ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US

“All Your Base Are Belong to Us” is a resilient undying fad. It is only an assorted collection of doctored images and techno rhythms. The website is a two minute clip trying to make fun of a typo in a video game. But like the common cold it manages to spread again and again. Some fads spread because they are fads. Koosh balls and other similar fads sometimes gain increased popularity just because they are starting to be popular. People are bored, and always looking for new trends. But the “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” website has apparently been popular too long not to require a closer look.

The video game sounds intertwined with the techno beat had a good sound to it. The music put together with the doctored popular images make me laugh. Al Gore flicking me off, OJ’s Mug shot, a Billboard from god, they all said “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” and they were funny. The video was well put together. But, when I first viewed the web site in class, I didn’t think I was going to send it on or talk about it outside of class. In this technologically connected world, there are too many things that are needlessly forwarded, like chain letters. This site didn’t really have any purpose, other than to point out that Japanese programmers can’t speak English. I didn’t really think this was worth sending on.

A couple of days later, after watching a DVD and contributing to the pockets of Budweiser corporation, three of us who had seen the web site started talking about it. Other people in the room semi-listened in as we talked about how weird the site was. The web site was getting talked about. Maybe this is how it spreads. Later on in the week, the website’s theme song also managed get in my head. It was in my head, and I didn’t mind. The website is kind of catchy. I still wasn’t going to forward it though, but I can image how it spreads.

If we (Enrique, Josh, and Natalie) were to by some odd chance be suckered in to participating in this awkward phenomenon, we’d want to do something drastic. Using our computer talents, we’d develop an “All Your Base” virus. We’d send it out via email to everyone on the UT student directory, so that it would touch many people. The virus would take over your computer, and every you go to turn it on, a picture of our infamous tower would pop up. The tower would be lit orange and the lights would spell out…. “All your base are belong to us.” The email would be sent from Larry Faulkner, that way most students would open it up hoping to hear that perhaps a day of class was cancelled…what a surprise it would be when their computer got infected by the virus!