Newfag

Newfag refers to what conventional forums would call a newbie. Usually clueless, overeager former lurkers who have yet to gain a feel for 4chan norms and make their presence blatantly obvious through their rampant stupidity. It can also refer to forum users who use memes outside of 4chan, or read about 4chan exploits on places from second hand sources and decide to see what all the fuss is about, hoping that by associating with 4chan they appear hip/trendy/cool. Posters who disagree with other posters or make opinions that seem out of place for someone who knows how to LURK MORE are also called newfags.

Newfags are generally disliked on 4chan for these (often very true) stereotypes; newfags themselves tend to be too stupid to hate in kind. Use of "newfag", much like "tripfag" dates back to the dawn of 4chan, and have been used liberally by oldfags and newfags alike.

Concern over newfags arose during Newfag Summer, when it was realized newfags were not only immigrating to 4chan in herds, but that they lacked a typical 4channer's adept sense of sarcasm and started to take colloquial hyperbole as reality. This lead to a distortion of the meaning of several memes outside of forums, notably the /a/ meme GAR, which is regularly bastardized as a sign of approval by newfags.

Though newfags can come from a variety of sources, it is common knowledge that almost all new /b/ newfags discovered 4chan from Gaia Online. Since about 2009, newfags continue to appear from all areas of Internet faggotry.