wannabee
/won'*-bee/ (Or, more plausibly, spelled "wannabe") [Madonna fans who dress,
talk, and act like their idol; probably originally from biker slang] A would-be
hacker. The connotations of this term differ sharply depending on the age and
exposure of the subject. Used of a person who is in or might be entering larval
stage, it is semi-approving; such wannabees can be annoying but most hackers
remember that they, too, were once such creatures. When used of any professional
programmer, CS academic, writer, or suit, it is derogatory, implying that said
person is trying to cuddle up to the hacker mystique but doesn't, fundamentally,
have a prayer of understanding what it is all about. Overuse of hacker terms is
often an indication of the wannabee nature. Compare newbie.
Historical note: The wannabee phenomenon has a slightly different flavour now
(1993) than it did ten or fifteen years ago. When the people who are now
hackerdom's tribal elders were in larval stage, the process of becoming a hacker
was largely unconscious and unaffected by models known in popular culture -
communities formed spontaneously around people who, *as individuals*, felt
irresistibly drawn to do hackerly things, and what wannabees experienced was a
fairly pure, skill-focussed desire to become similarly wizardly. Those days of
innocence are gone forever; society's adaptation to the advent of the
microcomputer after 1980 included the elevation of the hacker as a new kind of
folk hero, and the result is that some people semi-consciously set out to *be
hackers* and borrow hackish prestige by fitting the popular image of hackers.
Fortunately, to do this really well, one has to actually become a wizard.
Nevertheless, old-time hackers tend to share a poorly articulated disquiet about
the change; among other things, it gives them mixed feelings about the effects
of public compendia of lore like this one.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
Wang Laboratories « wango « wank « wannabee »
want list » WAP » WAP Forum
|
