Mist Squidward,' the still of Squidward with red pupils and black tear streaks that accompanied YouTube readings and later took on a second life outside horror contexts1.

Starting in July 2019, that same Red Mist image was pulled into 'Don't Ask Who Joe Is' bait posts, where users are lured into asking about 'Joe' before getting hit with 'Joe Mama' punchlines, often scored with the 'Pas De Deux' cue from the 1977 film Suspiria1.

Origin & Background

Platform
7chan /x/ (origin) / YouTube (viral spread)
Creator
SuicideSquidward
Date
2010

On April 6, 2010, an anonymous user posted the story titled 'Squidward's Suicide' to 7chan's /x/ paranormal board1. On February 8, 2013, Redditor SuicideSquidward stepped forward on r/self in a thread titled 'I wrote Squidward's Suicide and am kinda happy with how much it spread,' identifying himself as the original author and describing his surprise at how far the piece had traveled6. Urban Dictionary entries later spread a competing myth that the episode had been penned by a jailed Scottish animator, an invention the actual author has never claimed7.

How It Spread

The creepypasta broke out of chan-culture through dramatic YouTube readings. On June 21, 2011, MrCreepyPasta uploaded a narration that pulled in more than 900,000 views over the next three years3. Bolero5097 followed on November 21 with 'The Creepypasta Episodes,' which passed a million views by July 20141.

Animated adaptations pushed the story further. On September 11, 2012, YouTuber Cooler2000 released a version stitched together from real SpongeBob clips and original drawings, hitting roughly 1.3 million views5. SomeOrdinaryGamers posted an adaptation on October 26, 2012, built out of footage from the SpongeBob console game, which climbed toward 2 million views over the following two years8. Geek.com listed the story in a 2013 roundup of the internet's most believable horror writing1.

The image outlived the story. After a July 2019 Instagram post reintroduced the Red Mist Squidward still to a younger audience, it became a staple of 'Don't Ask Who Joe Is' bait threads1. The character even winked at the meme onscreen: the September 21, 2019 episode 'SpongeBob in Randomland' featured Squidward opening a door onto a red-eyed, black-streaked version of himself that fans read as a canonical nod1.

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