ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
February 15, 2001 8:47 PM   Subscribe

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US OK, I'm obviously the dorky kid coming late to the party -- can someone explain this to me? [via memepool]
posted by kaefer (55 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's like "Wasssssuppppp", only more l33t.
posted by mkn at 9:03 PM on February 15, 2001 [3 favorites]


From what I was told, it's a sort of obsessive/compulsive cult surrounding the poorly translated text from a japanese video game.
posted by crunchland at 9:08 PM on February 15, 2001


The quote is from an old, mistranslated game called Zero Wing. The quote has been around off and on for a few years now, but it's only been recently that the thing spread like wildfire. If you want, an animated gif of that segment of the game is here.
posted by truex at 9:10 PM on February 15, 2001


Oh, and if you happen to really like oddly translated games, there's a rather large archive of them you can poke through. There's actually some pretty funny stuff in there.
posted by truex at 9:13 PM on February 15, 2001


That's all well and good, but there's more than that here. In a lot of multiplayer games there's an element of trash talk, which "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" sounds like. The wording-is-everywhere thing, which is oddly reminiscent of John Carpenter's They Live, probably comes from the graffiti function in several online 3D games where you can spray a custom gif onto a wall, the ground, etc. And there's more than one reference to llamas, which is game-jargon for lame players.

So all of that combined with a private joke and some (probably) over-tired, punch-drunk players posting on a message board with Paint Shop Pro close at hand ...
posted by dhartung at 9:26 PM on February 15, 2001


Watch the flash movie (linked above). The whole thing is set to a techno beat, and....well, I can't really explain it. Trust me, watch the movie.
posted by Optamystic at 9:28 PM on February 15, 2001


Dood, if you don’t know, then

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!

posted by capt.crackpipe at 9:30 PM on February 15, 2001 [1 favorite]


This just goes to show, things don't have to make sense to be funny.
posted by kindall at 9:36 PM on February 15, 2001


Boy, I hope that guy doesn't have a bandwidth restriction on his site. I've seen that link everywhere and he's only had that file in that location for 2 days.

That's pretty nifty though. I'm not too 1337 with image programs, even for text replacement, so I appreciate it when other people are.

Thanks for the link to Zany Quotes, they moved a few times and I lost their location.
posted by Electric Elf at 9:37 PM on February 15, 2001


Lots more Photoshop fun here. See also this. I think this one is my favorite.
posted by jjg at 10:03 PM on February 15, 2001


I've seen this thing about 7 different times today...even on sites I don't go to that often. It's amazing how fast it's getting around....seems even speedier than normal for this type of thing.
posted by jkottke at 10:03 PM on February 15, 2001


Oh, there's also a smidgen or two of JeffK.

This is all an example of hacker-style ha ha only serious, of which a distinguishing characteristic is that only the in people will find it funny -- it's a shibboleth.

Don't get my academic ass wrong though: I'm seriously ROFL ...
posted by dhartung at 10:04 PM on February 15, 2001


I think it's a tipping point thing. This meme has been proliferating in some circles for at least three months now.
posted by jjg at 10:05 PM on February 15, 2001


How spoony.
posted by alana at 10:06 PM on February 15, 2001


I want this as a bumper sticker:
Somebody set up us the bomb
posted by DragonBoy at 10:16 PM on February 15, 2001


Crummy translations are fun. Check Japanese Engrish for tons of things like "Fujinami's straw will produce you young party happily and exceedingly."
posted by Bopp at 11:25 PM on February 15, 2001


They're missing the super-1337 one. If I can find the link, I'll post it. It has funny voices dubbed over the movie, and simply shows the whole Zero Wing movie. I actually thought it was a lot funnier than the new flash movie that incorporates all these images.
posted by ookamaka at 11:43 PM on February 15, 2001


Ahhh, man, so disapointing. I found the link to the original movie, but it's not up any longer. I have it on my computer.... Debating whether I should upload it. But man, it's really too fucking funny. Well, in any case, the less funny version is here. Seriously, this movie is like sooo much more 1337 than those pictures ;)

If for whatever reason the original begins to work, you can see it here (this is where it all started, btw).
posted by ookamaka at 12:05 AM on February 16, 2001


Okay, sorry for the triple post, but I just found this:

http://www.allyourbasearebelongtous.com/

Not partcularly noteworthy except for the URL (although the flash movie is so bad, that it's pretty funny -- actually pretty much the whole site is so bad that it's funny).
posted by ookamaka at 12:11 AM on February 16, 2001


ookamaka, you're not talking about this version, are you? [note: 1.1M .mov file]
posted by gluechunk at 12:50 AM on February 16, 2001


Wonderful, I love obsessive maniacs, I had nostalgia. (Ah, the old Capcom games !) By the way, the new Dafgt Punk fix (one more time) has been directing by Tomoharu Katsumata, who created Albator. I'll post the link in the day.
posted by Sirine at 1:28 AM on February 16, 2001


Wow, before I came to the comments section, I thought this was a chat transcript from a Tribes game that some clan was having fun with.
posted by emt at 2:03 AM on February 16, 2001


From the same directory: base.jpg Hilarious.
posted by Foaf at 2:50 AM on February 16, 2001


Move 'zig' for great justice!
posted by J. R. Hughto at 6:21 AM on February 16, 2001


I went to check my unparallelled MAME collection, and sure enough, I have the game -- but it doesn't have that movie? WTF?

BTW, it's pretty cool, in that Metroid sort of way.
posted by norm at 6:48 AM on February 16, 2001


For the record, Zero Wing is a freakin' hard game, if you haven't got m4d sh00t3r skillz. (I don't, I'm a wussy RPG kid.) The screen literally fills with enemies after about thirty seconds. So much for great justice.
norm: the intro is from the Sega Genesis port of the game, or so I heard.
posted by darukaru at 6:49 AM on February 16, 2001


Here's the page on toaplan's website (the company that created the game) - it was developed for the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive - they explain it as bad localization by the team at Sega. Buy a t-shirt. Or go here to see where a lot of the images came from. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
posted by Haveed at 7:02 AM on February 16, 2001


Wow. That was really amusing :) Nothing would make me happier than to quit my life and become a crazed monk, churning out doctored 'all your base are belong to us' pictures.

"sonofsamiam, come home! Your wife and children need you so!"

"What you say? Take off every 'ZIG'!!"
posted by sonofsamiam at 8:49 AM on February 16, 2001


Uhm. To show how far out of touch it is possible to be:
What is this "1337" everybody keeps referring to?
posted by russh at 9:11 AM on February 16, 2001


1) No, I don't "get it."
2) What the hell is wrong with you people?
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:19 AM on February 16, 2001


russh, "1337" = "leet" which is, um, short for "elite"
posted by lia at 9:25 AM on February 16, 2001


Did anybody mirror the flash file? It looks like it's down.
posted by Hankins at 9:53 AM on February 16, 2001


Here's a better place to see it.
posted by Haveed at 10:29 AM on February 16, 2001


Stile's mirroring it here.

Porn banner advertisements, and stileproject's mildly notorious for the content, so be aware if you're surfing at work, but he's got a huge pipe, so it serves up nice and quick.

posted by cCranium at 10:48 AM on February 16, 2001


Side note: it's a damn catchy tune. I want it in mp3.
posted by cCranium at 10:51 AM on February 16, 2001


get the mp3 here
posted by Haveed at 10:56 AM on February 16, 2001


Are we sure Mahir didn't do this???
posted by DiplomaticImmunity at 10:57 AM on February 16, 2001


What is this "1337" everybody keeps referring to?

Here's a definition of elite from the Jargon file.
posted by jkottke at 11:04 AM on February 16, 2001


j00 n07 m4d hax0r!!!! j00 n07 31337!!!! j00 g07z n0 m4d 5ki11z!!!!
posted by ookamaka at 11:41 AM on February 16, 2001




Haveed: Beauty! Thanks!
posted by cCranium at 1:51 PM on February 16, 2001


Couldn't resist combining another recent Memepool link with this meme to get this.
posted by kindall at 10:59 PM on February 16, 2001


I understand the urge, kindall. A brief fit of boredom brought forth both this and its sister piece, this.
posted by youhas at 1:20 AM on February 17, 2001


Then, there was the inevitable Blogger tie-in.
posted by Danelope at 7:15 AM on February 17, 2001


$uG01! $+008y 1z d0wn w1+h 411 1337n3$$!

When I'm in Japan, I ONLY buy things with bad English copy if there is a choice...Hell, I can't blame the game makers, I do the same thing myself, only I normally do it in a setting where it's really not appropriate, and I've been studying kanji for 4 or 5 hours...

Girl: You're cute, what's your name?

Stuby: Making the sex, do you wish to follow home the love stallion Stuby for rutting and wailing?

*sound of gunfire*
posted by Capn_Stuby at 10:43 PM on February 18, 2001


and then there is life in hong kong.

these movie subtitles are always funny.
posted by bwg at 7:52 PM on February 19, 2001


Seems someone at SFGate caught on.
posted by pnevares at 10:10 AM on February 20, 2001


Now that the meme has hit the mainstream media, it can be officially declared dead.
posted by kindall at 12:55 PM on February 20, 2001


Wait, one more thing before it's declared dead. Another parody of ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US is here.
posted by crawl at 2:47 PM on February 20, 2001


Where is AM I ALLYOURBASEAREBELONGTOUS OR NOT?
posted by rodii at 3:43 PM on February 20, 2001


Salon caught on too.
posted by kindall at 10:53 AM on February 21, 2001


"Oh, yeah, that Mac Cube is so one-three-three-seven." is a spoken, not written, quote that mini-wetlog linked a while back. It's the third post down.
posted by southisup at 3:25 PM on February 21, 2001


and thus, the last post on the thread.
posted by phalkin at 3:38 AM on November 27, 2001


Not.
posted by rodii at 12:49 PM on November 27, 2001


Yeah, try again.
posted by Danelope at 5:28 PM on February 24, 2002


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