Anyway, it’s not really about the dance scene vs. the hacker scene: it’s about two hugely popular hit songs vs. a tiny in-group that can’t be proven to have used the word at all.

There is an interesting conversation going on here about the origins of the word w00t. Basically, the question is, did w00t come into gamer slang via l33t speak, and therefore the hacker scene, or did it come into general usage online because of the 1993 hit song "Whoop, There it is!"

At the core is that there is absolutely no written evidence of use of the word w00t as an exclamation by people in the hacker scene prior to about 1998. There is a use in the hacker scene in 1995, but it is a proper noun (a crew called "w00t'z kidz"). Jason Scott drug up evidence of use on Usenet in 1994, but it was in the context of Magic Cards (D&D is another claimant to the origin of the word). Sans evidence, the verdict must go to "Whoop, There it is!" My memory, and that of several others, is that w00t was used in the hacker scene long before 1998, mostly on IRC. Although I'm not positive that w00t has no relationship to "Whoop, There it is!" I am pretty sure that it was used far earlier than internet archives seem to indicate.

So here is the question; Does anyone out there in MemeStreams land have any mailing list, BBS, or IRC chat logs from before 1998 that include the word w00t, in particular its use as an exclamation? I know some of you are pack rats and have lots of old stuff lying around. Looking for evidence, and not "I recall" or "we used to."

Need your help with w00t