Location from SpongeBob SquarePants by Stephen Hillenburg / Nickelodeon
An underwater city in the Pacific Ocean — suburban, absurdist, and surprisingly functional despite being full of people making catastrophically bad decisions at all times.
Bikini Bottom operates on a logic adjacent to but not quite matching the real world — fish eat at restaurants, go to school, hold jobs, and panic about monsters in ways indistinguishable from any mid-century suburban American city. The fact that it is on the ocean floor is treated as unremarkable. Its defining quality is the way it escalates. A small problem becomes a large problem becomes a catastrophic problem within a single afternoon. The residents react appropriately to each escalation and have apparently forgotten the previous one by morning. The city is always roughly intact. The community is resilient in the specific way of people who have never considered moving. The Krusty Krab is its commercial heart. Conch Street is its residential center. Goo Lagoon is where everyone goes when they need to remember that it is actually nice down here.
A mid-size underwater city spread across the ocean floor, anchored by the Bikini Atoll above. The skyline is a mix of dome-topped buildings, anchor-shaped hotels, pineapple houses, and Easter Island head homes. The streets are wide enough for boatmobiles — vehicles that function like cars and need to be driven, despite being underwater. The water is always slightly green-gray. The ambient light is diffuse and even.
Also known as: Bikini Bottom, The Bottom