You will not be a hacker until you prove you skills are good enough to break into a network of some sort, or if another hacker says your good.
Notice he said that your skills are good enough to break into a network. He did NOT say you had to break into a network. I have been labeled a hacker by quite a few different people, yet I have NEVER broken into a network (ok, so maybe I have found passwords in html code and posted it on here, but that is about as simple as you can get). Being a hacker is about the knowledge and the ability, not actually doing it. I would use my knowledge to fix problems, not to exploit other systems.