wannabee
n 1: an ambitious and aspiring young person; "a lofty aspirant";
"two executive hopefuls joined the firm"; "the audience was
full of Madonna wannabes" [syn: aspirant, aspirer,
hopeful, wannabe, wannabee]
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wannabee
/won'@?bee/, n.
(also, more plausibly, spelled wannabe) [from a term recently used to
describe Madonna fans who dress, talk, and act like their idol; prob.:
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 terms from this lexicon is often an indication of the wannabee nature.
Compare newbie.
Historical note: The wannabee phenomenon has a slightly different flavor
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-focused 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.
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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]
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