Nautical nonsense, with emphasis on the "nonsense".
"August 12, 2036. The heat death of the universe. August 12, 2036. The heat death of the universe. August 12, 2036. The heat death of the universe. August 12, 2036. The heat death of the universe."
— Squidward Tentacles (AKA Loudward)
AI Sponge is a series of parody livestreams about AI-generated conversations between various SpongeBob SquarePants characters. Inspired by other AI-generated works like Nothing, Forever, AI Sponge takes in user-generated prompts as input and uses them to create weird, stilted and often nonsensical discussions between the Bikini Bottomites on the news of the day. All AI Sponge streams use GPT-3 to generate the scripts and text-to-speech programs (originally Uberduck AI) to generate the spoken dialogue, with voices trained from the characters' actual SpongeBob dialogue.
A typical stream consists of short segments where the various characters wander around Bikini Bottom and discuss a plethora of topics, many (or even most) of which are something you'd never see in the actual show, be it due to Ruder and Cruder subject matter or simply being too damn weird for their own good. Multiple Funny Background Events also occur, most notably two fishnote driving a boat that can run over characters and send them flying while they keep up their conversations completely unfazed. In the original stream, viewers could also donate to have a background fish character appear with their name, and could also suggest AI-generated song covers for the characters to sing.
The original stream first hosted on March 5th, 2023 and channel hopped around on YouTube and Twitch to avoid Paramount's persistent copyright takedowns before finally coming to an end on July 25th, 2023, surviving in the form of clips and compilations. Two revivals were created very shortly afterwards, one by PorkAI known as AI Sponge Rebooted that went through various alpha and beta stages and shorter streams before streaming regularly starting in late 2023 (even getting an immediate revival as AI Sponge Rehydrated when Pork took down their own streams), and one by AI_CARTOON simply titled AI SPONGE, the latter of which streamed consistently without any copyright takedowns for a few weeks and merely migrated to another channel after the first takedown.
AI Sponge Rehydrated streams 24/7 here
. See also AI Peter, a similar parody with Family Guy characters often considered a "sister stream" to AI Sponge, as well as Glorb, who creates music using AI-generated SpongeBob voices (some of which was featured in AI Sponge).
Imagine complaining about tropes this is Tropefest 27 Jr.:
- Accent Adaptation: Not "accent" per se as the characters have thick American accents no matter what language they speak, but a prompt in Rehydrated where the characters spoke French had the Texas-accented Sandy use Québécois swear words, a change randomly made by the AI with no basis in the official French dub or any other version of SpongeBob.
- AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle: The AI used to generate the character's voices isn't perfect, with certain words being pronounced differently. For example, SpongeBob pronounces "seven" as "see-vehn". Characters also consistently mix up the pronounciations of "lives" (the plural noun) and "lives" (the verb).
- Adaptational Job Change:
- Sandy and Plankton are frequently attributed to working at the Krusty Krab (with Mr. Krabs occasionally firing them), despite the fact that the two don't work there in the original cartoon. Downplayed, however, by the fact that they also have their canonical jobs as well.
- Mrs. Puff here goes from being a boating school instructor to a general schoolteacher (albeit still mostly focusing on "driving") and social worker.
- Adaptation Name Change: The Chum Bucket is often called the Cum Bucket, primarily because it's funny.
- Adaptational Personality Change: All the characters use their canon personalities as a base, but the AI ends up assigning them distinctively different personalities than in the original cartoon.
- Patrick is heavily implied to be a serial killer and is also notably more intelligent than his original counterpart, often being the voice of reason to SpongeBob's more wild ideas. He is still lacking intelligence in some areas though. Like Squidward, he shows signs of multiple personality disorder, with Patback ascending from a quick gag in "Survival of the Idiots" to an entire split personality.
- Squidward varies between being less or more abrasive towards SpongeBob and Patrick and appears to be a manic-depressive drug addict and obsessive conspiracy theorist. He also shows signs of multiple personality disorder (allegedly the result of an incurable brain tumor), not only having "Loudward" as a tulpa but also reading entire episode scripts out loud including other characters' lines.
- SpongeBob is much more willing to stand up to Squidward's insults and is not as clueless about them. He's also more prone to snapping than even his original pre-Flanderization version.
- Sandy is a downplayed example in that, like in her original cartoon, she's one of the smartest of the main cast. That being said, she also Really Gets Around, an aspect definitely not in the original cartoon.
- Larry in the original cartoon is a Nice Guy and not much beyond that. AI Sponge turns him into a Chaotic Stupid menace who only explains his exploits as "livin' like Larry".
- Plankton is still obsessed with stealing the Krabby Patty secret formula, but isn't as blatantly evil (ineffectual or otherwise) and seems to be on good terms with the rest of the cast. The AI is also known to misinterpret the meaning of said secret formula, resulting in Plankton's motivations and goals shifting occasionally. As of Rehydrated, he's also often reduced to a gibbering lunatic subject to Pokémon Speak and Black Speech due to his abbreviation-based stroke triggers.
- Squilliam still maintains his haughty, disdainful attitude, but unlike in canon where most of it was directed at Squidward, here he treats everyone alike with equal contempt. He'll also occasionally slip Friendly Enemy territory, to the point where one sketch had him outright declare his love for Squidward.
- Pearl is downright obsessed with Finland, to the point it's either her favorite place, a word she shouts to annoy others, or something that can be made into a stroke command.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Plankton appears to be more amiable towards Mr. Krabs, despite being his archenemy and continuing to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula.
- Pearl is inexplicably SpongeBob's daughter rather than Mr. Krabs'. Subverted; she is still Mr. Krabs' daughter and he merely disowned her and is gaslighting everyone into thinking she's SpongeBob's daughter because he doesn't want to pay for her medical bills for "low poly-itis". It doesn't help that Mr. Krabs also disowned Pearl for being a lesbian.
- Skits frequently toy around with who Karen, Plankton's wife, is in a relationship with. One frequent option has her as the wife or ex of Mr. Krabs instead.
- Adaptational Sexuality:
- Unlike in the original where SpongeBob does not show any romantic or sexual interest towards any other person, here he is bisexual, often times talking about his attraction to, or sexual acts he does with men and/or women. Among the main cast, Patrick and Sandy are the most likely to engage in sexual acts with SpongeBob, though he is shown hooking up with other people and even willing to participate in orgies.
- In the AI_CARTOON stream, Pearl explicitly comes out as a lesbian, much to Mr. Krabs' chagrin. This was carried over to AI Sponge Rehydrated.
- Addled Addict/Functional Addict: Mr. Krabs switches between these at random, sometimes managing well despite his addiction to
ketamine, and sometimes straight-up dying from an overdose. - A.I. Breaker:
- A somewhat literal example: savvy viewers found out that, by having Loudward perform an action that ends with an asterisknote , they can give Loudward a "stroke" on command.
Squidward: INJECTS HEROIN-NUH-NUH-NUHN. NUH-NUH-NUH-NUH-NUAH-NUH-NUH-NNNNNNNNNNN-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWAWAWAWAWAWA...- In Rehydrated, it was quickly discovered that Plankton's voice glitches out whenever he ends a sentence with an abbreviation. Cue several prompts getting him to say stuff like "Dr. Jr.". This can even devolve into obnoxious Black Speech similar to Brian's strokes in AI Peter, and the same can occasionally be done with Loudward.
- Also in Rehydrated, having the French Narrator say "SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS" will cause him to yell SpongeBob's name in a Large-Ham Announcer tone and have a minor stroke.
- A somewhat literal example: savvy viewers found out that, by having Loudward perform an action that ends with an asterisknote , they can give Loudward a "stroke" on command.
- Art Evolution: The AI_CARTOON stream uses much more nicely textured, high-resolution models for the characters (except for Pearl, for some reason, whose model looks straight out of a PlayStation game).
- Ascended Extra: Patback was nothing more than a quick gag in "Survival of the Idiots". In Rehydrated, while he isn't a "back-puppet" anymore due to technical limitations, he's a recurring pseudo-character and a split personality and/or alter-ego for Patrick.
- Audience Participation: Topics can be suggested in the official Discord server, and people can donate real money to have a background fish show up in their name.
- Battle Rapping: Mr. Krabs and Plankton have engaged in this multiple times. The AI will usually attempt to actually come up with rhymes that make sense to... varying degrees of success.
- Bilingual Bonus: For no reason at all, prompts can have characters speaking in various languages other than English (the main language of the stream), horribly mispronouncing most words with their usual American accentsnote — even unromanized Chinese and Japanese. They also still usually refer to each other by their English names instead of the many Dub Name Changes from the official foreign dubs.note The French Narrator (obviously) is the most prone to this, as he will either pepper his dialogue with French stock phrases or have entire lines of dialogue in "French" (really just French, mispronounced as if it were English, with his French accent).Plankton: Vita tua finita est, Spongiboie, trada mihi secretae formulae Krusty Krab antequam vita tuam finiam. O SpongeBob, tua opera me non delectat. Quomodo potes tam laetus esse in stultitia tua? Cibus quod parasti est insulsus et populus magnopere desiderat aliquid maius! Quamdiu sustinebo haec ludibria? (has a stroke)
- Black Speech: Plankton's "Dr. Jr." strokes are best described as unintelligible, extremely loud and unpleasant buzzing gibberish, and are treated both in- and out-of-universe like something is seriously wrong with him.
- Body Horror: Squidward often cracks his dick in half repeatedly (as per his spoken dialogue), suffering from a very long and (as usual) loud stroke after each instance that sounds like he's screaming in agony.
- Most characters hit by boats just go flying (and later on, a stock smacking sound effect plays.) Loudward has this happen too, but a later update made it so his model breaks as well, resulting in this.◊
- Most characters hit by boats just go flying (and later on, a stock smacking sound effect plays.) Loudward has this happen too, but a later update made it so his model breaks as well, resulting in this.
- Bolt of Divine Retribution: One of many "fun commands" available to Rehydrated server boosters lets them smite characters with lightning. If the speaking character is struck, it also scrambles the letters in their subtitles.
- Broken Record: Characters often tend to repeat the same sentence over and over again or engage in circular conversations. Similar to the stream's strokes, commenters will occasionally refer to this as "dementia".Squidward: SNIFFS COCAINE. SNIFFS COCAINE. SNIFFS COCAINE. SNIFFS COCAINE. SNIFFS COCAINE. SNIFFS COCAINE...
- Gary's only voice-line is a series of meows, regardless of whether or not his dialogue changes. Justified, as he's essentially an underwater cat. The AI_CARTOON reboot gives him more varied meows.
- Character Catchphrase:
- Loudward has a ton of these: "2006 HONDA CIVIC", "August 12, 2036. The heat death of the universe," "sniffs cocaine*",note "injects heroin*",note and "*cracks dick in half*". Rehydrated adds "Can we please" as a way that he starts many of his sentences.
- In Rehydrated, "Dr. Jr." became Plankton's catchphrase after viewers realized that his AI voice struggles with abbreviations.
- Crappy Carnival: In one AI Sponge Rehydrated segment, Mr. Krabs brings back Krabby Land, but goes one step further and rebrands it as a Willy Wonka theme park and (ironically) creates A.I.-Generated Artwork for it.
- Deadpan Snarker: A very common staple of ''Rehydrated"; if there's a chance for anyone to snark at the other for something, the characters will jump at the occasion.
- Depending on the Writer: As the user-submitted prompts influence character behavior, this is a given.
- "Loudward" fluctuates between merely being Squidward himself and being a separate entity, usually offscreen. On the rare occasions that "Squidward" and "Loudward" both have what is intended to be separate dialogue during a segment, it simply manifests as Squidward talking to himself. The AI_CARTOON stream somehow came up with the weird explanation that Loudward is an in-universe cartoon superhero with sound powers voiced by Squidward himself.
- Deteriorates Into Gibberish: Sometimes, one of the characters may stop speaking properly and start speaking gibberish. These are affectionally referred to as "strokes" by fans.
- Disproportionate Retribution: At one point, Loudward has his dick cracked in half for teleporting into the Krusty Krab, which he reacts to with the usual agony stroke.
- Dramatic Pause: In the original streams, characters pronounce Mr. Krabs' and Mrs. Puff's names as "Mr. Krabs" and "Mrs. Puff", similar to "the original Starwalker". This results in some unintentional Punctuated! For! Emphasis! moments. While this was corrected for the most part in Rebooted and Rehydrated, Perch Perkins tends to pronounce their names in this way.SpongeBob: Sorry! Mister! Krabs?Squidward: GOODBEE! MISTER! KRABS!
- Drives Like Crazy: Fishes riding boatmobiles tend to... not have the best pathfinding skills. They'll always veer off the road, into buildings, and into characters.
- Dysfunction Junction: Given that the characters interact in erratic ways and suffer from strokes, dementia and multiple personality disorder on occasion, this version of Bikini Bottom clearly doesn't have the best mental health infrastructure. One episode even has the characters participate in a stroke contest, resulting in all of them having to be rushed to the hospital afterwards.
- The End Is Nigh: Loudward has a tendency to predict that some kind of apocalypse will occur on a random day. The most well-known example is "August 12 2036. The heat death of the universe." That being said, he's also supposedly stopped numerous apocalypse scenarios from happening on multiple different occasions!
- Flanderization: Plankton's obsession with stealing the Krabby Patty secret formula is turned way up in the AI_CARTOON streams, to the point that he mentions it or at least says the words "secret formula" in almost all of his appearances.
- Flashback Stares: Mrs. Puff will sometimes have War flashbacks, saying "Flashbacks of the War" as if she is experiencing this. One segment consists of nothing but her repeating the phrase.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Look closely at the Krusty Krab's menu and you'll notice that it seems to be AI-generated itself, with nonsensical menu items such as "Coral Birs" and "KRUSTY".
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Bubble Bass, on account of being a snobbish, unpleasant Fat Bastard, just like in canon.
- Funny Background Event: The sight of a boatmobile plowing into one of the characters is a frequent source of this.
- Furry Confusion: Both sentient and non-sentient versions of the characters' species exist, such as Mr. Krabs owning a farm of non-sentient crabs.
- Guest Fighter: The Impostor appears as a regular cast member in the AI_CARTOON stream.
- Hate Sink: Much like in the original cartoon series, Bubble Bass tends to be one in Rehydrated, but to a worse degree as user topics that involve him frequently paint him as an unlikable Stereotypical Nerd with incel and Otaku traits.
- Hypocritical Humor: Loudward has the loudest voice among the cast but is always complaining about other characters making too much noise and talking loudly.
- Informed Species: The AI can't seem to get the characters' species straight, calling them everything from humans to each other's species (such as calling SpongeBob a crab). Squidward is also more often referred to as a squid than an octopus.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: A Rehydrated sketch has SpongeBob spike Krabby Patties with heroin, one of which land Squidward in the hospital. He gets away with this for 25 years before Mr. Krabs finally stops him and puts him behind bars, just as Squidward recovers.
- Made of Iron: Getting hit by cars does not harm any of the characters, though it does cause Squidward to convulse on the ground and screws up his model's geometry.
- Mister Seahorse: One "Rehydrated" sketch has Larry giving birth to his and Plankton's baby. Even the Krusty Krew are taken aback by this sudden development.
- Mood Whiplash: Prompts can go from such things as Patrick offering sex to Sandy, to an existential talk about death between SpongeBob and Patrick, to Squidward talking about the specifics of the 2006 Honda Civic, with no foreshadowing for any of this. Justified, as the AI is picking random prompts.
- Musical Episode: When not sniping at each other or discussing crude, crazy topics, the SpongeBob characters will occasionally perform karaoke of a requested song in front of an audience of fish at Goofy Goober's Ice Cream Party Boat. This includes songs from The SpongeBob Musical, as a
Recursive Adaptation of sorts. - My Little Panzer: In the AI_CARTOON stream, Mr. Krabs runs an in-universe Chainsaw Man Krabby Meal toy promotion at the Krusty Krab (for ages 3 and up!), as a parody of the Spy X Family Happy Meal promotion in Japan around the same time. The toys are all extremely dangerous, such as the Denji toy having a real working chainsaw, and are part of one of Plankton's many schemes to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula by causing a moral panic over the toys. Patrick gets excited about the toys and ends up killing himself playing with them.
- Mythology Gag:
- Despite the randomness, quite a few segments will allude to the events of the original show. For example, one segment has the characters reminiscing about the events of The Spongebob Squarepants Movie.
- The infamous "my leg!" sound clip was eventually added to the streams, playing whenever a background fish would get hit by a boatmobile.
- In Rehydrated, Patrick will occasionally speak as "Patback" from "Survival of the Idiots", but because his model can't deform to produce a disturbing "face" on his back, Patback becomes a more mundane alter-ego.
- Natural End of Time: A common date in the streams is August 12th, 2036, which is supposedly when the heat death of the universe will occur.
- Negative Continuity: Big events such as Mr. Krabs dying from a ketamine overdose, SpongeBob impregnating Sandy or Squidward legally changing his name to "Loudward" often happen and the following segments treat them as if they never happened.
- No Fourth Wall: Characters sometimes talk about being in a simulation, about the stream in general, or the chat members, the last of which often crosses over with Take That, Audience!.
- No Indoor Voice:
- Squidward's voice is notably louder compared to the rest of the characters, hence why he is often called Loudward. Sometimes, Loudward's voice can break and become even louder.
- Plankton also has an unusually loud voice, and can even randomly break into yelling his words angrily on top of that. Hence why he tends to be called "Plankloud" or "Loudton".
- Occidental Otaku: Random characters (usually SpongeBob and Patrick) will occasionally be portrayed as avid anime fans and discuss their waifus, with SpongeBob admitting at one point that his waifu is Sailor Moon and Patrick saying that his is Asuka. Other characters (usually Squidward) will profess their hatred for anime and weeb culture and criticize the weeb character(s) for their behavior, though Squidward does admit at one point to owning a Makima body pillow, much to SpongeBob's jealousy.
- Ominous Fog: A recurring prompt is often heralded with one of the characters mentioning "The fog is coming!" Whether it's merely harmless fog or Fog of Doom depends on the conversation, though it usually skews towards the latter.
- The Pig-Pen: Patrick is even filthier than in the original cartoon, sometimes saying that prefers not to wipe.
- Poisonous Person: In one segment, Mrs. Puff snaps and infects the Krabby Patties at the Krusty Krab with her tetrodotoxin (being a pufferfish). This causes the customers to see pink elephants, or maybe just Mr. Krabs in his scuba gear.
- Pokémon Speak: In order to force his strokes, many episodes of Rehydrated will often restrict Plankton to only be able to say "Dr. Jr." and the like. The AI isn't always consistent with this, and will sometimes have him talk normally later in the episode, even to lament his limited vocabulary.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: As Patback, Patrick emphasizes every word or syllable using periods and uppercase letters JUST.LIKE.THIS., to simulate how strained Patrick's speech was when doing the Patback trick in the original show.
- Ruder and Cruder: Conversation topics often include things well beyond SpongeBob's age rating such as sexual activities, fetishes, drugs, alcohol and murder.
- Running Gag:
- 2006 Honda Civics, of all cars, can pop up as topics during conversations, with them typically attributed to Loudward.
- Numerous dates are referenced as "doomsday dates", with August 12th, 2036 being the most common.
- The secret formula being cum, or it being incorporated into the Krabby Patties in some way.
- Loudward cracking his dick in half and suffering from a stroke, sounding like he is screaming in agony.
- Mrs. Puff occasionally suffering flashbacks of an unspecified war.
- The Industrial Revolution, and its effects on LeBron's legacy, is sometimes mentioned.
- Any random character being revealed to have a successful OnlyFans account (pronounced as "Onlifins" by the characters).
- In the AI_CARTOON stream, BRIAN BLESSED amazing others with his extremely loud voice and accomplishing various feats with it, seeing as he's Loudward's unseen "loud speech therapy" coach.
- In Rehydrated, the vast majority of non-song topics will involve abbreviations such as "Jr." in an attempt to force the characters to have strokes. Most of the time this is done with Plankton, but is seen with other characters as well.
- Also in Rehydrated, the characters participate in a recurring festival known as "Strokefest" where they celebrate simply by having repeated strokes via Trigger Phrases. One such event was reported on by Perch Perkins for Bikini Bottom News (who succumbed to strokes himself), while another was hosted by the French Narrator in the typical SpongeBob SquarePants style... but he introduces the event with a flawless Final Fantasy XIV sponsorship copypasta.
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Sometimes the prompts direct the characters to perform certain actions, but they aren't programmed to do anything other than wander around Bikini Bottom aimlessly, so instead they simply read the action out loud as if it were part of their dialogue.
- Screw Yourself: Patrick breaks off his arm and generates a clone of himself at one point. The two Patricks then proceed to have sex.
- Sensory Abuse: The AI voices can struggle from time to time, sometimes producing noise that will physically hurt any headphone user. Especially whenever Plankton tries ending a sentence with "Jr." Naturally, trolling viewers keep trying to get him to say it.
- Serial Escalation: Going beyond the original stream's boating accidents, the AI_CARTOON stream also features frequently changing weather patterns and the ability for viewers to summon a meteor to destroy Bikini Bottom. Of course, the characters continue their conversations uninterrupted.
- Shown Their Work:
- An unintentional example — one running gag involves Squidward/Loudward cracking his dick in half. The "penis" in some real male octopinote is a detachable arm called a hectocotylus which they use to deliver gametes during mating. Many of them die after it gets detached, which fits with Loudward screaming in pain each time it happens.
- At one point, Patrick cracks his arm off to create and have sex with a clone of himself. In real life, starfish can rip off their arms and regenerate them, while the detached arm can generate another starfish.
- An unintentional example — one running gag involves Squidward/Loudward cracking his dick in half. The "penis" in some real male octopi
- Suddenly Shouting: Inverted; the AI_CARTOON stream has Squidward talk in a much softer, depressed-sounding tone of voice. In-universe, this was apparently because he wanted to be more considerate of others, but he would also later (unsuccessfully) take lessons from BRIAN BLESSED on how to be loud again. He will still occasionally break out into a loud, distorted voice, however.
- Suddenly Voiced: Sometimes, Gary actually gets his lines translated instead of them just reading as a variation of "meow." Despite this, he still says his one and only voice clip. Occasionally, he also speaks in proper English using his dream voice from "Sleepy Time".
- Synthetic Voice Actor: Everyone, considering that the show is AI-generated. The voices are text-to-speech Uberduck AI models constructed from the characters' actual voices from the show, resulting in very accurate but sometimes unnatural voices with some (absolutely hilarious) pronunciation oddities.
- Take That!:
- Paramount is often the subject of jokes by the community after the first takedown.
- One Rehydrated segment sees Mr. Krabs rebranding Krabby Land with a Willy Wonka theme, even creating AI-generated artwork for it.
- Taking the Kids: Some Rehydrated news segments involve Perch trying to deliver the news until people bring up how his wife took his kids from his for differing reasons(Ignoring them, Sniffing cocaine, Using the kids college funds on Genshin Impact, etc) and he would break down and end the news segment. Sometimes Karen of all people would be the Ex in question, mocking him for taking the kids.
- Talking to Themself: Some characters can have conversations with themselves, either due to the lack of characters, the AI bugging out, or a combination of those, with chat often commenting "schizo" as if the characters were suffering from schizophrenia (specifically, dissociative identity disorder). A frequent example has the AI treat Squidward and Loudward as two separate characters, giving them dialogue with each other. Likewise with Patrick and Patback or Mr. Krabs and "Murr Krabs", culminating in a segment where each of the three characters gets into a brawl with his alter ego.
- The Vietnam Vet: Sometimes, either Squidward or Mr. Krabs talks about how they fought in the Vietnam War.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Characters can often die or already be dead in prompts, with Mr. Krabs dying from a ketamine overdose or Gary being euthanized being constant occurrences. However, the lack of continuity and plotline means that characters will be fine in the next prompt, with these occurrences merely being random events.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Squilliam has developed an odd obsession with turkey sandwiches, based on how a different Squidward-like octopus mentioned the food as an insult in "Squidville".
- Verbal Tic: Every character has a few consistent pronunciation quirks, most notably treating every instance of a period as a full stop and spelling out ordinal numbers.Squidward: THERE SHALL BE AN ARMED REVOLT ON WASHINGTON D... Cnote ON JULY 27-T-H,note 2023!!! There shall be an armed revolt on Washington D... C on July 27-T-H, 2023! THERE SHALL BE AN ARMED REVOLT ON WASHINGTON D... C ON JULY 27-T-H, 2023!!!
