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A newbie (written in 1337 as: n00b) is a newcomer to a particular field, the term being commonly used on the Internet, where it might refer to new, inexperienced, or ignorant users of a game, a newsgroup, an operating system or the Internet itself. The term is generally regarded as an insult, although in many cases more experienced/knowledgeable people use it in purposes of negative reinforcement, urging “newbies” to learn more about the field or area in question. Newbie itself is usually considered truly to be a person who's new at these events and not really an insult as opposed to n00b.

Variant spellings, such as newb, noob, and, in Leetspeak, n00b are numerous and common in Internet use.




Internet Relay Chat

In IRC, newbies are both discouraged and encouraged, depending on the particular channel. There are channels on any of the major networks dedicated to catering to newbie questions and getting into the IRC community. However, beyond the scope of these introductory rooms there are many channels where common newbie mistakes are not tolerated. This may include, repeating the same sentence, begging for pirated software, immature insult slinging, attacking an operator, usage of color, and the use of channel bot search and file list commands (such as !find or @search). Most channels have rules that are posted as a link in the topic or sent to the user as an on-join message. Breaking said rules or established policy by someone who does not take the initiative to find out the rules can result in an instant kick-ban.


U.S. Navy usage

The term "non-useful body", or N.U.B. was coined in the submariner world. A brand new sailor reporting aboard a submarine had to earn his "dolphins" (submarine-qualification: learning everything about a submarine in order to quickly and decisively assist in damage control). Until the sailor became so qualified, he could not do his assigned function aboard the submarine. During this time, he was declared a non-useful-body, and was generally harassed until he completed it. The term has since migrated to the surface fleet, and is used to negatively refer to new sailors, who are not as experienced and useful as their shipmates.

U.S. Army usage

A 'Newbie' was a term to describe new arrivals in the Vietnam theater of war, decades before its popular use on 1980s bulletin boards and subsequent internet message boards and chat rooms.

"It was very tough to be a newbie in Vietnam. When you get to your unit, the other men look so angry at the world, they look tired and unmotivated."

Rough etymology

The following is the likely etymology of n00b:

  1. newbie (new person)
  2. newby (variation of newbie, although rarely used)
  3. newb (shortened version of newbie)
  4. noob (a variant probably both for phonetics and Leetspeak, also sometimes used as slander)
  5. n00b (partial Leet speak of "noob", and considered the most correct usage of n00b)

Newbies in Internet culture

Since the internet has long been an attractor of people, especially children, to sophisticated areas of expertise (programming, gaming, system administration, etc.), there have been certain cultural and behavioral patterns that result as a conflict of newbies against veterans, veterans against newbies, and newbies against newbies; these clashes typically result in newbies showing childish behavior. Newbies have the bad habit, whether accidental or purposely, of asking obvious questions in online forums and chat rooms that could be quickly solved by use of a search engine. For example, a newbie on a Yu-Gi-Oh! card game forum could ask this obvious question: "What are the green cards called?" even though it states in the rulebook, anywhere on the internet and on the card what they are.



Usage in popular culture

Doctor Cox in the TV show "Scrubs" continuously refers to his protége John Dorian (J.D) as "Newbie" as a way of breaking his spirits and constantly reminding him who's in charge.

In The Sims video game, the tutorial family with which you learn how to play the game are called Bob & Betty Newbie.

In the online game Kingdom of Loathing, one enemy that the player may face in the Valley of Rof L'm Fao is a "Lamz0r N00b." Their attacks include "omgwtf"ing the player, a reference to noobspeak.

In the game Baldur's Gate, there is an NPC called Noober (obviously from noob), who talks to the party for a while before running out of things to say. His purpose in the game is to annoy the player (and give experience if you wait long enough). Also, there is a character in the sequel, Baldur's Gate 2, called Neeber (variation of newb), who is commonly thought as the brother of Noober.

References

Resources to help newbies to the Internet include:

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