All Your Base Are Belong To Us
You might remember it as Zero Wing intro
The archive has not found a surviving copy.
Most viral ever24 of 32
2001·Early web, before YouTube
The mistranslation that taught the web to quote games, and the Flash video that carried it.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- AYBABTU
- Spread in
- 2001
- Began as
- A web animation
- Where it started
- newgrounds
- Taken from
- Zero Wing, a 1989 arcade game by Toaplan, in its 1991 European port for the Sega Mega Drive
- Said by
- CATS, the game’s villain
- What it said
- The Japanese line means roughly “All of your bases have been taken over by CATS”
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
Why it matteredWhat changed
It is the first catchphrase the internet made famous entirely on its own, with no broadcaster involved: a mistranslated line from a ten-year-old video game, passed around forums and then set to music. Newspapers covering it in 2001 were covering the internet as a place where things happen.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Toaplan releases Zero Wing in Japanese arcades.1
- Made
The European Mega Drive port is released with an English introduction translated in-house by a member of Toaplan’s export staff.1
- Found
Animated GIFs of the introduction begin circulating on forums and gaming sites.1
- Remixed
Jeffrey Ray Roberts releases Invasion of the Gabber Robots, a techno track built on the game’s music.1
- Took off
A Newgrounds user called Bad_CRC posts an animated video set to the track. Wired, USA Today and The Guardian all cover it that year.1
- Later
Seven people put up signs bearing the phrase around Sturgis, Michigan, as an April Fools’ joke. During the Iraq war, residents are alarmed.1 What else happened on 1 April
- Mainstream
YouTube’s maintenance page reads “All Your Video Are Belong to Us”. The company has to deny it has been hacked.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asThe line is from the arcade game.
ActuallyIt is from the 1991 European home-console port, not the 1989 arcade original.1
Commonly remembered asIt started with the music video in 2001.
ActuallyGIFs of the scene had been going round forums since 1999. The video is what took it out of them.1
Later lifeAfterwards
- The 2023 PC re-release of Zero Wing changed the English wording.1
More from hereIn this collection
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This began as a web animation, not as a video upload. Originally published on Newgrounds.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This began as a web animation, not as a video upload. Originally published on Newgrounds.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
ConnectedFollow it further
- Spread by NewgroundsPhenomenon · 2000
The animated music video that took the phrase out of gaming forums was posted to Newgrounds on 16 February 2001.
- Spread by Something AwfulPhenomenon · 2001
The phrase was spread through the Something Awful forums.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things