When Gamer Humor Attacks

These are the words that have launched a thousand e-mails and inspired a Web artist to create the flash movie spreading like a grass fire across the cyber-plain.

The "all your base are belong to us" T-shirts are already available. Chat rooms are buzzing with "all your base" mutations and gossip. Web reporters are frantically searching for an explanation, firing off e-mails to geek gurus, demanding to know what is going on.

Parody? No. It's the Dada "reality" of a medium that refuses to be tamed into predictability. Armies of marketers toiling for years can't figure out how to grab Web-users' attention, and then a flash file with screen-shots from an outdated arcade game accompanied by clumsy subtitles conquers the world.

Is it any wonder no one can figure out how to make money off the Web?

Okay, you've clicked on the link. Seen the video. Ogled the endless slides of photos perfectly doctored to make it look as though "all your base are belong to us" has infiltrated the entire planet. But you're still scratching your head, afraid to utter the phrase that will reveal your ignorance of humor in the new millennium: "I don't get it."

Take heart, you're not alone.

"OK, I'm obviously the dorky kid coming late to the party -- can someone explain this to me?" Asked one brave poster to the message boards at a weblog called metafilter. This was on Feb. 15, before All Your Base hit the big time.

"From what I was told, it's a sort of obsessive/compulsive cult surrounding the poorly translated text from a Japanese video game," said one answer to the query. "This just goes to show, things don't have to make sense to be funny," observed another.

Another respondent, a University of California at San Diego student named Michael Truex, revealed the origin of the awkward and mysteriously ubiquitous phrase.

"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."

Reached at UCSD, Truex admitted he didn't really understand the quote and accompanying video game's sudden fame either.

"I don't think anyone really knows why it's gotten so popular. It was amusing the first time I saw it. But now it's been beaten into the ground."

He said he had first seen the GIF file and quote a few years ago on a website called Zany Video Game Quotes.

Developed in 1989 as a coin-operated video arcade game, it later became available for the Sega Genesis console. Of course, this information doesn't really help explain why the hell anyone cares about the game now.
Joshua Schachter, the editor of a message board called memepool, was among the few willing to hazard an explanation for the All Your Base craze.

"I think there are a number of factors that combine to make All Your Base a fairly virulent meme. First, the incongruity of "engrish" in a reasonably nicely produced game is funny, much like professionally printed signs that happen to contain typos. Second ... it works well as a catchphrase and slogan and fits easily into many different contexts. And, as any 12-year-old or online gamer knows, anything that was funny once is funnier when you repeat it 100 times," he wrote via e-mail.

Bill Childers has become a fan, and even posted a copy of the flash movie on his website. In an e-mail, he described his fascination with All Your Base as an acquired taste.

"I kind of went through stages. At first, it was like, 'What is this all about? Are these guys smoking crack?' Then, after doing a little research and reading, (I thought), 'Oh, I see ... what a bad translation. Kinda' funny....' Then, after seeing all the parodies, including the Flash movie: 'Oh, boy, this is hysterical!'"

The "Zany Quotes" owner, who inadvertently helped pull Zero Wing from obscurity, doesn't agree. The website's front page now features an impassioned plea to let up on the once-obscure arcade game. Nothing kills a pop cult like notoriety.

"I've noticed that Zero Wing has caught on like wildfire. I've seen the video, the flash, the image doctorings, the FAQ.... For the love of god, STOP! You're killing it! The poor Zero Wing intro never even saw it coming.... You murderers! *Sob* ... Errm, anyways, jokes stop being funny when they become catch phrases."

But after all the manic speculation, hype, giggles and groans have died down in favor of the next new thing, one thing will undoubtedly still remain crystal clear: All your base are belong to us.

Signed,
Mahir