What happened?
February 16, 2021 10:27 AM Subscribe
We get signal
posted by signal at 10:37 AM on February 16, 2021 [26 favorites]
posted by signal at 10:37 AM on February 16, 2021 [26 favorites]
I demand that metafilter reinstitute the arcade font, but only for politics threads.
posted by phooky at 10:38 AM on February 16, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by phooky at 10:38 AM on February 16, 2021 [10 favorites]
I chose my username for un-allyourbase-reasons (I used to be 'noisewave' but felt it was a little adolescent, so when I joined MF I thought 'what's the opposite of noise?') but for years on MeFi–and other places I'm also 'signal' on–people would say 'we get signal' at me, and it took me a few years to understand why they all made the same fairly innocuous and slightly baffling comment.
posted by signal at 10:42 AM on February 16, 2021 [20 favorites]
posted by signal at 10:42 AM on February 16, 2021 [20 favorites]
20 years, eh? The time flies when you're having *waves hands around vaguely* this.
posted by hippybear at 10:46 AM on February 16, 2021 [64 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 10:46 AM on February 16, 2021 [64 favorites]
Make your time.
posted by Flashman at 10:49 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Flashman at 10:49 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
It has always reminded me of this moment in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
posted by swr at 10:51 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by swr at 10:51 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
Really a remarkably good video, with lots of good image-editing work too, inserting words at all angles into all sorts of pictures. They knew what they're doing. Move zig.
I was also always fond of Zero Wing Rhapsody, with the flashiest damn animation that ever flash animated.
posted by one for the books at 10:53 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
I was also always fond of Zero Wing Rhapsody, with the flashiest damn animation that ever flash animated.
posted by one for the books at 10:53 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
WHAT YOU SAY
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 10:54 AM on February 16, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 10:54 AM on February 16, 2021 [13 favorites]
And while I'm not a meme historian, the userfriendliness of All Your Base edits feels very important. Your hamster dance, your dancing baby... those were single units of culture that you would pass around, unblemished. All Your Base was something anyone could, and did, contribute to. That's scarcely different from the model we have today.
posted by one for the books at 10:56 AM on February 16, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by one for the books at 10:56 AM on February 16, 2021 [12 favorites]
Pretty sure I've said something related to this -- blah blah for great justice, blah blah make your time -- inside the last month.
PREGANANANT?!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:59 AM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
PREGANANANT?!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:59 AM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
Oh man, I can remember this coming out and just being unable to stop laughing. My poor boyfriend at the time just got these memes constantly. Now it's a funny encapsulation of a lot of pop culture at the time. Gore giving the finger, the Bud Girls 🙄, those weird God billboards. I remember all of it when reminded. Thanks for this. I am ok being old.
posted by jessamyn at 11:11 AM on February 16, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 11:11 AM on February 16, 2021 [15 favorites]
🅰🅻🅻 🅾🅵 🆈🅾🆄🆁 🆄🆂 🅱🅴🅻🅾🅽🅶 🆃🅾 🅱🅰🆂🅴
posted by clavdivs at 11:11 AM on February 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 11:11 AM on February 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
Except Europa. Attempt no landing there.
posted by oulipian at 11:22 AM on February 16, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by oulipian at 11:22 AM on February 16, 2021 [15 favorites]
FOR GREAT JUSTICE
posted by exlotuseater at 11:28 AM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by exlotuseater at 11:28 AM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wait, it's only been 20 years? It sure as hell seems like longer than that?
I wonder why...
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 11:31 AM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I wonder why...
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 11:31 AM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yesterday was a century ago while a decade passed in just the last week. And it seems to never be tea time no matter what.
posted by hippybear at 11:34 AM on February 16, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 11:34 AM on February 16, 2021 [10 favorites]
Main screen turn on
posted by Windopaene at 11:35 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 11:35 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
And while I'm not a meme historian, the userfriendliness of All Your Base edits feels very important. Your hamster dance, your dancing baby... those were single units of culture that you would pass around, unblemished. All Your Base was something anyone could, and did, contribute to. That's scarcely different from the model we have today.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who was reminded of this ancient meme after the Internet-wide avalanche of Bernie Sanders last month.
All Your Bern, as it were.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:37 AM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
I'm sure I'm not the only one who was reminded of this ancient meme after the Internet-wide avalanche of Bernie Sanders last month.
All Your Bern, as it were.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:37 AM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
When this first started getting passed around, I printed out
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
on a sheet of paper and mailed it anonymously to someone I joked with in a Usenet group but had never met or spoken to.
In the time it took to get there, the meme had been completely run into the ground, so it was funny in a different way than I intended. I never confessed.
I think I need to do it again.
posted by straight at 11:39 AM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
on a sheet of paper and mailed it anonymously to someone I joked with in a Usenet group but had never met or spoken to.
In the time it took to get there, the meme had been completely run into the ground, so it was funny in a different way than I intended. I never confessed.
I think I need to do it again.
posted by straight at 11:39 AM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
You can also watch it in emulated Flash on archive.org in case you want to see the non-transcoded JPEG artifacts.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:39 AM on February 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:39 AM on February 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
Back in the day, one of my friends in Japan emailed me inquiring why this meme was so funny for us.
It is a good question, how our brains are wired to softly take exception to the several grammatical issues with this.
For a Japanese speaker, the meme scans perfectly fine, which it would since its a word-for-word translation of the Japanese present-continuous grammar used for actions in the past that are still relevant now (e.g. "I am hungry" = '[My] stomach is being empty' in Japanese)
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:40 AM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
It is a good question, how our brains are wired to softly take exception to the several grammatical issues with this.
For a Japanese speaker, the meme scans perfectly fine, which it would since its a word-for-word translation of the Japanese present-continuous grammar used for actions in the past that are still relevant now (e.g. "I am hungry" = '[My] stomach is being empty' in Japanese)
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:40 AM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
This one takes me back for sure. It came into my view during Team Fortress games when opposing teams would spam the chat channel with ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US as the flag got captured. I wondered what it meant, tracked it down, and we all laughed our heads off at work the next day over it. As an ur-meme, it seriously abides.
posted by jquinby at 11:59 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by jquinby at 11:59 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
I don't feel old until I remember Mr. T ate my balls.
posted by allegedly at 11:59 AM on February 16, 2021 [20 favorites]
posted by allegedly at 11:59 AM on February 16, 2021 [20 favorites]
FOR GREAT JUSTICE
My D&D vengeance paladin's battlecry, thank you!
posted by Gelatin at 12:00 PM on February 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
My D&D vengeance paladin's battlecry, thank you!
posted by Gelatin at 12:00 PM on February 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
It has always reminded me of this moment yt in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
posted by swr
Now I have to watch this again.
posted by Splunge at 12:01 PM on February 16, 2021
posted by swr
Now I have to watch this again.
posted by Splunge at 12:01 PM on February 16, 2021
It (and I) may be old, but it makes me feel young again! :)
posted by Hutch at 12:04 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Hutch at 12:04 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
It was the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning. It was a thing, anyway.
Yeah. This doesn't so much make me feel old as it makes me feel like I'm glad to have aged since then.
2001 was a pretty liminal time. I was on the cusp of adulthood without knowing what that even meant. I had a linux machine which I had set up as a NAT gateway using a very long script containing endless ipfwadm commands I didn't understand because I had copied and pasted them from a usenet newsgroup. I thought I was one of the cool kids because used gnu screen and ircii to connect to IRC (no more mIRC for me!) by sshing into my linux machine using Tera Term Pro from a Win98 desktop running Litestep. I carried my SSH1 key into the community college computer lab on a 3.5" floppy disk containing win32 versions of ssh/scp and I thought I was so awesome uploading my tedious "Intro to Microsoft Word" homework to/from my home machine. I was so confident I knew everything and completely unaware of how vast my ignorance was.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:45 PM on February 16, 2021 [10 favorites]
Yeah. This doesn't so much make me feel old as it makes me feel like I'm glad to have aged since then.
2001 was a pretty liminal time. I was on the cusp of adulthood without knowing what that even meant. I had a linux machine which I had set up as a NAT gateway using a very long script containing endless ipfwadm commands I didn't understand because I had copied and pasted them from a usenet newsgroup. I thought I was one of the cool kids because used gnu screen and ircii to connect to IRC (no more mIRC for me!) by sshing into my linux machine using Tera Term Pro from a Win98 desktop running Litestep. I carried my SSH1 key into the community college computer lab on a 3.5" floppy disk containing win32 versions of ssh/scp and I thought I was so awesome uploading my tedious "Intro to Microsoft Word" homework to/from my home machine. I was so confident I knew everything and completely unaware of how vast my ignorance was.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:45 PM on February 16, 2021 [10 favorites]
Feel old yet?
YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME.
(I see that I quoted this exact same line five years ago, and I shall continue quoting it until I follow its advice)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:49 PM on February 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME.
(I see that I quoted this exact same line five years ago, and I shall continue quoting it until I follow its advice)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:49 PM on February 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
Another from that era that I very recently quoted to my 5-year-old:
The Terrible Secret of Space
posted by team lowkey at 12:51 PM on February 16, 2021 [12 favorites]
The Terrible Secret of Space
posted by team lowkey at 12:51 PM on February 16, 2021 [12 favorites]
Do you have stairs in your house?
posted by fedward at 12:55 PM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by fedward at 12:55 PM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
Imagine a viral video that runs more than four whole minutes. That's like 10 TikToks.
posted by octothorpe at 12:56 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 12:56 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
I still have my ALL YOUR BASE coffee mug!
posted by SPrintF at 1:02 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 1:02 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
I loved the hell out of The Terrible Secret of Space, but I showed it to a friend a few years ago and they just noped the fuck out when the images of death and gore started showing up. And you know what? It's completely gratuitous and fucked up that that's in there, and it kind of ruins the video for me now. It's useful to remember that this came at the tail end of the alt.tasteless/goatse era, and wow am I glad we've moved on.
posted by phooky at 1:09 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by phooky at 1:09 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
This is at the strange equilibrium where the contraction of time due to "I'm old" is exactly canceled by the fact that the last year was two decades long.
So All Your Base does feel like it had happened about 20 years ago, in those crazy months between the fall of the Berlin Wall and "Gangnam Style."
posted by justkevin at 1:09 PM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
So All Your Base does feel like it had happened about 20 years ago, in those crazy months between the fall of the Berlin Wall and "Gangnam Style."
posted by justkevin at 1:09 PM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
And then on Sept 11 of that year we were attacked by a Al-Qaeda aka The Base. The meme was a warning. Assuming this is a pattern... I don’t know about you but based on recent memes I’m absolutely terrified of the Wellerman...
posted by interogative mood at 1:13 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 1:13 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
Then, a couple of years later, im in ur base killin ur d00dz.
posted by TedW at 1:20 PM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by TedW at 1:20 PM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
All Your Base is what led me to MetaFilter, way back when. I read an article about the meme in Wired (thanks, Wired, for not letting links rot), which linked to a thread about it. It seemed like a cool place so I started lurking.
All Your Base will always have a special place in my heart because of that.
posted by Kattullus at 1:33 PM on February 16, 2021 [16 favorites]
All Your Base will always have a special place in my heart because of that.
posted by Kattullus at 1:33 PM on February 16, 2021 [16 favorites]
I remember when this came out, coming into AP Comp Sci one day and a friend telling me "All your base are belong to us." And I felt like I was having a stroke or something, and I just said "Uh, what?" To which he replied "You have no chance to survive make your time." And I started feeling irrationally angry that he wasn't making sense. And then we pulled up the video together and it was the best thing I had ever seen.
I still say "For great justice" all the time without even remembering that it's a reference to this. It's just entered my personal speech patterns.
posted by biogeo at 1:33 PM on February 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
I still say "For great justice" all the time without even remembering that it's a reference to this. It's just entered my personal speech patterns.
posted by biogeo at 1:33 PM on February 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
Oh gosh I had totally forgotten that was where I got the name of my Justice of the Peace Tumblr.
posted by jessamyn at 2:01 PM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 2:01 PM on February 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
How is meme farmed how girl get pragnant
posted by benzenedream at 2:29 PM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 2:29 PM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I feel like I just got a card that read "Happy 20 years of being Extremely Online!"
posted by mandanza at 2:38 PM on February 16, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by mandanza at 2:38 PM on February 16, 2021 [12 favorites]
"Somebody set up us the bomb" has become part of our family's vernacular; it's quite a handy phrase.
(That 2001 post on the Blue is a time capsule in itself.)
posted by AgentRocket at 2:41 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
(That 2001 post on the Blue is a time capsule in itself.)
posted by AgentRocket at 2:41 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
Someone set up us the time bomb.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:45 PM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:45 PM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
1) No, I don't "get it."
2) What the hell is wrong with you people?
Can't believe I've A) been reading this site for 2 decades, and B) how much really hasn't change.
posted by sideshow at 2:59 PM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
I have a sudden urge to design and 3d print an ALL YOUR BASE licence plate holder.
posted by scruss at 3:18 PM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by scruss at 3:18 PM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
AYBABTU
posted by rhizome at 4:00 PM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 4:00 PM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
all our age are belong to us
posted by Pronoiac at 4:25 PM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Pronoiac at 4:25 PM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
The entire album is available on Archive.org.
posted by CynicalKnight at 4:42 PM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by CynicalKnight at 4:42 PM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
I didn't remember this was the same year as 9/11 but I remember both very clearly. I also am just old enough the remember the fall of the Soviet union. The craziest part for me is that I have recent college grads who work at my company who were in diapers/ have no memory of this.
posted by CostcoCultist at 8:26 PM on February 16, 2021
posted by CostcoCultist at 8:26 PM on February 16, 2021
My mom and I entered a pizza box decorating contest ca. 2001 or 2002 with an All Your Base themed design and won. I desperately wish I had a photo of it.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 8:45 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by OverlappingElvis at 8:45 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm kind of surprised it's only 20 years old -- it feels like there was a longer gap before they took the hobbits to Isengard.
I don't quote All Your Base quite as often as All Your Smurf.
posted by Foosnark at 5:01 AM on February 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't quote All Your Base quite as often as All Your Smurf.
posted by Foosnark at 5:01 AM on February 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
Mr. T ate my balls
I can not for the life of me remember where or what it was all these years later, but there was a site that had a recurring character of Bizarro T, who wore glasses and was very erudite. His catchphrase was "I commiserate the imbecile".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 11:24 AM on February 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
I can not for the life of me remember where or what it was all these years later, but there was a site that had a recurring character of Bizarro T, who wore glasses and was very erudite. His catchphrase was "I commiserate the imbecile".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 11:24 AM on February 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
Mr. T ate my balls
I mean, that's fine, but it's no Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything
posted by dgr8bob at 5:42 PM on February 18, 2021
I mean, that's fine, but it's no Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything
posted by dgr8bob at 5:42 PM on February 18, 2021
It was never a meme but I have a real fondness for Nothing Can Stop Torg! It's my favorite of the Laziest Men on Mars songs.
Now destroy them, crush them! Crush them Torg, do as I say!
posted by vibratory manner of working at 8:53 PM on February 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
Now destroy them, crush them! Crush them Torg, do as I say!
posted by vibratory manner of working at 8:53 PM on February 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:35 AM on February 16, 2021