Egoboo is a
colloquial expression for the
pleasure
Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious anima ...
received from
public recognition of voluntary work.
The term was in use in
science fiction fandom as early as 1947, when it was used (spelled "ego boo") in a letter from
Rick Sneary published in the
letter column of ''
Thrilling Wonder Stories''. It was originally simply used to describe the "ego boost" someone feels on seeing their name in print. As a reliable way for someone to get their name in print was to do something worth mentioning, it became caught up with the idea of voluntary community participation. As a result of this, in later years, the term grew to mean something akin to an ephemeral
currency, e.g., "I got a lot of egoboo for editing that newsletter."
The term later spread into the
open source programming movement
Movement may refer to:
Common uses
* Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece
* Motion, commonly referred to as movement
Arts, entertainment, and media
Literature
* "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
, where the concept of non-monetary reward from community response is a key
motivator for many of the participants.
As a result of its prevalence in this context, it is often attributed to
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the ...
. However, it has been in use in science fiction fandom since 1947 or earlier, being referenced in the 1959 collection of fandom-related jargon ''Fancyclopedia II''. It did not, however, occur in the 1944 predecessor to that work, ''Fancyclopedia I'', suggesting the term came into common use sometime in the intervening years. The first print citation available electronically is in a 1950 issue of
Lee Hoffman's ''Quandry'', where it is spelled "ego-boo"; later usage dropped the hyphen and blended the two words, a common feature of fannish jargon.
The earliest online citation recorded is a reference to it being used in 1982, describing
InConJunction
InConJunction is a fan-run, not-for-profit science fiction convention held during the first weekend in July in Indianapolis, Indiana. Past guests include Philip José Farmer, Frederik Pohl, Catherine Asaro, George R.R. Martin, Jerry Pournelle, Gl ...
, a
science fiction convention in
Indiana;
net.sf-lovers
INCONJUNCTION II: AN SF CONVENTION the high proportion of science fiction fans on Usenet, and the Internet generally, in early years helped spread it into the wider computing community.
See also
* Amateur professionalism
* Gamification
* Gratification
References
Internet slang
Fanspeak