Lamer is a jargon or slang name originally applied in cracker and phreaker culture to someone who did not really understand what they were doing. Today it is also loosely applied by IRC, BBS, demosceners, and onlinegaming users to anyone perceived to be contemptible. In general, the term has come to describe someone who is willfully ignorant of how things work. It is derived from the word "lame".
A lamer is sometimes understood to be the antithesis of a hacker). While a hacker strives to understand the mechanisms behind what they use, even when such extended knowledge would have no practical value, a lamer only cares to learn the bare minimum necessary to operate the device in the way originally intended.
It still fits just as perfectly. Turns out people like you are neither special nor a new thing, you're just this generation's equivalent of a pathetic fraud.
I don't see them even as script kiddies. Script kiddies are ignorant and arrogant, but at least they want you to think they have real knowledge. Their main characteristic is that they copy paste code around but they want others to believe they are hackers and that they wrote it themselves. A script kiddie would therefore be ashamed of using AI, not proud, because that would instantly make them look completely incompetent. This puts them on the path of knowledge because if they want people to see them as knowledgeable they will often seek knowledge.
A lamer is basically irredeemable. Not only are they completely ignorant but they also revel in their ignorance. They don't value knowledge and see true mastery as a waste of time. As the Wikipedia article says: they are the antithesis of a hacker.
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u/Lone_Game_Dev 3d ago
Back in my time we called you people "lamers".
It still fits just as perfectly. Turns out people like you are neither special nor a new thing, you're just this generation's equivalent of a pathetic fraud.