All Your Base: Phenomenon of the Month
By Jeff Mellen
Picture yourself in the year 2101. You are a world-renowned historian
who has sat down to write the definitive history of the 21st century.
You first begin in January 2001, with recalling the inauguration of
the most near-sighted president in American history. Your focus moves
to April 2001, the date of the U.S.-China spy plane standoff. Unfortunately,
for February and March 2001, you need filler. You need to mention
something that encapsulates increasing world globalization and the
proliferation of rudimentary high-speed "Internet" technology.
Suddenly, a news flash arrives-- war is beginning. And you realize
that what research showed was a lightning-quick passing fad in an
immature digital world was a dead-on prognostication.
Well, that may never happen. But the quirky phenomenon that is "All
Your Base Are Belong To Us", officially headquartered at http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/,
does reveal more about the digital community than we might initially
think. But first, just in case you had your e-mail or Flash plug-in
turned off from February 15 to the end of March, let me describe what
"All Your Base" is.
"All Your Base" is essentially an elaborate joke, based
on the poor grammar in Japanese video game maker Toaplan's 1989 shooter,
Zero Wing. On certain video game discussion boards, particularly overclocked.org,
gamers had begun to discuss the poor wording in Japanese import games
when they were translated into English. At Overclocked, they decided
to dub the awkwardly-phrased cinematic opening of Zero Wing. This
dubbing triggered a firestorm of creativity among the folks on video
game boards, who were especially smitten with the now-famous line.
Using Photoshop or other image-editing software, they began splicing
in "All Your Base" and other Zero Wing phrases such as "Someone
set up us the bomb" into otherwise-normal pictures, such as those
of stores, road signs, computer screens, and billboards. According
to the site on PlanetTribes, this eventually began to die out around
year's end. Until the monster struck.
In mid-February, what most people know of All Your Base-- the video--
was released. The creators matched a techno audio track (complete
with a drone-like voice issuing the hacked phrases) with the digitally
edited photos, spinning off a three-and-a-half minute long Flash video
clip. Almost instantly, it jumped out of the video-game discusssion
circle and into mainstream media. Within a week, "All Your Base"
had become one of the top searches on Lycos, and appeared in numerous
newspapers, Time magazine, CNN, and other media within two weeks.
By the end of the month, references to the video had sneaked into
Fox Trot, the covers of several magazines, industrial web sites,
and other unconventional places. But as April and warmer temperatures
came around, "All Your Base" moved farther and farther from
the pulse of pop culture. It may be premature to call it dead, but
it is fading as quickly as it rose.
Still, we can learn a few things from All Your Base. The first is
that such phenomena can strike without warning, and can hit a nerve
that no one expects. "All Your Base" defies categorization,
yet millions of people viewed it and integrated "all your [insert
noun here] are belong to us" in their temporary vernacular. Second,
this is another example of increasing mainstream cross-culture and
cross-media production; a Japanese video game becomes fodder for primarily
American game enthusiasts who, using both image and sound technology,
distribute a Flash movie across the 'Net. Finally, it showed how short
Internet time is. Go ahead, try distributing something you made to
millions of people inside a week.
As for "All Your Base" itself, I must admit that no matter
how stupid it may seem, I like it. Perhaps that's because I appreciate
the dedication of the photo editors, the quirkiness of the delivery,
and the versatility of the catch-phrase. It was fun while it lasted.