wannabee

wannabee /won'*-bee/ n,  (also, more plausibly, spelled
   `wannabe') [from a term recently used to describe Madonna fans
   who dress, talk, and act like their idol; prob. originally from
   biker slang] A would-be {hacker}.  The connotations of this term
   differ sharply depending on the age and exposure of the subject.
   Used of a person who is in or might be entering {larval stage},
   it is semi-approving; such wannabees can be annoying but most
   hackers remember that they, too, were once such creatures.  When
   used of any professional programmer, CS academic, writer, or
   {suit}, it is derogatory, implying that said person is trying to
   cuddle up to the hacker mystique but doesn't, fundamentally, have a
   prayer of understanding what it is all about.  Overuse of terms
   from this lexicon is often an indication of the {wannabee}
   nature.  Compare {newbie}.

   Historical note: The wannabee phenomenon has a slightly different
   flavor now (1993) than it did ten or fifteen years ago.  When the
   people who are now hackerdom's tribal elders were in {larval
   stage}, the process of becoming a hacker was largely unconscious
   and unaffected by models known in popular culture -- communities
   formed spontaneously around people who, *as individuals*, felt
   irresistibly drawn to do hackerly things, and what wannabees
   experienced was a fairly pure, skill-focused desire to become
   similarly wizardly.  Those days of innocence are gone forever;
   society's adaptation to the advent of the microcomputer after 1980
   included the elevation of the hacker as a new kind of folk hero,
   and the result is that some people semi-consciously set out to
   *be hackers* and borrow hackish prestige by fitting the
   popular image of hackers.  Fortunately, to do this really well, one
   has to actually become a wizard.  Nevertheless, old-time hackers
   tend to share a poorly articulated disquiet about the change; among
   other things, it gives them mixed feelings about the effects of
   public compendia of lore like this one.