"All your base are belong to us" is an Internet meme based on a badly translated phrase from the opening

cutscene A cutscene or event scene (sometimes in-game cinematic or in-game movie) is a sequence in a video game that is not interactive, interrupting the gameplay. Such scenes are used to show conversations between characters, set the mood, reward th ...

of the video game '' Zero Wing''. The phrase first appeared on the European release of the 1991 Sega Mega Drive

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

of the 1989

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

arcade game. By the early 2000s, a GIF animation depicting the opening text was widespread on the

Something Awful ''Something Awful'' (SA) is an American comedy website hosting content including blog entries, Internet forum, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard Kyanka, Richard "Lowtax" K ...

message forums and other internet forums. The phrase found popular reference outside internet forums through the 2000s and 2010s, including use by

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in 2001.

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.

Translation history

The meme was addressed by Toaplan's

Tatsuya Uemura is a Japanese arcade game musician and programmer. He has composed the following scores for arcade games: *''Flying Shark'' *''Tiger-Heli'' *''Guardian'' *'' Hellfire'' *'' Twin Cobra'' *'' Out Zone'' *'' Dogyuun'' *''Zero Wing'' (with Toshiaki ...

(the game's programmer and composer) and Masahiro Yuge (composer) in interviews during the 2010s. They stated the poor English translation in the Mega Drive version was handled by a member of Toaplan in charge of export and overseas business, whose English was poor.
Translation
by Shmuplations. ).

Mentions in media

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. In November 2000, Kansas City computer programmer, Something Awful forum member, and part-time

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile ...

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 by Tatsuya Uemura and

Noriyuki Iwadare is a Japanese video game composer. Biography Iwadare was born in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. He began to compose video game music after years of being involved with university bands. He began composing for Toaplan, arranging the ...

with a voice-over phrase "All your base are belong to us". Tribal War forums member Bad_CRC in February 2001 created a Flash animation combining Roberts' song and the various images created in a Something Awful AYB Photoshop thread, which proceeded to go viral. ''Wired'' provided a report on the phenomenon in February 2001, covering it from the Flash animation to its spread through

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

and internet forums to

T-shirts A T-shirt (also spelled tee shirt), or tee, is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a ''crew neck'', which lacks a collar. T-shirts are generall ...

bearing the phrase. On April 1, 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 Fool's April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fools!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which may b ...

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 TheWolfWeb in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southe ...

exploited a web-based service used by local schools and businesses to report weather-related closures to display the phrase within a

news ticker A news ticker (sometimes called a "crawler", "crawl", "slide", "zipper", or "ticker tape") is a horizontal or vertical (depending on a language's writing system) text-based display either in the form of a graphic that typically resides in the lo ...

on a live news broadcast on

News 14 Carolina Spectrum News 1 North Carolina is an American United States cable news, cable news television channel owned by Charter Communications, as an affiliate of its Spectrum News slate of regional news channels. The channel broadcasts rolling newscasts 2 ...

. On June 1, 2006,

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

was taken down 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 YouTube to add the message "No, we haven't be hacked. Get a sense of humor." On January 19, 2019, American Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ( Democrat from New York) tweeted "All your base (are) belong to us" in response to a poll by Hill–Harris indicating that 45% of the Republicans who were polled approved of Ocasio-Cortez's suggested implementation of a 70%

marginal tax rate In a tax system, the tax rate is the ratio (usually expressed as a percentage) at which a business or person is taxed. There are several methods used to present a tax rate: statutory, average, marginal, and effective. These rates can also be ...

for individuals making more than $10 million per year.

Footnotes

References

External links

* *
All your base are belong to us
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...