Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | All your base are belong to us A declaration of victory or superiority. The phrase stems from a 1991 adaptation of Toaplan's "Zero Wing" shoot-'em-up arcade game for the Sega Genesis game console. A brief introduction was added to the opening screen, and it has what many consider to be the worst Japanese-to-English translation in video game history. The introduction shows the bridge of a starship in chaos as a Borg-like figure named CATS materializes and says, "How are you gentlemen!! All your base are belong to us." [sic] In 2001, this amusing mistranslation spread virally through the internet, bringing with it a slew of JPEGs and a movie of hacked photographs, each showing a street sign, store front, package label, etc. hacked to read "All your base are belong to us" or one of the other dopy lines from the game. When the phrase is used properly, the overall effect is both screamingly funny and somewhat chilling, reminiscent of the B movie "They Live". The original has been generalized to "All your X are belong to us", where X is filled in to connote a sinister takeover of some sort. Thus, "When Joe signed up for his new job at Yoyodyne, he had to sign a draconian NDA. It basically said, `All your code are belong to us.'" Has many of the connotations of "Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated" (see Borg). Considered silly, and most likely to be used by the type of person that finds Jeff K. hilarious. Source: Jargon File. |
Slang | Phrase. Source: The phrase "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" originated from a very old game called "Zero Wing" from the Genesis. It was originally developed in Japan and the text for the game was translated to English for the US release. However, either an incredibly bad. Definition: It means the user has won the game or taken over all of the enemy's territory. Context: In games which involve taking over territory (such as military combat games, and such) this phrase has begun to be used when the enemy is completely obliterated and someone has won. In the post-game chat whoever won sometimes now says "All Your Base Are B. Social Source: Online Computer Game Players. Source: Compiled by The University of Oregon. (additional references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The phrase is simply one line from the game's introductory cut scene, which is subtitled and poorly translated. In late 2000 and early 2001 a huge number of altered pictures, GIF animations, and Macromedia Flash animations exploiting the popularity of this phrase swept over the Internet and just as suddenly seemed to slow to a crawl. It has been used as a caption for almost any photograph since the heavily overloaded word "base" (along with homonyms such as bass and compounds like base pair) seemed to make the phrase mean almost anything.
It is one of the most commonly quoted examples of Engrish, which is the use of English-like phrases in Japanese.
The cut scene transcript goes as follows:
In A.D. 2101 War was beginningThe final phrase "for great justice" appears also to have been adopted by various groups as their slogan, and there is also some adoption of "move 'zig'" (which resembles that of "Let's Roll" - a universal command to action) and "Somebody set up us the bomb" (basically "uh-oh!").Captain: What happen? Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb. Operator: We get signal. Captain: What! Operator: Main screen turn on. Captain: It's You!! Cats: How are you gentlemen!! Cats: All your base are belong to us. Cats: You are on the way to destruction. Captain: What you say!! Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time. Cats: Ha Ha Ha Ha .... Captain: Take off every 'Zig'!! Operator: You know what you doing. Captain: Move 'Zig'. Captain: For great justice.
The AYBABTU phenomenon is constantly declared dead, yet it is still seen on the Internet. Some people who play multiplayer games like Counter-Strike have been banned from servers for constantly repeating this phrase.
On April 1, 2003, in Sturgis, Michigan, seven men 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 said they were playing an April Fools joke by mimicking the famous Flash animation which depicted the slogan ubiquitously. Unfortunately for the young men, not many people got the joke. 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." [1]
External links
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "All your base are belong to us."
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
all your base are belong to us | 535 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)41 4C 4C 59 4F 55 52 42 41 53 45 41 52 45 42 45 4C 4F 4E 47 54 4F 55 53 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 01010010 00100000 01000010 01000001 01010011 01000101 00100000 01000001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01000010 01000101 01001100 01001111 01001110 01000111 00100000 01010100 01001111 00100000 01010101 01010011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)A L L   Y O U R   B A S E   A R E   B E L O N G   T O   U S |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0041 004C 004C 0059 004F 0055 0052 0042 0041 0053 0045 0041 0052 0045 0042 0045 004C 004F 004E 0047 0054 004F 0055 0053 |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)354646259495552236355339235523923639464948412544925553 |
| 1. Expressions: Internet 2. Orthography 3. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
