TITLE
When Gamer Humor Attacks
AUTHOR
Jeffrey Benner
PUBLICATION
Wired
YEAR
2001
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
“In AD 2101. War was beginning. What happen? Somebody set us up the bomb. We get signal. What! Main screen turn on. It’s you!! How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us!”These are the words that have launched a thousand e-mails and inspired a Web artist to create the flash movie spreading like a grass fire across the cyber-plain.
The “all your base are belong to us” T-shirts are already available. Chat rooms are buzzing with “all your base” mutations and gossip. Web reporters are frantically searching for an explanation, firing off e-mails to geek gurus, demanding to know what is going on.
Parody? No. It’s the Dada “reality” of a medium that refuses to be tamed into predictability. Armies of marketers toiling for years can’t figure out how to grab Web-users’ attention, and then a flash file with screen-shots from an outdated arcade game accompanied by clumsy subtitles conquers the world.
Is it any wonder no one can figure out how to make money off the Web?
GAMES MENTIONED
Zero Wing
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Bill Childers
Joshua Schachter
Michael Truex
ALTERNATE LINK
Archived Copy @ Internet Archive