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Barney Pudowski
Voiced by: Jack Dylan Grazer
- Accidental Misnaming: Barney accidentally sets his username as "Absalom" on Ron, prompting the B-Bot to address him as that for a good chunk of the film.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: The film opens with Barney having a bad birthday, specially as everyone only focuses on their new B-Bots (he even eschews spreading invitations for a party to celebrate alone)...
- Birthday Party Goes Wrong: ...although the previous one was possibly even worse for its party, with plenty of questionable Donka choices of entertainment and her goat causing things like eating Savannah's bracelet.
- Character Development: Barney becomes a lot less socially awkward and more outgoing due to his experiences with Ron.
- Disability Immunity: Due to Barney's complete lack of friends and online presence, as well as Ron not being linked up to the system, The Bubble Network have a very hard time finding them.
- Missing Mom: Barney's mother died before the events of the movie.
- Nerdy Inhaler: Barney is a dorky guy and he uses an inhaler.
- Shrinking Violet: Barney serves as one at the start of the movie.
- Socially Awkward Hero: Barney starts off as one before Ron influences him to get out of it.
Ron
Voiced by: Zach Galifianakis
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The B-Bots are initially programmed to basically interface with their assigned user's social media and help them make friends with people who share their interests based on their media posts. The titular Ron suffers a glitch as he is incapable of accessing the Bubble Network due to damage sustained while he was being taken to the shop. As a result, Ron is brought online with a limited database and lacking the standard safety protocols to prevent the bots from hurting humans, although he never does anything more serious than slap potential bullies. This requires Ron to actually learn how to be a friend to his owner, Barney, resulting in him developing his own interests in a glitchy manner rather than just being essentially an extension of Barney, prompting Bubble CEO Marc Weidell to use Ron's code as the basis for a mass upgrade of the other bots to make them more like Ron.
- Ambiguous Situation: At the end of the film, Ron's face is shown on the Bubble tower, implying that he's still alive, albeit Ascended To A Higher Planeof Existence.
- Cute Machines: B-Bot is absolutely adorable, and his clumsiness and innocent butchering of English don't hurt either.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Towards the end of the film, he sacrifices his programming to upload his code to every B-Bot in order to make them more layered and fun, albeit with his glitching.
- Ron's trek back to the school to the bring Barney to safety also counts as one as he is running his Battery so low that he can barely move and has heavy visual artifacts that it's possible that data corruption may have taken place)
- Theseus' Ship Paradox: When Marc "fixes" Ron to make him a standard Bubble-Bot, Barney makes it clear that this bot might be physically Ron, but he wants the original Ron's personality back.
- Yes-Man: Ron himself averts this trope, but the movie brutally deconstructs it regarding the functional B-Bots as their purpose is to just do whatever their owner tells them no questions asked, which eventually ends up making them seem boring and monotonous. Ron's malfunctioned personality is considered more popular because it makes the B-Bot more human, and Barney ultimately replaces the B-Bot's standard code with Ron's own.
Graham Pudowski
Voiced by: Ed Helms
Donka Pudowski
Voiced by: Olivia Colman
Savannah Meades
Voiced by: Kylie Cantrall
- Alpha Bitch: Savannah serves as a deconstruction. She is introduced as a popular but vain influencer who frequently belittles Barney and the more shy, nerdy Ava. The film gradually reveals that Savannah's craving for social media popularity is borne out of desperation for validation, and she becomes a laughing stock after a humiliating incident with the B-Bots is broadcast on a livestream. She significantly mellows out following this ordeal and ultimately gives up her popularity to be Barney's friend again.
- Celebrity Is Overrated: Savannah gives up her social media fame so she can be friends with Rich, Ava, Noah, and Barney again. She even says that fame is overrated.
- Ink-Suit Actor: She looks almost like her voice actress with her skin color, facial features and hairstyle.
- Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Savannah being "swallowed" and "pooped out" becomes an internet sensation. People never let her live it down and keep calling her "Poop Girl" until Ron deletes all videos from the internet.
- Instant Web Hit: When Savannah gets swallowed and expelled by the B-Bots forming a mecha, she says "It pooped me" and the video goes viral, costing her reputation.
- Jerkass Realization: Savannah starts out as a popular influencer who loves her social media fame, but coldly shuns everyone else in the real world around her, especially her former friend Barney. Then she becomes a laughingstock when she's eaten by the B-Bots and then comes out, and is nicknamed "Poop Girl". In her ensuing moping, she realizes how it feels to be an outcast like Barney, and when she realizes that he is on the run from the law thanks to Ron's glitch getting out of hand, she drops everything to help him.
- Lonely Among People: It's revealed that she's secretly lonely and use social media to validate herself, but it rears its ugly head when a humiliating incident gets her mocked all across the web. It takes finding out that Barney is in trouble with the law to snap her out of her ensuing funk, and she rekindles their friendship by helping him in his hour of need.
- What You Are in the Dark: Savannah is at her lowest point. The whole world is mocking her being the Poop Girl and her B-Bot keeps updating her on how many people have seen it all because of Ron. At this time, Barney and Ron hide in her backyard from the Bubble Network goons and one such goon asks if she's seen them. She looks directly at them then replies she hasn't.
Rich Belcher
Voiced by: Richard Hurtado
- The Bully: Rich serves as one for the first half of the film. He constantly pulls pranks on Barney and other students for social media clout, which eventually prompts a malfunctioning Ron to attack him in response. After Barney and Ron are lost in the woods, Rich comes to his senses and regrets his past actions, ultimately befriending Barney again at the end of the film.
- Bully Turned Buddy: Starts off the film frequently teasing Barney, but later helps save him and befriends him near the end.
- Drunk with Power: As Ron's glitch spreads to every other B-Bot at school, including his own, Rich revels in his newfangled capability of causing mayhem. This leads to things getting so out of hand that it gets everyone punished, ruining his reputation.
- Heel–Face Turn: After a very humbling experience halfway through the film that gets Barney in serious trouble, he goes from antagonizing Barney to ensuring his safety and making amends with him.
- Jerkass Realization: Rich initially maintains his popularity by posting videos of him pulling pranks on innocent people, believing that he isn't actually hurting anyone. He finds out how wrong he is when he goes too far (in part thanks to Ron's glitch spreading to all the other B-Bots, including his own), causes everyone to suffer, and is universally ostracized as a result.
- Lonely Among People: It's revealed that he's secretly lonely and use social media to validate himself, but it soon rears its ugly head.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Not spoken aloud, but this is more or less his mindset after his getting Drunk with Power at recess both gets Savannah publicly humiliated and gets the entire school body in recess detention, resulting in everyone rejecting him. When he learns that Barney has gotten in trouble with the law partly because of this incident, he makes amends with Savannah, and they promptly drop everything to help him.
Marc Wydell
Voiced by: Justice Smith
- Ink-Suit Actor: He looks nearly identical to Justice Smith with his skin color and stubble.
Andrew Morris
Voiced by: Rob Delaney
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Literally says he's in it for the money and hates kids.
- Expy: Basically Steve Jobs except having the same level of morality as a cartoon villain who's only really in it for the money.
- Villainous Breakdown: By the end of the film, he's shown that Marc kept an incriminating recording forcing him to give control of Bubble back to Marc. And not only does he look ready to break into a sobbing fit, he looks ready to have a heart attack as he steps off stage.
