Title:
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
Meme Creator:
Unknown
Media Creator:
Toaplan (developer), Sega (European publisher)
Meme Creation Year:
1999
Media Year:
1989 (arcade), 1991 (Mega Drive port)
Height of Popularity:
2001
Era:
Early Internet
Platform:
Internet (Forums)
Text Meme
Type:
Tags:
zero wing, engrish, video game translation, internet history, something awful, newgrounds, jeffery ray roberts, bad_crc
History:
"All Your Base Are Belong to Us" stands as one of the earliest and most influential internet memes, emerging from what is widely considered the most notorious video game translation failure in history. The phrase originates from the opening cutscene of Zero Wing, a side-scrolling shoot-em-up arcade game developed by Toaplan and originally released in Japanese arcades in 1989 (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). The European Sega Mega Drive port, released in July 1991, featured an introductory cutscene with severely mistranslated English dialogue that included the now-iconic phrase spoken by the antagonist CATS (Segaretro, 2025).
According to Know Your Meme (2008), the meme's internet journey began in 1999 when the poorly translated intro started appearing on gaming forums and websites like Zany Video Game Quotes, OverClocked, and TribalWar. The translation errors were so egregious that they became objects of fascination rather than mere curiosities—phrases like "Somebody set up us the bomb" and "All your base are belong to us" represented a perfect storm of technological limitation and linguistic comedy.
The meme's transformation from niche gaming joke to internet phenomenon occurred through collaborative remix culture. In November 2000, Kansas City computer programmer and Something Awful forum member Jeffrey Ray Roberts (1977-2011), who performed with the gabber band The Laziest Men on Mars, created a techno dance track called "Invasion of the Gabber Robots" that remixed Zero Wing's music with voice-over samples of the infamous dialogue (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). Roberts' musical interpretation provided the sonic foundation for what would become the meme's defining moment.
The pivotal transformation occurred in February 2001 when TribalWar forums member Bad_CRC combined Roberts' techno remix with user-submitted photoshopped images from a Something Awful thread, creating a music video that showcased the phrase inserted into everything from road signs to political advertisements (Kotaku, 2021). This video was uploaded to Newgrounds on February 16, 2001, and became an instant viral sensation, representing one of the first instances of collaborative internet culture producing mainstream cultural impact.
The meme's reach extended far beyond online communities. Within a week of the Newgrounds upload, Wired magazine covered the phenomenon, marking its transition from internet curiosity to recognized cultural moment (The Mary Sue, 2011). The phrase appeared on t-shirts, was referenced in mainstream media, and even inspired real-world pranks, including the infamous April 1, 2003 incident in Sturgis, Michigan, where seven people posted signs with the phrase throughout the town, creating confusion during wartime tensions (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025).
"All Your Base Are Belong to Us" represents a crucial moment in internet culture evolution—the transition from static websites to participatory remix culture. Unlike earlier internet phenomena, this meme demonstrated the power of collaborative creation, where original content (Roberts' music), user-generated imagery (Something Awful photoshops), and video editing (Bad_CRC's compilation) combined to create something greater than the sum of its parts. Its influence can be traced through subsequent meme formats that rely on remixing, community participation, and the transformation of obscure source material into shared cultural references.
Notes about the Creator/s:
Creator (Media):
Zero Wing was developed by Toaplan, a Japanese arcade game company founded in 1984 and known for their shoot-em-up games. The original arcade version was released in 1989, with Toaplan handling both development and the initial Japanese Mega Drive port in May 1991 (Segaretro, 2025). The European Mega Drive version that spawned the meme was published by Sega in July 1991, featuring the infamously poor English translation that was handled internally by a Toaplan team member whose English skills were, according to game designer Tatsuya Uemura, "really terrible" (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025).
Toaplan's approach to localization reflected the era's casual attitude toward translation quality in video games, where technical staff often handled linguistic conversion without professional translation services. This practice, while economically efficient, created the linguistic gap that would later become a defining characteristic of "Engrish" in gaming culture.
Creator (Meme):
The meme's creation represents a collective effort across multiple internet communities rather than the work of any single individual. The progression from discovered content to viral phenomenon involved several key contributors: forum users who initially shared the Zero Wing footage, Jeffrey Ray Roberts who created the musical remix that became the meme's sonic signature, Something Awful forum members who generated the photoshopped images, and Bad_CRC (TribalWar username) who assembled these elements into the definitive video format (Kotaku, 2021).
This collaborative creation model would become characteristic of internet meme culture, where original content is discovered, remixed, and amplified through community participation rather than top-down media production.
Notes about the years:
Media Creation Year (1989/1991):
Zero Wing was originally released as a Japanese arcade game in 1989 by Toaplan. The Sega Mega Drive port that contained the infamous translation was first published in Japan on May 31, 1991, followed by the European release in July 1991 (Segaretro, 2025). The European version specifically featured the English translation that would later become meme source material.
Meme Creation Year (1999):
The transition from video game curiosity to internet meme began in 1999 when the Zero Wing intro started appearing on gaming forums and websites. Know Your Meme documents the first references appearing in 1999 and early 2000s on sites like Zany Video Game Quotes, OverClocked, and TribalWar forums (Know Your Meme, 2008). This timing places the meme's emergence during the early broadband internet era when gaming communities had sufficient bandwidth to share video content.
Height of Popularity (2001):
The meme reached its cultural peak in 2001, specifically following the February 16, 2001 release of Bad_CRC's music video on Newgrounds. Within a week, major publications including Wired were covering the phenomenon, and by 2001 the phrase had transcended internet communities to appear in mainstream cultural references (The Mary Sue, 2011). The 2001 popularity surge coincided with the early days of broadband internet adoption, enabling the video content to reach audiences beyond dedicated gaming forums.
Sources and additional information:
Kotaku. (2021, February 16). The 'All Your Base Are Belong To Us' Video Is Now 20 Years Old. Retrieved May 30, 2025, from https://kotaku.com/the-all-your-base-are-belong-to-us-video-is-now-20-ye-1846281979
Know Your Meme. (2008, December 12). All Your Base Are Belong to Us. Retrieved May 30, 2025, from https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us
Segaretro. (2025, January 26). Zero Wing. Retrieved May 30, 2025, from https://segaretro.org/Zero_Wing
The Mary Sue. (2011, February 16). Happy 10th Birthday, "All Your Base" Video. Retrieved May 30, 2025, from https://www.themarysue.com/happy-10th-birthday-all-your-base-video/
Wikipedia Contributors. (2025, May 29). All your base are belong to us. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 30, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us