"All your base are belong to us" (often shortened to "All Your Base", "AYBABTU", or simply "AYB") is a broken English phrase that became an Internet phenomenon or meme in 2000–2002. The text comes from the opening cutscene of the 1991 European Sega Mega Drive version of the video game Zero Wing[1] by Toaplan, which was poorly translated from Japanese.
The meme developed from this as the result of a GIF animation depicting the opening text[1] which was initially popularized on the Something Awful message forums,[2] leading to a phenomenon of surreal altered images depicting the meme in everyday scenes, placement of the text in real world locations, and the text and images being set to hardcore techno music by the band The Laziest Men on Mars. Other Zero Wing phrases, including "For great justice!" and "Move zig!", popularized in the same animated GIF and video, also acquired some degree of notoriety and popular re-use within internet culture.
Contents |
| Original script | Original English translation | More accurate English translation |
|---|---|---|
| 機関士：何者かによって、爆発物が仕掛けられたようです。 | Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb. | Engineer: An unknown assailant has planted a bomb! |
| 通信士：メインスクリーンにビジョンが来ます。 | Operator: Main screen turn on. | Radio Operator: Video is being routed to the main screen. |
| CATS：連邦政府軍のご協力により、君達の基地は、全てCATSがいただいた。 | CATS: All your base are belong to us. | CATS: With the help of Federation Forces, all your bases have been taken over by CATS. |
| CATS：せいぜい残り少ない命を、大切にしたまえ・・・・。 | CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time. | CATS: Treasure what little time remains of your lives. |
| 艦長：我々の未来に希望を・・・ | Captain: For great justice. | Captain: Let's hope for our future... |
The phrase or some variation of lines from the game has appeared in numerous articles, books, comics, clothing, movies, radio shows, songs, television shows, video games, webcomics, and websites. Notable mentions include:
In late 2000, Kansas City computer programmer and part-time DJ Jeffrey Ray Roberts of the Gabber band The Laziest Men on Mars made a techno dance track, "Invasion of the Gabber Robots", which remixed some of the Zero Wing video game music by Tatsuya Uemura with a voiceover phrase "All your base are belong to us."[3]
On February 23, 2001, Wired provided an early report on the phenomenon, covering it from the Flash animation to its spread through e-mail and Internet forums to T-shirts bearing the phrase.[4]
On April 1, 2003, in Sturgis, Michigan, seven people aged 17 to 20 placed signs all over town that read, "All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time." They claimed to be playing an April Fool's joke but most people who saw the signs were unfamiliar with the phrase. Many residents were upset that the signs appeared while the U.S. was at war with Iraq and police chief Eugene Alli said the signs could be "a borderline terrorist threat depending on what someone interprets it to mean."[5]
In February 2004, North Carolina State University students and members of TheWolfWeb in Raleigh, North Carolina exploited a web-based service provided for local schools and businesses to report a weather-related closing to display the phrase within a news ticker on a live news broadcast on News 14 Carolina.[6]
On June 1, 2006, the video hosting website YouTube was taken down temporarily for maintenance. The phrase "ALL YOUR VIDEO ARE BELONG TO US" appeared below the YouTube logo as a placeholder while the site was down. Some users believed the site had been hacked, leading the host to add the message "No, we haven't been hacked. Get a sense of humor."[7]
On December 2, 2011, the team "All Your Shreds Are Belong to U.S." won the DARPA Shredder Challenge that involves reassembling 5 documents from shredded fragments in order to answer questions about the coded messages.[8][9][10][11]