Woohoo! 1337! What?

I reached a milestone with the post, “I Had a Little Adventure While You Were Dancing!” Since I scheduled it for 7:00 AM, I never got the satisfaction of seeing, “You published your 300th post.” Being a “gold star” person, I have strived to earn them since I was a little kid. I wondered if WordPress had added a golden trophy to my virtual case, so I clicked “Awards” at the bottom of the list located on the left side of my notifications. Nope. I surpassed 3,000 WordPress blog followers, but didn’t receive a trophy for that accomplishment or for my 200oth.

But there is a trophy in my case with a number so peculiar, I scratched my head. I earned it when I acquired my 1337th follower. Why 1337? After FSOG, Five Seconds On Google, a list of results appeared.

At the top of the list was The Urban Dictionary with a definition for 1337:

• “Hacker “Sp33k” for leet, or elite. Originating from 31337 “eleet”, the UDP port used by Dead Cow Cult, a hacker group, to access Windows 95 using Back Orifice, a notorious hacking program.”

The Dead Cow Cult? Was I now a member of a notorious group of hackers and didn’t know it? I have returned when the cows came home, but I don’t believe any were dead. I’m from Wisconsin and have never even cow tipped. The only cult I’ve been exposed to were those dressed up and dancing in the aisles during The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I know my way around my computer and I asked WordPress News if I could change the size of the text for my site’s name while using the 2014 theme. WordPress editor, Michelle W suggested to simply use CSS. I gulped. Nope. I’m not the hacker type. In fact, when I finished my novel this week and used an external hard drive to back it up. I accidentally copied 3000 photos back onto my hard drive,  maxed out my memory, and nearly blew it up!  

Surely, Wikipedia would know why this particular number of followers is so significant:

• The year 1337 began on a Wednesday.

A lot of years have begun on Wednesdays. This couldn’t be significant, so I read on.

• On March 16^th, 1337, Edward the Black Prince became the first English Duke.

This is an interesting fact, but not WordPress trophy worthy.

• In the year 1337, a famine ended in China which killed 6 million people, but this was also the year that Edward III of England pissed off King Phillip VI of France by refusing to recognize his French Highness and started the 100 year war.

It is highly doubtful that this award was named after the year 1337.

There’s a gene called 1337: 

• It “catalyzes the electron transfer from reduced cytochrome c to oxygen.”

This genetic information was updated a couple of days ago and I was awarded the 1337 trophy back in March, so I moved on.

There’s a gaming site called The 1337 Lounge.

Maybe one of the WordPress’s Happiness Engineer’s has hung out at this site with celebrities like our WordPress founding father and creator, Matt Mullenweg. They may have thought this was an appropriate number for an award after a few virtual cocktails.

I checked out Netlingo.com, an online dictionary site:

• 1337 – Elite -or- leet -or- L337 – Online jargon, also known as text message shorthand, used primarily in texting, online.
• leetspeak – a.k.a. leet, lite, elite, eleet, 1337, 3l337, l33t, 3l33t
  Leetspeak, or “leet” for short, is a type of online jargon…

Their definition for 1337 is the same as the first – Elite. So when I hit 1337 followers, I guess I became “elite,” but what does that mean?

I looked up “elite” on Wikipedia:

• “An elite in political and sociological theory, is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power.”

Pshh! I don’t control anything or anyone! In fact, I’m out of control most of the time since I’m impulsive and always believe everything is going to turn out alright. I’m more of a spazz than elite.  

Maybe the engineers at WordPress feel that once we have 1337 followers, we have attained Elite status. The 1337 Award which refers  to computer hacking is the last and most important trophy in your case.

I had a brilliant idea!

In the spirit of 1337, I hacked the image and made my own gold star. If I could just figure out how to display it inside my trophy case…

Are you motivated by goals and gold stars?

Wikipedia – Matt Mullenweg