2000 / Meme / Game quote and remix
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
A disastrously translated game line escaped its cutscene and took over the early web.
The original is off-site. HAHrchives preserves the story and a route back to it.
What happened
The line “All your base are belong to us” began circulating as a GIF and forum quote before becoming fuel for altered images, Flash animations, a gabber remix, and more variations than any one base could reasonably hold.
Where it came from
The phrase came from the English opening sequence of the 1991 Sega Mega Drive version of Zero Wing, a port of a 1989 Japanese arcade game.
Why it mattered
All Your Base is a founding example of the internet treating a mistake as raw material. The joke was not just the bad translation; it was watching thousands of people collectively build on it.
How it spread
The phrase had appeared online by the late 1990s, then hit a broader forum-and-Flash surge in 2000. It crossed from gaming corners into news coverage and everyday internet vocabulary the following year.
Keep going
The same corner of the internet
A page full of bouncing hamsters and a sped-up earworm: that was enough.
Badger badger badger badger. Mushroom. Mushroom.
He-Man sang “What’s Up,” and the web never quite recovered.
2002 · VideoStar Wars KidOne of the first videos to prove that the internet could make a private moment global overnight.