Tech Support People Are Sharing The Worst Cases They’ve Seen While On The Job (45 New Pics)

The Tech Support Gore subreddit has been around for quite some time. Recently, this online group celebrated its 10th birthday with all its 532K technology-loving community members. "You will cringe to the brink of passing out after a few minutes looking at this subreddit," the moderators wrote in the description and the content users post there serves as proof.

Nearly every post consists of the nastiest and most baffling incidents people somehow managed to accomplish. After all, we have the manuals, the internet, and, most importantly, our common sense for a reason, so it's easy to say they have a talent to fail this badly.

But let's face it, even if we consider ourselves to be really tech-savvy and proudly declare to know how to properly care for our gadgets, accidents still happen. Whether it’s thinking that fixing up your computer would be a cakewalk or that you suddenly came up with a brilliant new way to rescue your soaking wet device, nearly everyone could end up being shamed on this subreddit.

However, many pictures from this list prove how incompatible with technology some people are. But if the first thought that crossed your mind was that the older generations are probably responsible for such nightmarish slip-ups, recent research seems to indicate they’re not as technologically illiterate as many might believe.

According to Pew Research Center, while there are still notable differences between American adults under 30 and those 65 and older, tech use by those in the oldest age group has grown significantly compared to a decade ago. So as it turns out, the gap between the oldest and youngest adults has shrunk.

Researchers conducted a survey in 2021 by questioning over 1.5K adults by cellphone and landline phone. The results showed that 96 percent of those ages 18 to 29 own a smartphone compared with 61 percent of those 65 and older. So while it’s still a 35 percent difference, the gap has decreased from 53 points in 2012.

Smartphones aren’t the only piece of tech that old people are quickly starting to embrace. However, the situation with tablet computers is somewhat different. Those aged 30 to 49 were the most likely people to own one, and the ones aged 65 and older were the least likely to have a tablet.

When it comes to our beloved internet use, virtually all younger adults (99 percent!) now say they use the internet. Compared with the older generation, only 75 percent of participants reported being internet users. However, things were quite different in 2000. Then, the gap between the oldest and youngest groups of adults was 56 percentage points, and right now it has decreased to 24 points. So while not everyone was born into electronics, more and more people are leaning toward it. After all, it makes life better and generally more convenient.

Bored Panda previously reached out to one of the moderators of the Tech Support Gore subreddit, Coffeechipmunk, who revealed that the most popular posts are those that depict situations just moments away from exploding. "[It's] very dangerous, but very cool looking. They probably get so big because people post the pics and you think, 'Wow, that's just a bomb at that point.'"

"A lot of the content on the subreddit does rather well, except for people coming for actual tech support, they get redirected to the right subreddit. For actual tech support gore, though, it seems like broken screens and slightly messy wires are the current posts that don't hit too hard," the moderator added.

According to Coffeechipmunk, one reason their online group got so popular is simply that "it’s very fun". "In a time where most of the internet can be incredibly serious and most times saddening or angering, r/techsupportgore is fun because you go on it and you can laugh (and/or cringe) at the crazy posts. Where else can you see a post like, "Wow, these cables really are messy" to, "A lizard fried my motherboard" back to back? I love our growing community. They're a bunch of people that just enjoy tech and to some extent, the worst of it."

The mod explained that the term "Tech Support Gore" refers to "stuff in the tech support or IT field that's a computer comparable version of gore," and added, "Instead of a heart ripped out, it's CPU pins. Slightly less awful." Coffeechipmunk also revealed that the most horrible cases they’ve seen on the community while moderating were "anything with bugs in it. That's the worst.” Well, we couldn’t agree more. As you probably already noticed from this list, they’re truly awful.