All Your Base Are Belong To Us

HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN !!

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

"All your base are belong to us" is a quote from the intro to an early-90's arcade game called Zero Wing. (The link above is an animation of the intro) In December 2000, it became fashionable to post retouched images featuring this, and other quotes, similar to the "Mr T vs <foo>" craze of 1999. Now (February 2001), the phenomenon is just reaching critical mass - I first heard of it three days ago, and since then I have encountered it from four totally unrelated sources (an online journal, on InternetRelayChat, a SlashDot posting, and now on wiki).

This too shall pass, just like http://www.ikissyou.org/

Speaking of which: what happens WhenMemesCollide?

This meme is particularly potent, and I think it owes to the video. Were it not for the video, it would be forgotten already.

The video does this for the meme:

Many of us have heard of it before, and seen the screenshots. Maybe our original reaction was "uh, yeah, it's Engrish, whatever." But this time around, all we remember is that we've seen it before, it's familiar, it's friendly, and we're eager to see what's been done with it.
It starts by playing the game introduction as it might appear on a real Sega Genesis, were the Genesis version slightly different (and with voice). This makes it real, and watching the script play out makes us feel almost as if we ourselves had discovered the catch phrase.
Catchy tune lifted from the original game. Lots of repetition, but mixed with just enough variety that it doesn't get completely tiresome.
We are bombarded with photographs, and each one links the meme with another familiar, innocent meme. Cigarette cartons, fortune cookies, road signs, and political figures are among the memes that are suddenly inextricably linked with the catch phrase. Suddenly, anything we think of is less than two degrees of separation from the video.
Gaming geeks naturally become excited about something that hits so many of their ain't-it-cool nerves, and emotional excitement enhances the way one remembers events.

Anyway, I think the above link has been taken down, it's being mirrored at http://all.your.base.are.belong.to.skizzers.org/

I'm glad it came along, otherwise we'd all be looking at VinnaKinkyHatt.

-- NickBensema

(it's years after this page was first written, and now a slew of more annoying InternetMemes? have come up.)

Zero Wing is a Sega Genesis conversion from the original Japanese Coin Op and is quoted as "the worst translated game in history". More details at http://simmoril.nuintari.net/articles/aybabtu.shtml. A fine example of letting the tea boy take care of localization.

The phenomenon of AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs has taken particular hold among the online FirstPersonShooter gaming community where "yU0 = f4g0t" passes for some damn witty dialogue. Makes a great spray logo in CounterStrike.

Like all internet crazes, theres a sales pitch. You can buy a T-shirt, mug and mousemat if you want to take it too far: http://www.cafepress.com/dreldarion/ http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/apparel/3777.shtml

I think part of the appeal of the meme is that you have seen many of the images before - the originals have been emailed around because they were amusing in their own right. So seeing them again triggers your memory, but leaves the possibility that something you are already familiar with had a hidden meaning you missed the first time.

I never played the game, but there is something about this that is just too cool! Here's a site with hi-res pictures used in the shockwave video: http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase

An mp3 with higher quality audio than the music track in the flash animation was once available from mp3.com. You know what you doing!

Invasion of the Gabber Robots http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/190/the_laziest_men_on_mars.html [NOTE: This link no longer has anything related to "All Your Base."]

Download it now - For Great Justice!! -- CarstenKlapp

History on http://www.tvsian.com/hubert/article.php?sid=1. I didn't realize this was such a recent phenomenon!

This silly thing provided at least one use in my life. I was playing a RolePlayingGame the other day and we couldn't think of a name for our super hero group. Eventually someone suggested ForGreatJustice and it fit.

I know a guy who posts to Usenet and sprinkles "ZIG" in his E-mail address to foil spambots. His .signature says: To send me E-mail, take off every "zig" !!

Isn't that StevenNewton?

  find / -name "*your_base*" -exec chown us:us {} \;

  belong_to_us(X) :- your(X).
  your(base).
  ?- belong_to_us(base).

  Yes

  UPDATE your_base SET belong='us' WHERE belong='you'

  for ( i=0 ; i< MAX_BASE ; i++ ) if ( belongTo[base[i]] == YOU ) belongTo[base[i]] = US ;

  map { $bases{$_}{'belongto'} = 'us' } grep { $bases{$_}{'belongto'} eq 'you' }  keys %bases;

  forall b : Base
your(b) -> belong_to(b, us)

  us.base.extend(your.base)
  your.base = []

  C:\> move c:\mydocu~1\*.bas c:\windows

  Iterator baseIter = you.getBases().iterator();
  while (baseIter.hasNext()) {
Base base = baseIter.next();
base.setOwner(this);
this.addBase(base);
baseIter.remove();
  }


#!/bin/sh +x
year=ad2101
war=beginning
movezig(){ echo Move 'ZIG' $1;shift;everyzig=$@;};
takeoff(){ movezig $@;};
move(){ while test -n "$everyzig";do takeoff $everyzig;done;}
usage(){ echo You know what you doing.;}
FGJ(){ echo For Great Justice.;}
everyzig="1 2 3"
if [ -e $signal ] && [ -O $mainscreen ];then cat $signal>>$mainscreen; fi
if [ "$war" == "beginning" ];then usage;move $everyzig;FGJ;fi
exit 0

if [ -e $signal ];then cat $signal>>$mainscreen; fi
if [ -e $CATS ];then echo "What you say !!"; fi
grep "$CATS.*(HA\ )+" $mainscreen 1>/dev/null
movezig(){shift};takeoff(){movezig $everyzig};while $everyzig;do zig=$1;takeoff $zig;done
echo "For Great Justice."
usage() { echo "You know what you doing." }



#/usr/bin/perl
if ($signal) { open mainscreen<<$signal; print <<"Main screen turn off" }
if ($signal =~ /^$CATS/) { print "What you say !!" }
$mainscreen =~ s/$CATS.*(HA\ )+//g
movezig() { shift @everyzig }
while @everyzig { takeoff($zig, "For Great Justice."); movezig() }
usage() { print "You know what you doing." }


        data Owner = You | Us
             deriving (Show,Eq)

        type BaseName? = String

        data Base = B BaseName? Owner
            deriving (Show)

        allYourBase :: [Base] -> [Base]
        allYourBase = map (\(B n o) -> if o == You then (B n Us) else (B n o))

The JargonFile has an entry for AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/A/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us.html

It's especially stinging, considering I'm a JeffKay fan. -- AnonymousCoward

There are some similarities between this and Fight Kikkoman (much-loved Japanese Flash video, Based upon a Soya Sauce brand known as "Kikkoman".)

Does this video come from Japan, or from the west?

People I know used to use this phrase in conversation in the Math faculty of U.Waterloo around 1998, 1999. Not only is it funny, it will stand forever as an example of how one weakness in the chain of your software development process can adversely affect the usability of the software. Occasionally, after encountering something particularly dysfunctional in the processes we deal with at work, someone drops this phrase.

The interesting thing about it, to me, is that because of it, Zero Wing has gained a sort of pop culture immortality among gamers. *chuckles* If Zero wing had lived on its own quality as a game, everyone would have forgotten about it a long long time ago. It seems ironic, that a failure of sorts can lead to such a success.

Yep:

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.: -- John Kenneth Galbraith

(p.s. What's LojbanLanguage for "AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs"?)(RO LEDO JICMU DU LE SE PONSE BE MI'A has been suggested.)

See: PlanNineFromOuterSpace, WilliamHung?

CategoryIdiom