Since its beginning in 2012, the TechSupportGore subreddit grew its community to a solid 485k members who love to “cringe to the brink of passing out after a few minutes looking at this subreddit.”

Every post screams for help from tech support here. From makeshift electronics to cases where people thought repairing their computers would be a walk in the park, the fun is both painfully funny and (secretly) relatable.

So to find out more about the community, Bored Panda reached out to its moderator Coffeechipmunk who was happy to share some insights. “I feel like the community has grown different tastes for the subreddit over time, for sure. For a while, cable gore was boring, cracked screens, etc. Now? Bad wiring is loved.”

When asked about the term “Tech Support Gore," the mod explained that it 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 said that among the worst tech support gore cases he has seen while moderating the community, it's "anything with bugs in it. That's the worst.” Also, “the guy who got a laptop full of milk. Yeesh.”

And when it comes to the subreddit’s absurdly comical touch to its submissions, the moderator believes that “it’s played up for laughs a bit, to be honest.” Having said that, he added: “There's definitely posts where it's like, 'Yikes! That's bad.' But I can't imagine anyone passing out from seeing bad cabling, ya know?”

Previously, the same moderator told us that part of the appeal of the subreddit comes down to the fact that it gives honest fun and cringe to viewers. “In a time where most of the internet can be incredibly serious and most times saddening or angering, TechSupportGore is fun because you go on it and you can laugh (and/or cringe) at the crazy posts.” 

After all, “Where else can you see a post like, 'Wow, these cables really are messy' to 'A lizard fried my motherboard' back to back?”

The subreddit is especially relevant to the current generations Y and Z who basically grew up with tech around them. For these kids and young adults, seeing the picture of someone trying to charge their new laptop without taking it out of the box is essentially priceless.