A viral Facebook post claimed that the address found on Nickelodeon cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants’ driver license is the same address as a building on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, citing this as evidence that “all of these cartoons are tainted by pedophiles. our kids are not safe.”
Jeffrey Epstein owned Little Saint James, an island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, before his death last year. It is alleged that many of the sex crimes Epstein committed took place on the island, leading the FBI to search the island after Epstein’s death.
The address in question appears if a Google search is done for “Little St James theme park.” The listing has been claimed on Google, but it has not been verified. Satellite imagery of the location showed that initially, the “theme park” is actually what was formerly Epstein’s main compound on the island. As of the publication of this article, a second location has been added with the exact same address and business name, this one for a building on an unnamed road on the island of St. Thomas. The “theme park” on Little St. James has nine reviews, all from within the last week, and the listed phone number is for “SpongeBob and the Find Gary hotline.” (Gary is SpongeBob’s pet snail in the television show.) The number was created as part of a promotion for a SpongeBob film.
Google has lax standards in allowing people to list businesses on Google Maps that have led to the platform being “overrun with millions of false business addresses and fake names, according to advertisers, search experts and current and former Google employees” as pointed out in a 2019 Wall Street Journal article. Some of these fake businesses are deliberately intended to deceive Google users, while others are done as jokes. For example, in 2015 one prankster claimed the White House was the location of their fake snowboarding shop named “Edwards Snow Den,” a joking reference to the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. All evidence seems to point toward SpongeBob’s address being found on Epstein’s island as being another one of these practical jokes. There’s nothing to indicate an actual connection between SpongeBob Squarepants and Little St. James exists—124 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom is the address of a pineapple under the sea, not a theme park on Jeffrey Epstein’s island.
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