Les Jones: Word of the Day

July 21, 2006

Word of the Day > Word of the Day - Egoboo

Definition via Word Spy:

egoboo (EE.goh.boo) n. Recognition and praise for a task well done, particularly a task that is performed for free. Also: ego-boo.
In science-fiction-fan-speak there's a phenomenon called 'egoboo.'...It means a boost in reputation. Hackers operate in a gift economy in which giant-size egos compete with one another for attention and reputation on the Net. If you do something cool, like reduce the length of a subroutine by 50 percent, you score major egoboo.
—Mark Frauenfelder, "Man Against the FUD," LA Weekly, May 21, 1999

The word apparently came about via sci-fi fan culture as early as the 1950s to describe the motivation for people who organized fanzines, sci-fi cons, and such, but it also applies to open source programming, blogging, answering questions on message boards, and other online activities for which there's no financial renumeration.

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Comments

Egoboo. And there I was, thinking it was something entirely different.

You know, like the feeling you get when you follow your extremely attractive lady friend into a restaurant and every male eyeball in the place swivels and tracks her for five seconds of approval before turning toward you to see what kind of a stud rates something like that and could I take her away from him and then they all turn back toward their own plate and kinda bow their head a little to silently say "Hey, man, no trouble, just lookin', ya know?" and your own internal stock market goes up about five hundred points and you stand up a little bit straighter.

Ego boost. Like that.

Of course, for me, an extremely attractive lady companion would be science fiction. I like science fiction. One of these days maybe I'll tell you about the famous SF author I worked with (before he got famous).

Posted by: homebru at July 22, 2006