W00t
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W00t.JPG
The term "w00t" is a slang interjection used to express happiness or excitement, usually over the Internet. The expression is most popular on USENET posts [1] (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.test/browse_thread/thread/e7309f06c3c613c2/336c0c06168f42bd?q=w00t+group:alt.test&_done=%2Fgroups%3Fq%3Dw00t+group:alt.test%26start%3D30%26scoring%3Dd%26num%3D10%26hl%3Den%26ie%3DUTF-8%26lr%3D%26as_drrb%3Dq%26as_qdr%3D%26as_mind%3D1%26as_minm%3D1%26as_miny%3D1981%26as_maxd%3D26%26as_maxm%3D1%26as_maxy%3D2005%26safe%3Doff%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#336c0c06168f42bd), multiplayer computer games (especially first-person shooters), IRC chats, and instant messages, though use on the World Wide Web in the form of weblogs or in forums is by no means uncommon.
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Origins
w00t comes to us via a strange path through music and culture. In 1993 two songs with amazingly similar titles both rose to the top 10 of Billboard's hot tracks for the year. "Whoomp, there it is," and "Whoot, there it is" by rap groups Tag Team and 95 South, respectively, were both describing their pleasure at sighting the posterior of a voluptuous woman (and following in the footsteps of the previous summer's #3 smash hit "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot). These phrases quickly showed up on the internet in discussion of the songs and in similar discussion in alt.rap and rec.music.
Prior to the mid nighties rap exposion and bringing the term w00t to the mainstream. This term was used in dark dorm rooms by spotty faced teens playing, you guessed it, Dungeons & Dragons or D&D as it was commony refered to. WOOT was a popular abbreviation for the expression "Wow! Loot!!" made when gold or other treasures where found during play in the game.
However, the phrases were catching on in a larger context, as in this post (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.sport.basketball.pro/browse_thread/thread/57fa55866cc3accd/83edf16b10d86063?q=whoot&rnum=2&hl=en#83edf16b10d86063) about "whoot" from rec.sport.basketball.pro:
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.pro Date: 23 Jun 1993 20:54:59 -0500 From: p...@genesis.MCS.COM (Patrick Sugent) Subject: Re: Crowd chant at Bulls rally? lore...@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (Eric Lorenzo) writes: > I taped the Bulls rally today (being from Chicago) and I was trying >to figure out what the crowd was chanting. I still had trouble when the >players would start the crowd going also. It sounded like 'Boom! There you >go.' Was this some sort of rallying cry they had during the Finals? I had >never heard it until today. They were saying (or so the paper says) "Whoot! There it is." I have no idea what this means and I have never heard it in conjunction with the Bulls. Apparently, it has something to do with a rap song or some such (implied by the Tribune). This is not exactly my area of expertise. :-)
After that there are more appearances in the sports context and increasingly as a standalone phrase in more "geeky" settings. July 11 1993 in rec.games.frp.dnd saw whoot in a DND gamer's sig (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.dnd/browse_frm/thread/2bc62842b5c8f7b4/f1492f68518be86a?q=whoot&rnum=2&hl=en#f1492f68518be86a):
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1993 20:47:06 GMT From: dhe...@mindvox.phantom.com (Double Helix) Subject: Net.Rogues.Gallery I think it would be interested to make a Net.Rogues.Gallery. People could send in some of their most famous/infamous PCs and NPCs. What does everyone think about it? Does something like this already exist? I'd be willing to compile the list. -Dh* Double Helix & Wistful dhe...@mindvox.phantom.com - "Whoot, there it is."
This post (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.music.alternative/browse_thread/thread/8be12927f6c45692/eda4bef85e8a1760?q=whoot&rnum=19&hl=en#eda4bef85e8a1760) shows a sarcastic take on the phrase in alt.music.alternative, and predates only slightly the first solid use of whoot as a geeky slang interjective (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.cyberpunk/browse_frm/thread/cce1357107e7b916/0cfdaf45966de7a6?q=whoot&rnum=2&hl=en#0cfdaf45966de7a6) in alt.cyberpunk on Aug 8, 1993:
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk Date: 8 Aug 1993 13:52:11 -0400 From: c...@panix.com (Clay Shirky) Subject: Whoot, there it is/NYT and the death of c-p Just finished the NYT article about Idol, which was pretty amusing, but the sidebar containing a McHistory of c-p is the death knell, containing such pieces of balanced reporting as calling rtm a cyberterrorist, calling the internet DARPANet and saying that EFF was founded to "keep the Government off hackers backs." My new "Quadratic Rip-Tide Theory of Information Channels" is that when the volume of misinformation about a given subject is >= the square of the volume of real information moving in the opposite direction, the real information is sucked deep into a watery grave. ;-)
Further sightings repeat the new geek application of the phrase, with the double-zero "00" form appearing in November of 1994, first as wh00t (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.skiing.snowboard/browse_thread/thread/7fa727df630f138c/abef4b7d7c273e4c?q=wh00t&rnum=2&hl=en#abef4b7d7c273e4c) on rec.skiing.snowboard:
Newsgroups: rec.skiing.snowboard
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 21:17:00 -0500
From: John Paul Brzustowicz <j...@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Widowmaker CD ROM very soon
Excerpts from netnews.rec.skiing.snowboard: 19-Nov-94 Re: Widowmaker CD
ROM very .. by S...@sukmag.demon.co.uk
> Quick Time 2.0 films, interviews with Brushie, Kelly, Haakonsen ++ So
> check your sources before you slag, ok.
Hey slick, back up there a second....
I have that CD-ROM from Burton too, but I didn't see any interviews...
sure I saw them all riding, they got clips of that, but I never really
saw any interviews. Maybe I missed something...
I talked to some lady at Burton, and she was saying there's all
kinds of neat stuff on the disk, like clicking in different places or
such gets neat things not otherwise seen.....anyone find any of these?
wh00t!!!!
Euler_
and then for the first time in its more common refinement (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.games.doom/browse_frm/thread/b44f776fd19884bc/bd627d3a972ff86c?q=w00t&rnum=1&hl=en#bd627d3a972ff86c) (removing the 'h') in alt.games.doom a few days later, in a user's name:
Newsgroups: alt.games.doom Date: 24 Nov 1994 05:28:38 GMT From: w...@access4.digex.net (Da W00T [AcC3$$ D3Ni3D]) Subject: multiplayer game door What does anybody know about multiplayer game doors for BBS's.. I investigated APCi's server MPGS and it requires 2 machines with 2 digiboards... are there any others that people know of? if so please EMAIL me with a response to this post... I need it ASAP... thanks..
The link to Doom is interesting, as Doom itself appeared in 1993 -- the same year as the popular "whoot" rap songs -- and included a multi-player mode where players could type messages to each other during gameplay. The "w00t" form would have been faster to type, and of course more l33t.
Usage
It is sometimes explained that "w00t" is an exclamation of excitement, which cannot be used sarcastically. Because Internet text-based chat cannot communicate the vocal subtleties of spoken word, such as sarcasm, word choice can be very important to the clarity of a message. "Whoo-hoo", "yay", "hooray", and other words similar to "w00t" could all be used with sarcastic intent ("I have a dentist's appointment today. Yay."), whereas "w00t" would always be interpreted as a genuine expression of excitement ("I have a dentist's appointment today. w00t!").
"w00t" is pronounced to rhyme with "boot" or "shoot", and can also be written as "woot", "w00+", "w007", or any number of other leetspeak variations. The "w" in "w00t" is sometimes also followed by an "h", as in "wh00t", "whoot" or "wh007". Some argue that "w00t!" is the only proper spelling. The symbolic approximation of Latin letter forms makes "w00t" a prime example of leet. It may also sometimes be seen spelled as "wewt", without any change in pronunciation. The phrase is often used twice in succession, as in "w00t! w00t!".
The word is often used as a taunt in first person shooter games, or multiplayer games, typically used with pwned, as in "3y3 pwned j00! w00t! w00t!" (I owned you, w00t! w00t!). The word "w00t" also has a possible meaning of "We Owned the Other Team.", and is commonly used in team based first person shooters such as Counter Strike (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter_strike).
"w00t" also materialized on IRC (warez channels in particular) in the mid-1990s—an onomatopoeic word of the sound a robot might make ("clicks", "whirrs", and "beeps" were also popular). Upon entering a channel, or entering into a "conversation" with a bot, one could be greeted with "w00t": "W00t! Welcome nght_kllah back to #ultiwarez!"
Also, most people claim that the term "w00t!" simply isn't complete without the use of the exclamation mark, as it adds to the rejoiceful inherent meaning of the word.
An emoticon "\o/" is used for "w00t!" during chat. This emoticon appears to be derived from Homer Simpson's cry of happiness "woohoo!" and it is perhaps inspired by the Japanese cry, "banzai!". Both involve a shout and the raising of the arms above the head.
According to a contest on Merriam-Webster Online, this word is the third most popular word used in popular culture that is not in dictionary.
See also
External links
- Thinkgeek (http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/gaming/38e7/) sells a t-shirt with the word and offers their take on the history of the expression.
- The Jargon File (http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/W/w00t.html) offers their definition of the word.
- W00t in the most popular word list at Merriam-Webster (http://m-w.com/info/favorite.htm)nl:w00t