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quickly to your surroundings and 5,6,7…8 hours a day cial class of 2010, LASA senior shirt,” Rishi says. on some WoW [World of Warcrafts], talking to a lot of “Most high schools are known for something specific, guys will help,” Travis says. “You’ve got to live the leet.” and LASA is known for being the leet school,” Rishi says, According to the three pwnz0rs, the typical profile of a “We are the guys that say ‘lol’ and ‘pwn’ in real life. IRL.” pwnz0r is a “strong, valiant, gamer, who is past the level “This nerdy LASA community is perfect for spread80 expansion on WoW”. “This can only be achieved by foling leet because everybody plays games and evlowing the “5 steps of becoming a Pwnz0r”, Rishi says. erybody has at least played video games, includ“Acceptance is the first stage,” Kartik says. First you ing girls, which is pretty rare at most high schools,” must realize that you are nublet that WILL get pwned. Rishi says. LASA, the pwnz0rs agree, is the definition of leet. You should realize that pwnz0rs are your superiors.” “We are leaving LASA next year, but I feel like we have left our “Step two,” Rishi says, “is to find a pwnz0r legacy of leet and pwn behind and hopefully people will continwho is willing to train you, and befriend him ue to pwn and not be n00bs,” Rishi says looking at his friends. on Facebook or other social networking sites.” The trio agrees that they have set the standard of a “Add him to your Gmail chat list,” Trapwnz0r and people should keep following their lead. vis recommends. “This is very useful.” “Basically, if you are a n00b, pwn or get pwned,” Kar“It’s useful because you can be checking your email and doing imtik says. “That’s our motto. Pwn or get pwned.” portant things, all while chatting with your pwnz0r,” Rishi adds. Step three is to make sure your acceptance is confirmed. “In step three, learn from [the pwnz0r you choose] and live the lifestyle of a pwnzor,” Rishi explains. Step four is reflecting. “You have to reflect the lifestyle and Pwn- derived from the verb realize what is going on before you can move on,” Travis says. “own”; means to conquer or What the eff? (WTF?)- a “Go through your notebook of pwn,” Rishi recom- gain ownership phrase made famous by the Youmends. “It’s more of a concept than a physical obTube video with David Blain. ject. Pieces of it exist in various areas, such as webPwnz0rone who pwns sites master pwnz0rs minds, and pwns tories passed OMG- acronym for ‘oh my down by tradition. You have to realize what you’ve gosh’ or ‘oh my god’; said when learned about being a pwnz0r and go back over it.” N00b- derived from the noun surprised or excited The last step, step five, is to pwn and start your pwnz0r “newbie”; a newcomer or lifestyle. This is one of the hardest steps, the pwnz0rs somebody inexperienced in any recall, but you just have to live the life and live the pwn. profession or activity. Other Win- used when indicating that But being a pwnz0r doesn’t just involve pwning n00bs. forms: nub, nublet something is great You’ve also got to find a way to make yourself unique from all other pwnz0rs. Rishi, Kartik, and Travis have FTS- F*** that S***; used if Fail- lack of success all created new terms that also have spread across LASA. something bad every happens or “We have created our own [terms],” Rishi explains. “Nub, W00t- an interjection used to nublet, nub-sauce, nub-biscuit, nub-sandwich, nub-waffle. when in a bad situation express joy and excitement. There are various methods of eating n00bs, or in other words pwning them, and these are just a few that we made up.” IRL- acronym for “in real life” Pwnsauce- the essence of a Along with these words, they made the phrase “What the eff?” popular around LASA and Lol (pronounced ‘lawl’) - acropwnz0r have added it into their leet vocabulary. nym for “laugh out loud”; used “Originally that was just a David Blaine ‘What the EFF?’,” when something is comical Rishi says, imitating Blaine, an illusionist, who made the Winsauce- the natural entity phrase famous in his YouTube videos. “But then it became ROFL (pronounced ‘raw-ful’) of this universe that creates sucpart of our leet speak and it became part of the LASA culture acronym for ‘rolling on the floor cess or “win” to say ‘What the eff?’. Now I hear freshman saying it, and sophomores saying it, and I’m proud that we started that.” laughing’; used when something FTW- acronym for “for the Rishi, Kartik and Travis even incorporated leet speak into is comical win”- an enthusiastic emphasis their graduation year, 2010. Kartik came up with a design for shirts that say “Sen10rs Pwn N00bs” on the front and the LMAO (pronounced ‘luh-mow’) to the end of a comment, mesnumber 10 on the back, with a thought bubble saying “lol” - acronym for ‘laughing my a** sage, or post and LASA at the very top, imitating a jersey. Just like the off’; used when something is language trend, the shirts were just supposed to be between comical World of Warcraft (WoW)a few friends, but soon almost every senior bought one. a multiplayer, online, role-playing “This is basically our official senior shirt and we’re N00bsauce- the essence of a game (gaming consol- computer) all pretty proud that we came up with the offi-
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