Back around 2001 I was introduced to the most heinously insulting adjective imaginable.
As I was rumbling around the starting area in Everquest, destroying menacing looking bee-creatures, I happened upon another character near my level who seemed to be struggling with an especially tough foe. With all the power my level two wizard could muster blasted the bee and watched it fall to the ground smoldering under the power of my AWESOME might.
"F*cking Newbie!" Exclaimed the high elf who I had just rescued from certain doom.
"What did I do?" I typed back in a mad frenzy ready to explain vehemently that he owed me his very existence.
"Don't steal kills stupid Newbie." He replied before running off and engaging another enemy.
Both myself and my animated character sat wide eyed, confused, and a little hurt. I had tried to do a good deed and not only did he curse at me but he called me a NEWBIE!
Now let's get something straight,I had barely had the game installed for an hour before my death defying rescue, but that word hurt. I was furious!
So I did what any one else would do in the same situation.
I leveled and ran around calling other people 'newbies'.
In the last decade that horrible insult has gone through many iterations because typing out NEWBIE is either way to time consuming when there are dragons and all other assortment of enemies to take out or because the insulter is feeling especially creative that day.
Newb
NoOb
nOOb
Noobsauce
Nooblestilskin
OMGNOOB
The list goes on and on but what is really interesting is that the root word, 'NEWBIE', is now widely used and accepted to mean someone who is new but may be ready to learn. I see multiple, and informative, tweets for articles teaching Newbies all sorts of things.
In fact I learned something new this morning from a guide on how not to be a twitter newbie. It was very informative and contained some things that I had never occurred to me.
This was just one of many instances where if being called a NEWBIE meant I got to learn something new then so be it.
Perhaps that is why it no longer carries the negative connotation that it used to, because if I call some one a NEWBIE I am acknowledging that I have something to teach them that they do not know, in some cases, that they need to learn.
It's hard to know what questions to ask if you aren't exposed to the questions that need asking.
So, while I'm no longer an Everquest Newbie, I fully admit to being a NEWBIE in many other things. Like twitter and of course open heart surgery.
