Thursday, December 06, 2007

Internet Sub-Cultures: Noob Talk

Games like "Command & Conquer: Generals" and most probably others have players from all over the world, most of them using the "noob talk" lingo, talk pronounced more like taak (think of torque without the R). Flaming is essential and in order to do so, the word noob (a way of saying newbie in a totally degrading manner) is supposed to be misspelled in one of absurd variations; some of them are as follows:

noob, noobs, newb, nub, nubs, boon, boons

There's usually an adverb or an adjective added to it. For example:

noob host
dc noob
scud noob
bunker noob (of course, one of my favorites)

There are always new varieties invented by the minute. It's a whole different linguistic culture of it's own. It's probably got to do something with the whole Green Revolution. In this case, preserving your keys, saving keystrokes for a rainy day or probably for extending the life of your keyboard and looking cool while you do so.

What bewilders me the most though is the improper conservation of keystrokes. For example, a couple of days ago, a noob posted:

[elf] u kik?
[elf] mannn

Keys conserved: y,o,c and the shift key
Keys excessively hammered: n and the Enter key

Okay, y and o is somewhat of an IM (instant messenger) standard these days (something I'm totally not into). However, the excessive use of n and conservation of the c is somewhat inappropriate. Firstly, if you're actually preserving your finger energy for some other subtle exercise that may not be appropriate to suggest here, then why excessively hit the n key? Secondly, in terms of preserving your keyboard strokes (for an ever long lasting keyboard), why would you save on a c and then go waste away the n; I mean, the n is used way more than the c. This internet subculture is both interesting, yet bewildering.

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