SBM/SBC Feud
The SBM/SBC Feud refers to two different periods of tensions between SpongeBuddy Mania and The SpongeBob Community. The first began on February 20, 2010, and lasted into the deeper end of 2012, before ultimately subsiding. The second began in the latter half of 2018 as a result of decisions made by the SBM staff in the wake of the Third SBC Renaissance, and passed a point of no return in December 2018, when many SBC members were banned from SBM.
First feud (2009-2012)
When it became apparent that the SpongeBob boards on TV.com were no longer quality forums with corrupt moderators banning and suspending several members for no reason, SpongeBuddy Mania was thought to be the obvious alternative. It was one of the large, active SpongeBob forums on the internet. However, the creation of the TV.com Refuge by that70sguy92 signified the community's need to be independent. The SpongeBob Community was created by terminoob on August 15, 2009 with the intention of serving banned TV.com members. On February 20, 2010, tvguy347 created a topic advertising SBC (while simultaneously bashing SBM). The topic was quickly discarded and replaced with a topic created by PhilipB, where reactions to SBC were negative.
Pokemon Spam Attack and New Rivalry
Main Article: Pokemon Spam Attack
The topic remained dormant until November 25, 2010, when an explosive fight ensued after more advertising efforts from tvguy. PhilipB attempted to create a treaty between SBC and SBM, but with no staff involvement, the treaty did little. The conflict was compared to a previous SBM incident, in which SBM was attacked by an Avatar site. The following day, SBC was ravaged by an attack that resulted in 136 spam posts across the forum. The aftermath of the attack included more flaming on SBM, with SBC being criticized for its use of Forumotion. Another large fight occurred on SBC in the days after the attack. The identity of the hack team remained a secret until several years later, when the team was revealed to be comprised of Mothra, MDPP, Face, and several other SBM members. However, no SBM staff members were involved as initially thought.
In December, SpongeBuddy Mania revealed their new Christmas update, dubbed "SBM v3." Several days later, SBC unleashed V5 Dolphins for SBC. SBC was instantly berated on SBM for supposedly ripping off SBM's ideas, including "Doubloons" and SBM's overall color scheme. When more flame wars persisted on SBM, including a particularly intense exchange between ExKizuna and Mothra, SBM members overwhelmingly declared SBC their new rival.
2011
The new year began with more fights. SpongeDude of SBM weighed in on the issue in another topic that was bombed with a flame war in January 2011. SBM threatened SBC with reporting the site to COPPA unless SBC removed the "School" field on their profiles in an attempt to get the site shut down. After this, however, tensions between the two sites largely halted as SBC's own activity levels began to rise and the staff began to focus on more domestic issues. However, small little events hinting at the rivalry continued, such as jabs at the opposing site posting on each site.
2012-2018
Towards the end of July 2011, SBC was attacked by a hacker. Immediately, SBM became a suspect. Instead of fights, SBM cooperated with SBC and helped in searching for their hacker by searching SBM's entire member database of 3,000+ members. Towards the end of 2011, small fights broke out on SBM when member JCM labeled SBM as "dead." The feud effectively ended in early 2012 when both SBC and SBM underwent renovations in terms of activity, infrastructure, and design.
In 2012, as well as a few times in the years following, SBM was the site of a series of SBC-related conflicts with a then-banned HawkbitAlpha, who was seeking to damage SBC's reputation in various ways.
On August 13th, 2012, several SBMers publicly bashed SBC on the Shoutbox, causing a slight dispute. It was started by BluePikmin11, who was curious on what the SBC vs. SBM war was about, and later apologized for talking about the war and bashing SBC publicly on the Shoutbox. The SBM/SBM feud has in fact become an item of interest on both SBM and SBC to new members, although SBM's Wiki does not record the events, and the threads from the era have both been archived by SBM and SBC's respective staffs.
ssj4gogita4, admin on SBM, became an administrator on SBC in 2012.
In June 2015, a lot of SBM-bashing began occurring on the forums, with some members of both sites chanting 'SBM is trash'. SBM, having entered a period of drama and immaturity, has been called into question of whether or not the site is truly better than SBC. A topic in SBC was created highlighting the differences between both sites, featuring an analysis by an anonymous member.
On August 2, 2015, Storm, Bl4ze, and Purdy spammed a bunch of "100 Reasons" topic on SBM, making members temporarily leave SBM, and go to SBC.
Second feud (2018-2023)
After the Third SBC Renaissance, tensions between the two sites were rekindled in the latter half of 2018, beginning with ssj's refusal to ban Face, Spongetron Robotpants, and Cream for their actions and comments relating to the Renaissance. The new divide between the two sites was made permanent on December 15th, 2018, when more than a dozen members (among them Homie, Aya, Halibut, HawkbitAlpha, BenPaz, RDSP, and Wintermelon43) were banned from SBM for blasting ssj's decision to partially unban MDPP on the forum.
After four years of tension, the second feud was officially brought to a close in February 2023. This was instigated by the arrival of SBM regular Meko1432 to SBC, whose mentions of the divide between the sites led Hawkbit to open a new talk of negotiations with ssj in January. This conference resulted in most of the members banned during the December 2018 purge now being allowed to return to SBM. While many long-time members of SBC still hold SBM at a distance due to these events, and the connection between the two sites may never fully recover as a result, the gap between the two has begun to shrink, with several members choosing to make appearances on SBM.