Lamer (also 14m3r; see leet) is a jargon or slang name applied to individuals thought to be lacking in maturity, social skills, technical competence or intelligence. It is applied in a variety of contexts, though the proliferation of computer-mediated communication media such as IRC or BBSes may be partly responsible for bringing the term into common parlance.

This term is thought to originate in skateboarding slang, since being lame (i.e. paralyzed or otherwise "stiff in the body") may be dangerous or fatal in the sport. It does not imply that the person in question is actually paralyzed; they are simply thought to be bad at skateboarding. The term came into more general use, applied to anyone thought to be "lame", either physically or (more often) intellectually. (The associated adjective "lame", however has been used in this sense, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, since at least 1947, and did not originate in skate culture.)

With the rise of electronic bulletin board systems, some bulletin board users may have begun using skateboard slang in application to users of these systems. A lamer was thus a term applied to incompetent users of bulletin board systems. This may have originated as far back as on the first bulletin boards run on TRS-80 and Apple II computers. The opposite of lamers were the elite.

In the subculture of the home computer era, lamer was the standard name for anyone who hides behind a computer to insult people, because they are not capable of handling their real life problems they choose to try to make up for it by being a bully in cyberspace, for example, making fun of other players skills in online games.

See also

• Luser

External links

• Definition of "lamer" at the Jargon File

People | Slang

Lama (počítačový žargon) | Computerspieler-Jargon | Lamer (informática) | Lamer | Lamer | Lamer | Ламер | Lamer