http://homestarrunner.com/tgs2.html

in the cartoon bubbles it’s written as w00t .

Uttering w00t upon pwning the other team will never be quite as cool, this day forth…

> One such milestone was gaining root access, but the term rooted or “gained root access” was easily understood so the term was changed to w00t to help disguise. Because of the difficulty of “rooting” many times the term w00t would be much in a celebratory tone. It later evolved to simply be a celebratory remark rather than a hacking milestone.

This, of course, is about as verifiable as the other explanations.

two things come to my mind, though:

1) that maybe this is just an instance of some sort of pop cultural zeitgeist, and it surfaced almost concurrently in different areas at the same time; and

2) i know that lexicographers prefer some sort of paper trail when determining the history of things, but maybe this whole debate is also illustrating the danger we are in of losing the real story of our digital culture. no trail to follow in early BBS conversations!

There’s now a UK mailorder shopping business called ‘Iwoot’ (I want one of those), that sells pointless gewgaws. Slogan “stuff you don’t need but you really, really want”.

WAVE-O’-BABIES!!!

This is exactly why Ron Paul scares me. As the line blurs between the Interwebs and real life, the power of a few kids with skillz grows exponentially.

I always assumed its genesis was from there. Also, I could swear I’ve heard it used in crunk music since then as well.

I agree that We Own the Other Team is a backronism. I mean, wouldn’t that be WPOT! then?

Actually, there was a rival song called “Whoot! There It Is” by a group called 95 South. Such fierce battling between the warring Whoomp and Whoot factions has never been equalled. Not even the bloody skirmishes of the Family Guy Theme Song War of the late 1990s (between those who thought Stewie sings “Laugh and cry” and those who insisted he sings “Effin’ cry”) was as fierce as the 1993 war. Our urban canyons and suburban minefields echoed with whoomps and whoots until too many of our young had been lost.

Tag Team may have won, but it lost the legacy, as the term “whoot” lived on. At least, it lived on via many different MUSE/MUSH/MUCK/MUDs and text-based BBSes, where the phrase was used as a general exultation of joy from 1993 on. That’s when I first encountered the term, and its first corruption was, quite unsurprisingly, “wh00t”. Eventually someone decided that it took too long to type that pesky h while jumping about with glee, and “woot” fell into general usage.

Any attempts at explaining the word through backronyms are etymologically incorrect and embarrassing to read besides. “We Own the Other Team” indeed. That, M-W, would be “WOTOT”, and no self-respecting Counterstrike player would be caught dead saying that. (Actually, it’s probably hard to find any self-respecting Counterstrike player nowadays. Aimbots and euphemism generators lack self-respect.)

That you thought it was cool might just mean you’ve been living too long in your parents basement.

Sorry. Someone had to say it.

Shrdlu