A modern and usually arcane form of
humor popular among
geeks and other
techies. Can range from
puns involving obscure computing terms (as in the popular use of "
fsck" to mean "fuck") to whole stories involving painful, vengeful, or otherwise amusing anecdotes, such as the
BOFH series of tales or the entire
Dilbert comic strip.
Sometimes computer humor originates from situations not normally encounterable without computers, such as spellchecker humor, computer-generated text, algorithmic lanugage translation, therapist software (see also Eliza), and Easter eggs.
Other forms of computer humor are simple offshoots of older forms of humor which arbitrarily involve computers, such as stories involving computer failures as in Patrick Crispen's "squirrels" story.
Some consider defaced websites as a form of satire, and therefore a form of computer humor. Other forms of computer humor include practical jokes, often involving trojans or backdoor computer programs.