Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/1991-in-video-gaming

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

All your base are belong to us

Internet meme from a video game

Internet meme from a video game

"All your base are belong to us" is an Internet meme based on a poorly translated phrase from the opening cutscene of the Japanese video game Zero Wing. The phrase first appeared on the European release of the 1991 Sega Mega Drive conversion of the 1989 Japanese arcade game.

By the early 2000s, a GIF animation depicting the opening text became widespread on web forums. A music video accompanied by a techno remix of the clip, originally posted on the website Newgrounds, gained popularity and became a derivative Internet meme in its own right. The original meme has been referenced many times in media outside of the forums.

The original phrase in Japanese, uttered by the enigmatic antagonist "CATS", is "君達の基地は、全てCATSがいただいた" (Hepburn Romanization: Kimitachi no kichi wa subete CATS ga itadaita), which can be translated more accurately as "All of your bases have been taken over by CATS" (see the transcript below).

''Zero Wing'' transcript

Below are some other examples of text as it appeared in the poorly translated English release, alongside a more accurate translation from the original Japanese.

Original scriptBasic translation from JapaneseEnglish version of the game
機関士：{{ruby-ja何者なにもの}}かによって、{{ruby-ja爆発物ばくはつぶつ}}が{{ruby-ja仕掛しか}}けられたようです。Engineer: It appears someone has planted explosives.Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
通信士：メインスクリーンにビジョンが{{ruby-ja来き}}ます。Communications Operator: Incoming visual on the main screen.Operator: Main screen turn on.
CATS：{{ruby-ja連邦政府れんぽうせいふ}}{{ruby-ja軍ぐん}}のご{{ruby-ja協力きょうりょく}}により、**{{ruby-ja君達きみたち}}の{{ruby-ja基地きち}}は、 {{ruby-ja全すべ}}てCATSがいただいた**。CATS: With the help of Federation government forces, **CATS has taken all of your bases.**CATS: **All your base are belong to us.**
CATS：せいぜい{{ruby-ja残のこ}}り{{ruby-ja少すく}}ない{{ruby-ja命いのち}}を、{{ruby-ja大切たいせつ}}にしたまえ・・・・。CATS: Treasure what little time you have left to live...CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
艦長：たのむぞ。ZIG！！Captain: We're counting on you, ZIG!!Captain: Move 'ZIG'.
艦長：{{ruby-ja我われ}}{{ruby-ja々われ}}の{{ruby-ja未来みらい}}に{{ruby-ja希望きぼう}}を・・・Captain: May there be hope for our future...Captain: For great justice.

History

Zero Wing was released in Japanese arcades by developer Toaplan on 1 July 1989, and in North America in April 1990. The European release of the game on the Sega Mega Drive, also known as the Sega Genesis, which contained the script of the meme's origin, occurred in July 1991.

Zero Wing is one of the most widely known examples of poor linguistic translation in video games. Toaplan staff Tatsuya Uemura (programmer and music composer of Zero Wing and Toaplan founding member) and Masahiro Yuge (fellow Toaplan composer and founder) addressed the meme in interviews during the 2010s. According to Uemura, the English translation in the Mega Drive version was handled by a member of the Toaplan design team in charge of export and overseas business, and not by a professional translator. Uemura said that the English skills of the team member who prepared the translations were "really terrible".

The first references of the meme could be seen in 1999 and the early 2000s when an animated GIF of the scene appeared on forums and sites like Zany Video Game Quotes, OverClocked, and TribalWar forums. In November 2000, Kansas City computer programmer and part-time disc jockey Jeffrey Ray Roberts (1977–2011), 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 with a voice-over of the phrase, "All your base are belong to us". (The original music for Zero Wing was written by Tatsuya Uemura and arranged by Noriyuki Iwadare.) On 16 February 2001, user Bad_CRC posted an animated music video accompanying the song onto the Flash game and animation sharing site Newgrounds. The video was shared rapidly, soon becoming an Internet meme and receiving widespread media attention. The meme's popularity was seen throughout the 2000s when it was broadcast unauthorized onto the ticker of a Raleigh, North Carolina, TV channel, used as a placeholder message by YouTube while under maintenance, and reproduced onto T-shirts.

The 15th and 20th anniversaries of the posting of the remix on Newgrounds were recognized by numerous culture sites. The meme has been highlighted for its uniqueness in that, unlike other memes of the time, it lacked sexual innuendos or vulgarity.

Mentions in media

The phrase or some variation of lines from the game has appeared numerous times in films, commercials, news broadcasts, other games, and social media posts.

On 1 April 2003, in Sturgis, Michigan, seven people placed signs through the 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 Fools' joke, but most people who saw the signs were unfamiliar with the phrase. Many residents were upset that the signs appeared while the US 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 TheWolfWeb in Raleigh, North Carolina, exploited a web-based service used by local schools and businesses to report weather-related closures to display the phrase within a news ticker on a live news broadcast on News 14 Carolina.

On 1 June 2006, the phrase "All Your Video Are Belong to Us" appeared in all-caps below the YouTube logo as a placeholder while YouTube was under maintenance. Some users believed the site had been hacked, leading YouTube to add the message "No, we haven't be hacked. Get a sense of humor."

In the E3 2016 demo for the 2017 video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, "all your base are" could be seen written in the game's symbol-based fictional language.

On 19 January 2019, Democratic Party congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted "All your base (are) belong to us" in response to a poll which found that 45% of Republicans approved of her suggested implementation of a 70% marginal tax rate for individual income over $10 million per year.

Footnotes

References

References

  1. Dibbell, Julian. (18 January 2008). "Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World".
  2. (31 May 1991). "[[Zero Wing]]". [[Taito]].
  3. Mandelin, Clyde. (13 January 2014). "How Zero Wing's 'All Your Base' Translation Compares with the Japanese Script".
  4. (1992). "Zero Wing". Taito.
  5. "Zero Wing (Registration Number PA000045123)".
  6. Akagi, Masumi. (13 October 2006). "東亜プラン (Toa Plan); ナムコ（中村製作所）Namco; ゼ; Williams Electronics; Z". [[:ja:アミューズメント通信社.
  7. (1991-07-15). "Review: Zero Wing - Megadrive by Toaplan". [[EMAP]].
  8. (2024). "Games & Play in Chinese & Sinophone Cultures". [[University of Washington Press]].
  9. (3 February 2012). "東亜プラン特集 - 元・東亜プラン 開発者インタビュー: 弓削雅稔". Micro Magazine.
  10. Mosley, Brian. (March 2017). "Out Zone with guest Tatsuya Uemura – PA76".
  11. TVsIan. (2001-01-01). "Aybabtu: The History".
  12. (2000-06-05). "OverClocked - #116 - The ZeroWing Dub Project".
  13. Bad_CRC. (2000-12-16). "OT: All your base are belong to us".
  14. Taylor, Chris. (25 February 2001). "All Your Base Are Belong To Us".
  15. Machkovech, Sam. (2021-02-16). "An anniversary for great justice: Remembering 'All Your Base' 20 years later".
  16. Walker, Ian. (16 February 2021). "The 'All Your Base Are Belong To Us' Video Is Now 20 Years Old".
  17. Benner, Jeffrey. (23 February 2001). "When Gamer Humor Attacks".
  18. Kornblum, Janet. (2002-02-08). "Odd phrase touches all the Web bases".
  19. Carroll, Jon. (2001-02-20). "All Your Base Are Belong to Us".
  20. Johnston, Rich. (2001-02-27). "All your base ...". [[The Guardian]].
  21. Poulsen, Kevin. (2004-03-05). "Wags hijack TV channel's on-screen ticker".
  22. Sandoval, Greg. (2006-06-02). "YouTube: Our humor, not our hack".
  23. Stephen, Bijan. (17 February 2021). "All Your Base Are Belong To Us has turned 20".
  24. Hathaway, Jay. (2016-02-16). "We Get Signal: 'All Your Base Are Belong to Us' Is 15 Years Old". [[New York (magazine).
  25. Parish, Jeremy. (2016-03-01). "For Great Justice: A Partial Origin Story of Gaming's Original Internet Meme".
  26. Doyle, Holly. (4 April 2003). "Men arrested for 'All Your Base' prank". WWMT Newschannel 3.
  27. Sandoval, Greg. (2 June 2006). "YouTube: Our humor, not our hack". [[CNET]].
  28. LaGioia, Stephen. (May 31, 2023). "Zelda: Breath Of The Wild – Secrets, References, And Easter Eggs".
  29. (19 January 2019). "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Tax Rate Plans Find Favor Among Republicans, She Responds with Retro Meme".
  30. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (2019-01-18). "All your base (are) belong to us 👾".
  31. Rosenberg, Adam. (2019-01-19). "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made perfect use of this 20-year-old video game meme".
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1991-in-video-gaming in-jokes internet-memes-introduced-in-1999 quotations-from-video-games video-game-memes 1991-quotations humour-in-translation translations-into-english mistranslation
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about All your base are belong to us — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report