All Your Base Photoshop Wave

2001

Date: February 2001 · Place: Something Awful, Tribal War forums, the open web · Figures: Bad Sega Mega Drive translators of Zero Wing (1989) · the Goons · Bad_CRC, video compiler · Tags: Image Macro, First Wave 01. A Botched 1989 Translation Returns Zero Wing, a 1989 Toaplan shoot-em-up, has a Mega Drive intro with comically broken English: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US. The clip circulates on Usenet through the 1990s as a curio. In late 2000 a flash animation by Bad_CRC, set to the techno track Invasion of the Gabber Robots, ships the line to a wider audience. Through January and February 2001, Goons on Something Awful and posters on Tribal War start Photoshopping the phrase onto billboards, road signs, the White House lawn, the Hollywood sign, NFL Jumbotrons, the Lincoln Memorial. 02. The First Photoshop Meme That Goes Everywhere USA Today writes about it in February 2001. Local TV affiliates do segments. Wired prints a feature. The phrase appears spray-painted on a Sturgis water tower, on signs at NHL games, on a real-life Toys-R-Us billboard. All Your Base is the bridge between the text-macro Usenet era and the image-macro forum era. The same joke, the same phrase, but the deliverable is now a JPEG, not a quote. Every meme format that follows assumes the image is the unit. Sources • Wired, 'When Gamer Humor Attacks' (February 2001) • USA Today, 'All your base...' (1 February 2001) • KnowYourMeme, All Your Base Are Belong to Us