NationStates Jolt Archive

rox0rs? WTF is rox0rs? w00t? I've seen a lot of these new words around, and I have no clue what they mean. suxx0r? Can someone please clue me in to the new lingo?

Look, i am a link! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A787917)

It's loser-speak. The only time I hear/see such things from anyone who's passed age 15 is a tongue-in-cheek kind of reference. Can't give you full etymology or anything, but simple breakdows:

rox0rs - rocks, as in "This game rox0rs!", affirmative reaction.
w00t - Joyful exclamation. "They defeated Bush! w00t!"
suxx0r - "Sucks", similar to the first you queried.

I first noticed it a lot in the CS community, where cheating was rampant. "hacks!" became "hax", became "h4x!", and thusly, those who were guilty of it were "h4xx0rs!" and so forth.

...dont expect any such words to be used by anyone other than boys under about 14 years old... such grammar seems to be induced by the onset of testosterone, and apparently makes your text look cool.
However I'm of the opinion that 'easy to read' or at least 'doesnt require decoding alogrithm to turn into vaguely sensical text' == cooler.

Generally used by those who consider themselves to be what in native english would translate as 'elite hackers' ...the being of which generally consists of going to some coding forum and asking someone to code something for you, then when either ignored, deleted, or told to sod off, deciding to lapse into even more obfuscated l33t speek and seemingly swear at folk at random, although even once painstakingly decoded it still seems random and sporadic, so its hard to tell. Sigh. Or maybe thewavlength.net just gives the wrong image and secretly has a big neon sign that reads "AM STUPID. WILL CODE FOR IMMATURE BRATS!" Or maybe im just bitter...



Edit: Meh, Darsylonian Theocrats beat me to it :)

Just think of it as pig latin for text and you will rapidly understand why it is considered juvenile and annoying by the rest of us.


in other words, l33t sux0r!

I'm 14 and I don't use that crud. :D

Thanks for the help. It was very confusing, and I don't understand why any one would use it. I can understand the hacker websites trying to stay hidden from searches, but for everyday use it is rediculous. It makes the user sound uneducated. I like reading posts where I can read the post. I guess from now on I'll just ignore the "l33t" typists. Thanks again, and that link was really helpful.

So how long do you think it will take for the "l33t" to dominate this thread?

I kinda like it (in moderation) myself. I think it lightens the mood because no one uses it seriously, its always as bantor. My friends and I joke around in it sometimes just because its so rediculous. I've never really had a bad encounter with l33t language (but then again, I don't play online FPS's).

Ooh, that BBC article is quite good. I think I'll update my l33tspeak dictionary.

The BBC article is especially interesting because it goes more in depth with the code's history than simply saying that it's currently popular among young males who post on internet forums. Having a relatively simple code that keeps search engines from finding your site based on words you don't want it to find (such as hacker) is necessary for some sites, and l33t speak is an intelligent answer to that problem. However, using the language to look "cool" on forums just confuses people because unlike the hacker sites where it was originally used, people are not expecting to have to decode anything in a public forum.