[ TECH FOLKLORE ][ MACHINE CULTURE ]
A general, non-joking technical term for a problem caused by how a person operated a system rather than by any actual fault in the software or hardware itself — the plain-language version of the same idea PEBKAC/PICNIC joke about.
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
"The crash log came back clean, it was just user error, they'd skipped a required setup step."
LORE & ORIGIN
Standard, non-comedic technical support and software terminology used since at least the early days of personal computing to classify a support ticket's root cause.
FIRST SEEN
1985
PEAK POPULARITY
2026 (Technical Folklore Revival)
CURRENT STATUS
Legacy / Decaying Slang
Related To:PEBKACLayer 8 Problem
EQUIVALENT CONCEPTS IN OTHER LANGUAGES
AURA IMPACT ⓘ
+1 AURA
TREND STATUS
↑ HIGH RISING FAST · LOW
CULTURE CATEGORY
[ TECH FOLKLORE ][ MACHINE CULTURE ]
RELATED TERMS
MENTIONS OVER TIME
DOCUMENTED SINCE
1985
NOW
Radar observation data not yet available for this term.
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