perky Goth (n): Someone who likes the gothic style and music, but doesn't like the doom and gloom attitude some Goths have. Perky Goths try not to take themselves too seriously and don't brood. They like to have fun. You'll often find them wearing things like body glitter and mixed black and non-black clothing, while telling the mopey Goths to lighten up. The mopey Goths say that they are missing the point of Gothic entirely.

phreaking (n) ["phone phreak"] /1: The art and science of cracking the phone network (so as, for example, to make free long-distance calls). /2: By extension, security-cracking in any other context (especially, but not exclusively, on communications networks).

phonebook (n): Western manga fans' word for thick, cheap manga magazines, which resemble phonebooks in their size and paper quality.

pimp [Also spelled 'p1mp'] /1 (v): To push or advertise a particular good or service. "Let's pimp that on the front page of the site today." /2 (n): Someone who is extremely good at what they do. /3 (n): Someone whose job it is to push products and services on other people. "Skillet's the MS Exchange Pimp, he's got the mad skillz."

PlayStation (n): A 32-bit videogame console introduced by Sony in September 1995. As of January 1996 it had sold more units in the US than any other next-generation console. It features excellent graphic capabilities and has a superior game library. Often abbreviated as 'PSX'.

Pokémon Complex (n) [Pokémon, 1999]: Term for the apparent inverse-proportion relationship between one's sanity and how many Pokémon one has captured out of all 150. Some symptoms include - the belief that you can actually capture Pokémon by standing in grassy areas; citing random "Pokédex" facts, such as the 'real world' height and weight of specific Pokémon; a tendency to talk to the Pokémon while playing the game; excessive use of the game's nickname feature, which allows you to change the names of Pokémon from their usual identification name to something of your own creation (i.e. Pikachu becomes "Billy-Bob"); attempts to translate the speech of Pokémon to English, or vice-versa.

pop-cultural anemic (n): A person who reads extensively and has gleaned the majority of their knowledge from books, but remains ignorant of the happenings of the outside world. They know little about current events, and are barren of knowledge about popular television, movies, music, and celebrities, even those with significant cultural impact.

post-Columbine (adj) /1: Pertaining to the media-driven sentiments that permeated American life following the massacre at Columbine High School in April of 1999. The personal beliefs and habits of the two shooters were labeled by the media as definite danger signs, leading school districts to unfairly persecute those with similar interests and problems, specifically the punk-geek-goth cultural subsets. /2: A new set of standards self-imposed by mass media in a misguided effort to protect American youth.

post-Crisis (adj): The aspects of a character or historical fact as they existed in the DC Comics universe after the continuity-arranging mega-crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths. Many characters received or lost powers as a result, and their backgrounds were altered to create a streamlined continuity. The term is used to differentiate the changes made.

post-economic (adj): When a person acquires sufficient wealth to retire or when working becomes optional, that person is said to have gone post-economic. The dollar figure is subjective, different for each person. Being post-economic is beyond buying the car of your choice, beyond building the house of your dreams.

power-up (n): Items/Weapons that make a videogame character more powerful to some degree, even perhaps invincible. This device is most common in action games, where weapons play an important role, but can be found across many genres.

praystationing (n) ["PlayStation"] /1: The practice of spending an extended period of time playing videogames in lieu of human interaction. /2: Spending an entire Sunday playing videogames. "I blew off brunch with Sue and Bob because I was praystationing."

pre-Crisis (adj): The aspects of a character or historical fact as they existed in the DC Comics universe before the continuity-arranging mega-crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths. Many characters received or lost powers as a result, and their backgrounds were altered to create a streamlined continuity. The term is used to differentiate the changes made.

PSX (n): A prelaunch name for the Sony PlayStation, the 'PSX' evolved out of the name of the original, unreleased PlayStation, which was to be a CD-ROM add-on for Super NES. This unit, the 'PlayStation X' evolved into the system that was released by Sony on Sept 9, 1995, the PSX or PlayStation.

psychic /1 (adj): Forces or agencies of a paranormal nature. 2/ (n): A medium or a person who has paranormal powers.

pull list (n): The list of titles a comics fan buys on a regular basis; a shopping list of comics which they have decided to buy before entering the store.

purity test (n): An attempt to gauge how "pure" a person is within some realm of experience by having the individual answer a list of questions regarding which acts, etc. associated with the subject they have engaged in. Generally, for each "yes" answer a purity point is lost. The result is scaled to determine what percentage of purity is still retained.

queue (n): A waiting area for e-mail messages, files, print jobs, or anything else that is being sent from one device to another. With e-mail, it is common (and some say cost effective) to compose several letters while off-line and place them in the queue. When finished, one can get back on-line and then send them all at once.

ramen (n): Quick-cooking egg noodles usually served in a broth with bits of meat and vegetables. Popular with programmers and college students because it is cheap and easy to make.

Real World (n) /1: Those institutions at which 'programming' may be used in the same sentence as 'FORTRAN', 'COBOL', 'IBM', 'DBASE', etc. Places where programs do such commercially necessary but intellectually uninspiring things as generating payroll checks and invoices. /2: The location of non-programmers and activities not related to programming. /3: A bizarre dimension in which the standard dress is shirt and tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5. /4: Anywhere outside a university. "Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the Real World." Used pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking of someone who has entered the Real World is not unlike speaking of a deceased person. /5: MTV's reality-based soap opera. Groups of seven young subjects are installed in fancy living quarters and filmed by 18-hour-a-day camera crews. Sexual, racial and general roommate tensions often lead to frequent blow-ups and crying jags, while extreme camera angles, jumpy edits, and a non-stop soundtrack of overly literal pop music give the show an MTV edge.

reboot (n): To restart a character's history and adventures from scratch. All previous continuity can be considered null and void.

red shirt (n) [Star Trek, 1967]: A minor character in a movie or tv show extremely likely to die.

retcon [rec.arts.comics, "retroactive continuity"] /1 (n): The common situation in pulp fiction (esp. comics or soap operas) where a new story 'reveals' things about events in previous stories, usually leaving the 'facts' the same (thus preserving continuity) while completely changing their interpretation. For example, revealing that a whole season of "Dallas" was a dream was a retcon. /2 (v): To write such a story about a character or fictitious object.

samurai (n) [Jargon File 3.0.0]: A hacker who hires out for legal cracking jobs, snooping for factions in corporate political fights, lawyers pursuing privacy-rights and First Amendment cases, and other parties with legitimate reasons to need an electronic locksmith. In 1991, mainstream media reported the existence of a loose-knit culture of samurai that meets electronically on BBS systems, mostly bright teenagers with personal micros; they have modeled themselves explicitly on the historical samurai of Japan and on the "net cowboys" of William Gibson's cyberpunk novels. Those interviewed claim to adhere to a rigid ethic of loyalty to their employers and to disdain the vandalism and theft practiced by criminal crackers as beneath them and contrary to the hacker ethic; some quote Miyamoto Musashi's "Book of Five Rings", a classic of historical samurai doctrine, in support of these principles.

Schwa (n): Developer of conspiracy and superstition satires, brainchild of commercial and conceptual artist Bill Barker. The company's name refers to the inverted "e" phonetic symbol that denotes the sound "uh."

sensei (n) [Jp]: Honorific title roughly equivalent to 'master', 'doctor' or 'teacher', bestowed upon senior, respected professionals of any kind. These days, most manga artists are addressed as 'sensei'.

shojo (adj) [Jp]: Translating as "young woman" or "young girl". Shojo anime and manga are those aimed at a primarily younger female audience. In general, these titles tend to feature more romance and character development. Please Save My Earth would be an example of a shojo title.

shonen (adj) [Jp]: Translating as "young man" or "young boy", this word is often applied to anime and manga which are aimed at the teenage male market segment. Typically these titles feature lots of action and very cute female characters with plenty of fan service. Ranma ˝ is considered to be a shonen title.

Skillz (n): Intense, superior abilities. "20 bucks says you can't beat his mad Robotron Skillz."

SMOF ['Secret Master of Fandom'] /1 (n): Smofs run conventions, and like old-style Chicago-city politics, do all their work behind the scenes. People who claim to be smofs usually aren’t. /2 (v): At a convention, to discuss running a con instead of talking about science fiction itself.

Star Trek voyeur (n) /1: A person who watches Star Trek Voyager not out of fan-based interest, but for the poor scripts and bad acting. Similar to rubbernecking on the freeway. /2: Someone who watches the show merely because of Seven of Nine.

sneaker (n): An individual hired to break into places in order to test their security.

sneakernet (n): The process of sharing data files with another user by physically transporting the file on a disk or other form of media. Literally "walking it over".

special edition (n) [Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, 1997]: A stupid idea.

speculator (n): A person who involves themself with the accumulation of material goods, usually with some pop-cultural relationship, purely for uncertain commercial gain. They buy various merchandise such as limited-edition action figures and first issues of comic titles in the hope that eventually these items will go up in monetary value.

spoiler (n): Information that reveals the content of a new movie, television program, novel, comic book, or videogame before or immediately following its release. Such information ruins the surprise for those who have not seen the new release. It is considered common courtesy not to reveal spoilers or issue a warning before discussing them. Spoilers remain in effect up to two months after the release of a movie, a week after a television episode, six months after a novel, two weeks after a comic book, and four months after the release of a videogame.

spoiler space (n): Empty lines left at the top of a newsgroup or message board posting that prevent accidental exposure to spoilers. Some people use programs that open the messages first in lieu of displaying a subject list, rendering spoiler warnings useless. Spoiler space necessitates scrolling down the message to view spoilers.

spoiler warning (n): A notice issued in the subject heading of an e-mail or newsgroup/message board posting that spoilers are present in its content. It is common courtesy to post a spoiler warning before all new releases.

spooky kid (n): Followers of Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails who are mostly under 18 years old. People confuse spooky kids for Goths, which is frustrating to Goths because Goth culture gets blamed for the stupid things spooky kids do. Spooky kids and Goths don't associate with each other very much, and they tend to not like each other. Goths resent them for being poseurs and giving Goth a bad name, and they resent Goths for being snobs and elitists. Spooky kid is usually used as a derogatory term similar to baby bat, but it specifically refers to the younger and ardent Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails fans. Most of them just call themselves Goth.

steampunk (n) ["cyberpunk"]: A literary setting characterized by the use of analytical engines and steam-based machines and engines. Electronics and electricity remain largely unknown in such worlds; examples include that of William Gibson's "The Difference Engine" and Final Fantasy VI.

Storyteller (n): A highly specialized title generally equivalent to Game Master, but limited to a select few Role Playing Games (RPG's). These include the White Wolf product line, as well as the Saga rules system. Serves the same purpose as Dungeon Master.

Sturgeon's Law (n): proverb derived from science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon declaring that "ninety percent of everything is crap."

sub-boss (n): An enemy which is larger and/or more powerful than the enemies usually encountered in the course of a videogame. Although, like bosses, sub-bosses are also usually singular enemies, often they are encountered more than once, usually in the middle of a stage or level, or as a prelude to encountering the actual boss.

subject creep (n): The propensity of a mailing list or newsgroup discussion to veer wildly off-topic while the subject line remains the same.

survivulousness (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The tendency to visualize oneself enjoying being the last remaining person on earth.

swag (n): Good stuff, usually either prizes, T-shirts, or other marketing giveaways. "Let's bring some swag to give to the Blizzard guys."

<- back next ->