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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>wannabee</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../W.html" title="W"/><link rel="previous" href="wank.html" title="wank"/><link rel="next" href="war-dialer.html" title="war dialer"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">wannabee</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="wank.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">W</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="war-dialer.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="wannabee"/><dt xmlns="" id="wannabee"><b>wannabee</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/won'@·bee/</span>, <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> (also, more plausibly, spelled <span class="firstterm">wannabe</span>) [from a term recently used to describe
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Madonna fans who dress, talk, and act like their idol; prob.: originally
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from biker slang] A would-be <a href="../H/hacker.html"><i class="glossterm">hacker</i></a>. The
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connotations of this term differ sharply depending on the age and exposure
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of the subject. Used of a person who is in or might be entering
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<a href="../L/larval-stage.html"><i class="glossterm">larval stage</i></a>, it is semi-approving; such wannabees
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can be annoying but most hackers remember that they, too, were once such
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creatures. When used of any professional programmer, CS academic, writer,
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or <a href="../S/suit.html"><i class="glossterm">suit</i></a>, it is derogatory, implying that said person
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is trying to cuddle up to the hacker mystique but doesn't, fundamentally,
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have a prayer of understanding what it is all about. Overuse of terms from
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this lexicon is often an indication of the <a href="wannabee.html"><i class="glossterm">wannabee</i></a>
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nature. Compare <a href="../N/newbie.html"><i class="glossterm">newbie</i></a>.</p></dd><dd><p>Historical note: The wannabee phenomenon has a slightly different
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flavor now (1993) than it did ten or fifteen years ago. When the people
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who are now hackerdom's tribal elders were in <a href="../L/larval-stage.html"><i class="glossterm">larval
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stage</i></a>, the process of becoming a hacker was largely unconscious
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and unaffected by models known in popular culture — communities
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formed spontaneously around people who, <span class="emphasis"><em>as
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individuals</em></span>, felt irresistibly drawn to do hackerly things, and
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what wannabees experienced was a fairly pure, skill-focused desire to
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become similarly wizardly. Those days of innocence are gone forever;
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society's adaptation to the advent of the microcomputer after 1980 included
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the elevation of the hacker as a new kind of folk hero, and the result is
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that some people semi-consciously set out to <span class="emphasis"><em>be
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hackers</em></span> and borrow hackish prestige by fitting the popular image
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of hackers. Fortunately, to do this really well, one has to actually
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become a wizard. Nevertheless, old-time hackers tend to share a poorly
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articulated disquiet about the change; among other things, it gives them
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mixed feelings about the effects of public compendia of lore like this
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one.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="wank.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../W.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="war-dialer.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">wank </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> war dialer</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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