Over 8000!!

Ah, the good old days. Coming home from school, throwing aside your book bag, and watching some MOTHER F**KING DRAGON BALL Z!!!!!!

So to my surprise, a few years ago... Well okay, FIVE years ago... Dragon Ball Z gained a lot of popularity. But it was mostly because of a clip from the first season durring the fight between the Saiyan soldier Napa and Earth's savior, Goku. When Goku powered up, Nappa and his superior, Vegeta, couldn't believe how powerful he has become in a short amount of time. Nappa asks what the power level was, and Vegeta told him what it was. But... It was done so in a manner that made it strange and bizarre on some level.

It was the way Vegeta shouted "It's over 9000!" that made it hilarious. Soon enough, many different memes and pictures popped up all over the Internet putting Vegeta in situations that, obviously, had him point out that something is over 9000.

Know Your Meme's page for "Over 9000!!!" was very informative about the truth behind this meme. They do mention how in the original manga of Dragon Ball Z, both Japanese AND the English translation, Goku's power level was actually 8000 during that scene, not 9000 like in the English dub of the anime.
It was even 8000 in the Japanese dub of the anime. Although, they do not explain why it was 9000 in the English anime.

Another thing that the page in Know Your Meme seems to miss is something sort of important if you buy the DVDs of Dragon Ball Z just so that you can see that scene. What they forgot was that there's more than one English dub of Dragon Ball z.

Dragon Ball Z was originally dubbed in English by Ocean Dub. It was later re-dubbed by Funimation. The original Over 9000 clip was done by Ocean Dub. If they had provided that information, it would've been a little less complicated.