So, Why "Grok"?

It's a question I've heard literally hundreds of times. I'm happily fragging n00bs, obnoxiously sniping, stealing kills, planting traps or hijacking herbs and generally having some good old fashioned fun when I run into someone who has a question about my rather simple gamer nickname -- Grok.

"What does Grok mean?" "why'd you pick that name?" "I hate you Gork and your Gorky nickname...haha!"

It's actually a rather convoluted and entirely boring story, which makes it perfect fodder for the blog!

What I find particularly interesting, is that people actually care enough about my nick to 1) actually wonder about it as it appears in front of them, 2) to then formulate a question about it, and 3) to send that question to me. Clearly, it's partly a simple form of new age gamer communication -- we only know each other by those nicknames and it's a simple way to break the ice and say "hello."

However, I think there's also a bit of confusion being expressed by the victims of my depraved gaming behavior. Grok simply doesn't fit the mold. It's short, guttural and features a distinct lack of l337 speak. (l337 meaning "Elite" as in special or super or wicked awesome). Read more about l337 from our guidebook to the future, The Urban Dictionary.

"OMGZ0rz WTF n00b u d0n7 5|*34k l33t!!1 u r n0t 4 h4><0rz> l1|<3>

These days when you jump onto a server, you'll rarely see a name you can pronounce at first pass. Sure, they exist but they are the exceptions to the l337 Speak Rules for nick creation, which clearly state:

• The more complex your nick, the more exponentially powerful you become and by proxy the more l337 you actually are
• Numbers are significantly more awesome than letters...duh
• Foreign keyboard characters and symbols are way, way more awesomer than numbers!
• Don't forget your clan name! Its complexity is also an indication of your l337ness

So, anyway, how did Grok actually come about. The seeds were planted long before multiplayer gaming and personal computers (though I did have a Commodore 64 at the time). I had just recently gotten into some heavy science-fiction reading when I was introduced to a classic of the genre in Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.


Heinlein coined the term grok in that 1961 novel, which meant "to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes part of the observed." It's a cool concept -- you know something so well, you become it -- "I Grok You!" -- and it stuck with me.

Years later, while I was at what was then Bender, Goldman & Helper (a video game PR firm in Los Angeles), Blizzard released Warcraft II. A colleague, John Foster, and I were huge fans of the original and immediately jumped into the sequel spending countless hours in LAN battles. We needed nicks to play...and Grok was born.

I've since used a number of variations -- Grokzilla, Groksmith, etc. but come back to the original whenever possible. So, if you run into one of them...it just might be me, n00b.