DailyTech - Dell Wants You To "Pwn Them"

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Blog: Hardware Dell Wants You To "Pwn Them"
Sven Olsen (Blog) - July 6, 2006 12:57 AM

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12 comment(s) - last by Trisped.. on Jul 10 at 12:42 PM

Dell's eloquent graphic options

RIP "pwn" 2000-2006

Someone from a major video card company sent me the link for an XPS 700 earlier today, with a note telling me to check out the video card options. Assuming the email was about the GeForce 7900GS that we had previously covered, I more or less disregarded the link. Of course, then I noticed Dell's message on the Radeon X1900XTX option:

Own this - Pwn them

Well, now there you have it. Even Dell agrees, "pwn" is the new black. "Pwn," for those not familiar, was simply a typo of the word "own" regularly used in internet debating. For example, "I just owned that level 13 mage!" For whatever reason, "pwn" seems to be more interesting than "own" -- and the name stuck.

In any case, I predict the death of "pwn" now that Dell has adopted it. The "pwn" timeline is as follows:

2000: Elite 0-day hackers
2001: Script Kiddies
2002: Everquest Players
2003: Internet Chatrooms
2005: Snoop Dogg
2006: Dell
2007: American Idol
2008: Grandma

Rest in Peace Pwn.

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Your timeline is "PwN3d"

By MercenaryForHire on 7/6/2006 2:24:58 PM , Rating: 3

Origin of Pwn = far before 2000. Try "Early 90's - EFNet IRC channels"

- M4H

RE: Your timeline is "PwN3d"

By Griswold on 7/6/2006 3:20:56 PM , Rating: 2

Should always take wiki-knowledge with a grain of salt.

I've wasted countless hours on IRC in the glorious dial-up days and never came across the term "pwn" back then.

We'll prolly never find out for sure though.

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RE: Your timeline is "PwN3d"

By 0blivious on 7/6/2006 5:49:23 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, me neither.

But what i recall was that "Pwn" was actually, not intentionally, started in world of warcraft (or whatever older mmorpg) when someone mistakenly typed "Pwned" instead of "Owned", since that moment it has been adopted as the "l33t/7331" way of saying "Owned".

I, on the other hand never use that term, think it's kinda gay when you're not directly linked to the origin (as an inside joke) of that term.

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RE: Your timeline is "PwN3d"

By RandomFool on 7/7/2006 8:25:55 AM , Rating: 2

I always heard it was from a quake 2 tournament.

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RE: Your timeline is "PwN3d"

By jkostans on 7/7/2006 11:57:36 AM , Rating: 2

I remember it around the time of quake 2 also, def not a WoW thing at all.

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RE: Your timeline is "PwN3d"

By segagenesis on 7/7/2006 6:07:59 PM , Rating: 2

It was from a Warcraft II scenario, which is definitely older than Quake 2. It probably existed in typo before then but the Warcraft II thing kind of made it popular.

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RE: Your timeline is "PwN3d"

By Trisped on 7/10/2006 12:39:48 PM , Rating: 2

As I remember the first time I heard pwned was when my friend was recounting his Warcraft II exploits. This was probably before Battle.Net was active, so you had to play on private servers. Since most of the players were kids who were trying to type taunts without losing the game they wouldn't check spelling, grammar, or read ability.

What we do know is that
A) it was started in a vs type game.
B) the game allowed you to speak to/taunt your opponent.
C) it was used by people that didn't have time to fix their typos
D) It was first used popularly in an internet based game.

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RE: Your timeline is "PwN3d"

By 0blivious on 7/6/06, Rating: 0

dead? nah

By piroroadkill on 7/10/2006 6:59:18 AM , Rating: 2

Pwn was never awesomely cool in the first place, so it cannot be hurt by Dell. It will remain in the vocabulary of the internet masses for occasional and sometimes ironic use.

Nothing to see here.

RE: dead? nah

By piroroadkill on 7/10/2006 7:05:48 AM , Rating: 2

I just went to the site now, and it definitely isn't there. Bah.

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RE: dead? nah

By Trisped on 7/10/2006 12:42:23 PM , Rating: 2

It is/was cool in the internet gaming circles. It has progressed into game related web comics and is slowly entering the "cool" speak of the unintelligent high school students and IM worlds.

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wow....

By BillyBatson on 7/8/2006 3:41:20 AM , Rating: 1

talk about over exageration.... this isn't Saved By The Bell where Zack buys a BuddyBand for Mr. Belding which he wears this making them uncool and eveyrone wants a refund. So are you saying if Falcon Northwest used it in the same way it would be ok? I think it is fine and the phrasing actually quite cool though many of their shoppers probably won't understand it and think it is an error