Mr. Krabs memes, explained

Mr. Krabs has been part of SpongeBob SquarePants lore almost since the beginning—not even three minutes into the pilot episode on May 1, 1999. With so much material to choose from, there's not one simple Mr. Krabs meme to choose from—several different Mr. Krabs memes are money on the internet, from episodes dating back almost to the beginning.

Here's a rundown on Mr. Krabs and the best-known memes to bear his image.

Who is Mr. Krabs?

According to the Fandom site, which chronicles SpongeBob SquarePants and many other shows, Eugene H. Krabs is "one of the ten main characters in the SpongeBob SquarePants franchise. He is a miserly red crab who lives in an anchor with his daughter, Pearl, who is a young whale. He is the owner and founder of the Krusty Krab restaurant as well as the employer of both SpongeBob and Squidward."

(If you're a fan of the show, this will make more sense than if you're not.)

In the pilot episode, SpongeBob seeks employment at the Krusty Krab, and Mr. Krabs sends him in search of "a seemingly nonexistent hydro-dynamic spatula" as a condition of employment. SpongeBob is able to produce one, returning to the restaurant in time to serve a throng of hungry anchovies who have converged on the restaurant.

Though Mr. Krabs is depicted as loving money above all else, he also serves as a sort of father figure to the child-like SpongeBob.

What are the best Mr. Krabs memes?

Though Mr. Krabs appears in myriad still images and GIF forms in multiple social media platforms, there are several consistent Mr. Krabs memes that have endured. Here's a review of the best.

The confused Mr. Krabs meme

This meme, which focuses on Mr. Krabs in a spinning room, is used to communicate confusion or disorientation, and popular GIF site Giphy has a particularly dramatic version of it.

According to Know Your Meme, the initial confused Mr. Krabs meme appeared to be "a manipulated screenshot from the Spongebob Squarepants episode "Patty Hype," in which Mr. Krabs is surrounded by a mob of angry residents."

X (formerly Twitter) user isthatahmed tweeted the image on Jan. 30, 2016, along with the caption, "When you just wake up from a nap and your parents already yelling at you."

The Mr. Krabs squeaky boots memes (and remixes)

Internet denizens seized on a September 1999 episode, in which Mr. Krabs attempts to get rid of SpongeBob's squeaky boots a la the Edgar Allan Poe short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," to make this meme. With it, creators did a series of remixes that got some attention.

According to Know Your Meme, that included this YouTube video with a distorted version of Owl City's "Fireflies" swapped in for the squeaky boots.

Though this version didn't exactly take off in page views, other permutations did, like this video replacing the squeaky boots sound with a voice intoning, "Boneless pizza."

Mr. Krabs memes involving money

Of course, Mr. Krabs provides a convenient character to express an unbridled love of money. Images available via various online meme generators include Mr. Krabs showering in money, Mr. Krabs telling an interviewer, "Hello, I like money," and one with his eyes lighting up as money's presented to him, with a caption reading, "Rent!"

As long as SpongeBob is in the public eye, thanks in part to syndication that's been active since 2007, Mr. Krabs will be relevant. And then, therefore, so will Mr. Krabs memes.

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