SpongeBuddy Mania
 The forum index in December 2023 | |
| Site Information | |
|---|---|
| Founders |
Spongey34 Spongedude ssj4gogita4 |
| Founded | January 17, 2005 |
| Consists of | Site, forums, chat |
| Administration | |
| Administrators |
ssj4gogita4 (2005-present) Abney317 (2010-present) Spongey34 (2005-present) spongedude (2005-present) PinkPugPrincess (2023-present) |
| Moderators |
Spongie33 (????-present) MattTheSpongeFanatic (????-present) Whisper (2018-present) |
SpongeBuddy Mania is a merged fansite and forum formed on January 17, 2005, created by the union of SpongeBob Mania (founded by ssj4gogita4 on June 6, 2003) and SpongeBuddy (founded by Spongey34 and Spongedude on April 3, 2004). It remains an active player in the SpongeBob fandom, and maintains a distant relationship with The SpongeBob Community.
History
SpongeBob Mania and SpongeBuddy were created independently of each other on June 6, 2003 and April 3, 2004 respectively. ssj4gogita4 and Spongey34 were both co-administrators on SpongeBuddy, alongside spongedude. Over the course of a year, both sites grew and flourished, offering forums and a site full of content. 10,000 posts on SpongeBuddy were reached by August 5, 2004, with a fan fiction archive being added shortly added. Moderator elections were held in December as the site continued to expand. A week after the mod elections, a power surge knocked the site offline, all of the data lost, with the most recent backup from October.
SpongeBob Mania and SpongeBuddy merged on January 17, 2005 to form SpongeBuddy Mania. The merged site continues to grow. By December 23, 2005, 80,000 posts had amassed on the forums and 800 members had been reached. The forums and site explode in 2006, activity skyrocketing. A jump is made from 80,000 posts to 200,000 posts on December 20, 2006. Another 100k posts are added in 2007, SBM reaching 300,000 posts by November 23, 2007. A special advent event, called the 25 Days of Christmas, is held for the first time in December 2008, in which pieces of content are released every day leading up to Christmas.
400,000 posts are reached by 2009. An overhaul of both of the site and the forums is launched at Christmas 2010. However, the forums nosedive in 2011 (this era is later referred to by newer members as The Void, sharing the same name as the period years prior in which SpongeBuddy lost its content during the power outage). The number of people on the forums rapidly dwindles.
On January 1, 2012, the main site is updated. 500,000 posts is finally reached in August 2012, 3 years after reaching 400,000. 25 Days of Christmas occurs for the first time since 2008 during Christmas 2012, and activity begins to pick up on the forums heading into 2013, with endorsements from animation community figures such as Pieguyrulz spurring a new wave of growth on the site. The forums hit 4,000 members in April 2013. 600,000 posts is met on August 28, 2013, marking the first time 100k posts were made in a single year since 2007. Many of the newer members in this wave of activity also register as members of The SpongeBob Community, and later become regulars of the latter site.
Several years after the release of SBM V6 in August 2013, the forum was moved from IPS to Xenforo in early 2019, a software with which it has remained since. While much less active now than in its peaks of activity in the late 2000s and mid-2010s, SBM remains to this day, with its newest admin PinkPugPrincess acting as the site's unofficial figurehead.