Help Vampire
A forum user who repeatedly asks basic questions
Example
Okay u/Buca, you've gotta stop spamming questions. You're turning into a help vampire, and we don't like those
Related Slang
LMGTFY | Let me Google that for you |
RTFM | Read the flippin' manual |
RTFB | Read the flippin' book |
FAQ | Frequently Asked Questions |
STW | Search the Web |
DAQ | Dumb asked question |
AYSOS | Are you stupid or something? |
A help vampire is a person who repeatedly uses an Internet community to source answers to basic questions, rather than attempting to find the answers themself. These users "drain" the time and energy of the community's other users, by failing to search for similar posts or JFGI.
Help vampires are common on Reddit, Stack Overflow, Discord servers, and in other helpful communities. They tend to be inexperienced or novice users who don't know that the questions they are asking have been answered before (and that help vampirism is a faux pas). After their initial question has been answered, help vampires often ask a litany of basic follow-up questions - which is another form of "vampirism."
To deter help vampires from continuing to ask time-wasting questions, other users often direct them toward resources they can use to answer their questions themselves. As the saying goes, "Give a help vampire an answer, and you solve their problems for a day. Teach a help vampire how to use Google, and you solve their problems for a lifetime."