That’s right. Digital Culture has exploded in large part to the success of video games and the evolution of online gaming.
According to Wired.com, “This year’s winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t (“leet,” or “elite”) speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters.
Although the double “o” in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for “we owned the other team”—again stemming from the gaming community.”
What does woot, or w00t mean?
w00t (interjection) expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word “yay” ex.{ w00t! I won the contest! } or more accurately { w00t! 10 head-shots in a row!}.
Soon we’ll all be speaking to each other in chat room shorthand. TTL.
References:
- Read the full list of words by year on Wikipedia[1]
- Wired.com’s announcement article[2]
- Merriam-Webster’s Words of The Year[3]
UPDATE March 14, 2023: Wow. I wrote this the year the first iPhone came out. The mobile internet revolution had not happened yet. I had no idea how fast the world was about to change.
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