Age of Empires is a real time strategy series first released in 1997, built around gathering resources, building towns and advancing through historical ages. Advancing an age unlocks stronger buildings, units and technologies, so being sent back to the first age suggests the opposite of progress. That simple idea made the clip easy to reuse outside the game, and short versions spread through soundboards and gaming edits as a shorthand for resets, demotions and total failure, long after the original strategy context is removed for new viewers today.