What is Leet Speak?
1.
Originating in the early 1980's, leet speak was first used by hackers as a way to prevent their websites/newsgroups from being found by simple keyword searches.
Leet speak grew and became popular in online games such as Doom in the early 1990's as a way of suggesting that you were a hacker (h4x0r), and therefore to be feared.
Leet, or 1337, is a short form of "elite," commonly used by video gamers to suggest that they are skilled.
Leet : l337
Hacker: h4x0r
skills: s|<1llz
Own:
Pwn
2.
When the 1st l33t sp34k hit the scene in the very early 80's it didn't use all the annoying ?|}{) and crap they put as subs for letters today. It just occasionally subbed some numbers for letters so that normal searches and bots, ect. would not pick up the pattern. It has been changed into something entirely stupid and unreadable by wannabe, lazy kids today. Same with lol and rotflmao and such. Been around since 300 baud n00bs.....
If j00 w3r3 r34lly l33t j00d kn0w it n00b.
This sentence would have been a bit overkill even then for leet speak. Most would have written it like:
If you w4s l33t u'd kn0w noob.....
See
3.
Despite what many people think, leet speak is not when you make letters with non-letter characters, like
| // |_33+ 2 |)00|)!!!
Though the non-letter characters used to make letters method is used occasionally, it is primarily made up of numbers acting as letters, like so.
y0 j00!!111 u c m3 0wnz0rz dat n00b v3r1ly ?? lolololololololo
Note that j00 is often used in place of "you" and many words end with a 0rz or a z. Also, letters aren't ALWAYS used, just when someone feels like being "l337". Leet Speak originated as a way for getting vulgar words (such as "u r fuxx0rz d00d!!) through filters in chat rooms and games.
(Many examples are listed above)
4.
The original online gaming language. It is pretty much the
A=4
B=8
C=(
D=/)
E=3
F=/=
G=(-,
H=/-/
I=]J=_/
