The phrase is a line of subtitled dialogue from the introduction to
Zero Wing.
"
All your base are belong to us" (often shortened to "
All Your Base", "
AYBABTU", or simply "
AYB") is a
broken English phrase that was central to an
Internet phenomenon, or
meme, in 2000–2002, with the spread of a
Flash animation that depicted the slogan. The text is taken from the opening
cut scene of the 1991
European
Sega Mega Drive version of the
video game Zero Wing by
Toaplan which was poorly translated by
Sega of Europe. It was popularized by the
Something Awful message forums.
Transcript and translations
A summarized
GIF animation of the scene.
Examples
It appears from the original text that CATS may be the name of an organization, not just of the particular cyborg villain appearing on the screen.
History
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.
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."
In February 2004,
North Carolina State University students and members of
The Wolf Web 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.
In popular culture
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:
- 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."
- In an episode titled "Anthology of Interest II" in season 4 of the TV show Futurama, a space invader from planet Nintendu 64 mumbles "All your base are belong to us".
- In Warcraft 3 "ALLYOURBASEAREBELONGTOUS" is a cheat to win the current game.
- In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 you can get a title that has the words "all your base" on it.
- Aggrotech project Combichrist has a song "All Your Bass Belongs To Us" on their "What The F*** Is Wrong With You People?" CD
- One of the Phrases of the Terra-Tron in StarCraft 2 goes; "All your base are belong to us".
- In Empire Earth, it is used as a cheat to boost all materials and gold by 1000.
See also
