About

"I'm in your base killing your dudes", often written as "im in ur base killin ur d00dz", is a popular gaming catchphrase used to indicate one's pwnage over another player, as in "Guess what? I'm humiliating you and you don't even know it."

Origin

It has become a widely-used phrase amongst players of many RTS computer games such as StarCraft and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. In particular, the screenshot which is believed to be the origin of the phrase as a fad was taken from StarCraft and posted on the SomethingAwful forums.

According to the Internet Timeline on Dipity, this meme is believed to have originated on the SomethingAwful forums in 2003 when a screenshot of a game of StarCraft was posted on the Games forum by usrer 1337h4x.

Transcript of in-game chat:

dude, where are you?

im in ur base, killing ur d00ds

The formula is "im in ur X (verb)ing (ur/my) Y".

Background

StarCraft is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The first game of the StarCraft series was released for Microsoft Windows on March 31st, 1998.

During gameplay, the player is given an alert message ("Your base is under attack!") when there are enemy forces engaged in his/her friendly territories. Due to highly complex tactics and sudden attacks employed by StarCraft players, this gamer alert has become one of the most dreaded messages heard in the game.

Spread

The phrase reemerged in 2005 with the release of Age of Empires III, a real-time strategy game developed by Ensemble Studios similar to StarCraft and set in early colonial America. During online matches, a number of prerecorded voice chat options were available to the player, and could be used for purposes such as requesting resources from allies or taunting enemies. One of these taunts, implied to be attributed to American president George Washington, would proclaim in a ridiculous voice, "I'm in your base, killin' your dudes."

The original taunt can be heard at 0:44 in the following video:

Google Insights

Google Insights For Search shows that the meme peaked in popularity in November of 2006, with a rise in interest corresponding with the release of Age of Empires III, with later peaks appearing with its two expansion packs.

References

• http://snowclones.org/2007/10/19/im-in-ur-x-ying-ur-z/
• http://www.wired.com/culture/geekipedia/magazine/geekipedia/im_in_ur