First Julian Assange arrived, then Wikileaks, and then Wikileaks’ aggressive partisans, Anonymous. People are curious about this phenomenon, but the hacker/troll culture is impenetrable to those without some background.
A nice boy from the Silverstein family can kiss his Hatian boyfriend goodnight, return to his computer, and rejoin his pals in the Gay Niggers Association of America, where he’ll rant about enormous faggot Aaron Barr receiving filthy Jewgold.
English is the language, but its usage among Anonymi is decidedly nonstandard.
I spent a little bit of time on the differences between hackers and trolls in Aspects of Anonymous, not realizing at the time that I’d be doing a series on Anonthropology. Title goof not withstanding, you’ll need that for background if you’re completely unacquainted. Executive summary for that piece: keep in mind that the Anonymi are a mix of hackers and trolls.
Among the major ingroups there are a rapidly shifting set of catchphrases. These are culled from internet memes and there is intense competition in certain quarters to find and promote the next big (but inappropriate) thing. This is a troll activity. The urge to create new things burns bright at 4chan, there is a strong streak of it at Something Awful, and the Encyclopedia Dramatica documents a portion of it in the native language. You may see people using the word “derp” – what does this mean?
The straight world’s reference to all this is found on KnowYourMeme, when you can learn that derp is short for Derpy Hooves, a muffin loving, letter delivering cross eyed cartoon pony. Her eyes crossing were an animation error, but she’ll outlive MLP:FiM. The word is an insult in some cases, a term of affection in others, and it’s overloaded and deeply dependent on context.
Faggot is another overloaded word in troll culture. You do not want to be a faggot, with the implication being that you were found wanting in some area where one is expected to have competence. Having the same password on every system at HBGary? Faggot move.
Being a fag is OK. If you’ve been around a while on 4chan you’re an oldfag. If you’ve just turned up anywhere you’ll get called a newfag. Think Anonymous should be defending freedom of speech instead of trolling? You’re a moralfag.
I guess if I want to avoid the dreaded tl;dr I should probably stop right here.
Let me know if there is any other aspect or trend in Anonymous culture that interests you and I’ll see if I can make sense of it.