It's Over 9000!

About

“Over 9000” is a popular catchphrase derived from the Japanese manga anime series Dragon Ball Z that is typically used as an innumerable quantifier to describe a large number of something like “several”, “lots”, “butt loads” and even the metric “ass tonne”.

Origin

Dragon Ball (ドラゴンボール Doragon Bōru) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. With the ending of Dragon Ball, Toei Animation quickly released a second anime television series, Dragon Ball Z. Picking up where the first left off, Dragon Ball Z is adapted from the final twenty-six volumes of the manga series. It premiered in Japan on April 26, 1989 and ran for 291 episodes until January 31, 1996.

On October 17th, 2006, 4chan user and Youtube user Kajetokun^[1] uploaded the video “9000!! NINE THOUSAAAAANDD!” The video had over five million views but by June 2010, the video had been removed and the user suspended. In June 2008, the video was reuploaded with over a million views.

Discrepancy in Power Level

In the original Japanese dub of the series, and in both the Japanese and English language mangas, Vegeta states that Goku’s level is actually “over 8000.” This can be seen in this scan from the manga.

Spread

The original “9000” video quickly drew attention from DBZ fans, and inspired remix videos right from the start. The meme quickly spread to YTMND in October 2006. The first Urban Dictionary entry for “over 9000” was submitted on November 21st, 2006:

What the scouter says about Goku’s power level. Over Nine thousand

“Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power?”
“It’s over NINE THOUSAAAAAAAND!” (Over 9000)
“WHAT?! NINE THOUSAND?!

On YTMND, there had already been a HAL9000^[2] fad, centered around the computer from the famous Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. But on December 24th, 2006, YTMNDer CyrisMustang created “How much will the PS4 retail for?”^[3]

YTMND’s surrounding both HAL9000 and “Over 9000” were created through 2007, but by 2008 nearly all YTMND’s containing the number 9000 were in reference to the famous DBZ line.

Notable Examples

Usage

As early as since 2007, the number 7 has been word-filtered on 4chan to turn into “Over 9000.” The phrase adopted from Dragon Ball Z is now used in place of saying “Like a million!” or “Tons!” when talking about a relatively large amount. Herei s an example dialogue:

Person one: How many people were at the dorm room party last night?
Person two: “Over NINE THOUSAAAAAAAND!”

In addition to its conversational usage, the original scene from Dragon Ball Z has been also adopted into a 4pane exploitable comic.

Interview with Kajetokun

In April 2008, Kajetokun was interviewed by Cybernetic Tigerz of Japanator.^[4] Here is an excerpt from the interview:

J: When you made the Dragon Ball cutup, did you have any idea it would go on to become such a huge phenomenon over the Internet? Or was it just something that you made for a small group of friends?

K: I had no idea it was going to get this big. Really it was just a small little something I made as an inside joke for my friends. My friend Patrick posted it on /b/ and then I ended up having like 20,000 views the next day.Then Scott from VGcats front page linked my video and I woke up to 200,000 views.

4chan trolls Oprah

“Over 9000” struck a chord with 4chan early on, but in September of 2008, one particular Anonymous troll left a message on Oprah Winfrey’s message board, claiming to represent an organized network of pedophiles. Oprah took the bait, and read the post to her audience. Considering the power and influence that Oprah has, this was viewed by many Anon’s as an “Epic Win.” Oprah had fallen for it, and was very disturbed.

The original video of Oprah’s message to her audience was quickly removed due to a copyright claim by Harpo, Inc. Despite that fact, many “Oprah 9000” remix videos followed on YouTube.^[5]

Search Interest

Furthermore, overall Google searches for the obscure “Over 9000” DBZ reference also surpassed all searches for the wellknown “HAL9000” from Kubrick’s film:

External References

^[1] YouTube – Kajetokun

^[2]YTMND – Results for HAL 9000

^[3]YTMND – Nine-Thousand USD

^[4] Japanator – interview: Kajetokun, the Over 9000 guy

^[5] YouTube – Search Results for Oprah 9000