Lamer

Lamer is a jargon or slang name originally applied in cracker and phreaker culture to someone who did not really understand what he or she was doing. Today it is also loosely applied by IRC, BBS, and online gaming users to anyone perceived to be contemptible. In general, the term has come to describe someone who is willfully ignorant of how things work.

The term is derived from lame. A lamer is widely understood to be the antithesis of a hacker. While a hacker strives to understand the mechanisms behind what he or she uses, 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. Thus, a lamer is usually indistinguishable from someone who is too lame to understand why something works even if they wanted to. A lamer's attitude is summed up by the phrase, "I don't care how it works, just that it does".

The usual definition of a lamer is someone who acts lame. That could be using tactics that are generally accepted as overpowered, "camping" (another gamer term) which means lying in wait all the time without necessarily accomplishing anything useful, jumping around with no purpose. In fact, almost all negative gaming terms fit under the term lamer; the exceptions are terms that apply to newcomers or players who are bad at playing.