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This article contains Japanese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji and kana. |
"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. The phrase came about as the result of the spread of a Flash animation which 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[1] by Toaplan, which was poorly translated. It was popularized by the Something Awful message forums.[2]
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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.[1]
| Original Script | Original English Translation | Correct English Translation |
|---|---|---|
| 機関士：何者かによって、爆発物が仕掛けられたようです。 | Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb. | Engineer: It appears that someone has planted explosives. |
| 通信士：メインスクリーンにビジョンが来ます。 | Operator: Main screen turn on. | Radio Operator: The main screen is receiving a visual. |
| CATS：連邦政府軍のご協力により、君達の基地は、全てCATSがいただいた。 | CATS: All your base are belong to us. | CATS: All your bases belong to us. |
| CATS：せいぜい残り少ない命を、大切にしたまえ・・・・。 | CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time. | CATS: Make the most of these last moments of your lives. |
| 艦長：我々の未来に希望を・・・ | Captain: For great justice. | Captain: Our hopes for the future ... |
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:
In late 2000, Kansas City computer programmer and part-time DJ Jeffrey Ray Roberts 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 with a voiceover phrase "All your base are belong to us."[3]
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.[4]
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."[5]
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.[6]
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."[7]
[1]]
All Your Base Are Belong To Us (often referred to as "All Your Base" or abbreviated AYBABTU, AYBAB2U, or simply AYB) was an internet fad from around 2001. It originated from the horrible translation job in the game Zero Wing. This was one of the lines featured in the game's intro that shows just how bad the translation was. Someone made fun of it, people made photoshop images, someone made a flash video... it just blew up. The main villain depicted in the video, CATS, has since then become a popular figure.
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