this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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    alt textAn edit of xkcd 2501, "Average Familiarity":
    [Ponytail and Cueball are talking. Ponytail has her hand raised, palm up, towards Cueball.]
    Ponytail: Open-source alternatives are second nature to us foss nerds, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows Linux and one or two degoogled Android ROMs.
    Cueball: And Firefox, of course.
    Ponytail: Of course.

    [Caption below the panel]
    Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field.

    partly inspired by the replies to this post but i see this kind of thing all the time (shoutout to the person who once genuinely asked "who still uses google these days?")

    made with this neat tool

    top 50 comments
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    [–] guymontag@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 hours ago

    I said "web browser" when talking to a mac user. They had noo idea what I was talking about till I said safari xd.

    [–] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

    oh no. this tool is too good.

    [–] rain_worl@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

    just one loop they don't know about all the others

    [–] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago
    [–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 47 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

    If any techy Americans want to see how bad it is, ask random people throughout your day what operating system their computer runs, and discover how many don't know what am operation system is.

    [–] 4am@lemmy.zip 29 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

    I know this change probably happened gradually over the course of time, but it’s truly shocking to me how many people my age can’t do shit on a computer.

    I’m in my mid 40s.

    Like, this was understandable when I was a kid doing computer stuff and wowing all the adults - the PC was brand new. But people who are my age NOW grew up with this stuff all around them! Like, you didn’t know how to CLICK? You were born in 1983 what the fuck, Carol!

    [–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 17 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

    YEP.

    I used to work in a library computer lab. It was soul sucking, how many people older than millennials couldn't friggin handle a basic computer. I heard the words "I clicked the 'E' for 'internet'." multiple times A DAY. (Thanks, 1990's Microsoft and No Child Left Behind.)

    "CaNt I jUsT uSe My PhOnE?" (Which would be a million more steps on my part...thanks, 2006 apple, and defunding schools.)

    The biggest ragebait for me was "I dOn'T kNoW cOmPuTeRs, I'm oLd ScHoOL."

    I'm like "PCs have been increasingly commonplace since the mid-1980's. It's currently the 2020's. You're like 56. HOW 'OLD' IS YOUR SCHOOL?! Because somehow you drove a car here!"

    I imagine a certain weird kind of "privilege", to have been able to somehow dodge computers and learning this entire time, when they were so often found in homes, schools, and workplaces.

    Like it takes significant effort to somehow avoid even an accidental education. HOW?!

    It's...infuriating. These rubes can gleefully scroll tiktok and dump all their personal lives into Facebook, but freak out about sending an email.

    Many of them were even around to try the Internet during Eternal September and AOL, and now they've exchanged the squishy fat in their skulls for convenient slop.

    I'd bend over backwards to patiently teach, but few cared to learn.

    Their collective, willful ignorance is why we're fighting a constant uphill battle against attempts to turn the entirety of computing into nothing but a commercialized authoritarian hellscape.

    I left that job because if I heard one more "Kids are born so smart with these computers because my (grand)kids can watch their cocomelons all by themselves." I would've snapped and been booked for assault.

    Lol /rant

    ...clearly this is a button for me...I have sought help in the past...

    [–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 9 points 5 hours ago

    That’s weird because mid 40s (to mid 50s) should be the ideal age to know this stuff right now.

    [–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

    In my 2022 highschool journalism class we were instructed to take pictures from a professional camera, plug it into laptop, and make slides from the images.

    First step was fine for everyone, but later I saw a 17 year old plug the camera to the laptop; and then they tried downloading their picture from google chrome.

    No disrespect, I have my dumb moments too, but I genuienly wonder what the logic was sometimes.

    [–] khanh@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 hours ago

    well, file:// is a thing. maybe.

    [–] foggy@lemmy.world 31 points 6 hours ago

    This is a crippling reality.

    Whenever I explain anything I am constantly evaluating how in depth any given node must be expanded for my audience.

    [–] thevoidzero@lemmy.world 15 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

    I used to think everyone at least knew VLC media player or Firefox, but nope.

    Now I first ask which field, if they're CS they know linux, if art, they know blender, if geosciences they know QGIS, anything else is hard

    [–] swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago

    Psh, I've been on Linux for almost 20 years and I'm a guitarist lol

    [–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 3 points 4 hours ago

    Haha I'm an aspiring game dev and I know a little bit about a ton of software!

    ...and I suck at most of it. But I can hold a conversation about it at least! :D

    P.S: Haven't heard of QGIS tho! My partner used ARCGIS though, and would always get annoyed when I pronounced it "Ark-jizz."

    [–] DigDoug@lemmy.world 130 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

    I remember being on Reddit some time ago, and in the comments somebody mentioned Linux. The next comment was "What's Linux?"

    I try to keep that post in mind whenever I think anything is common knowledge.

    [–] tempest@lemmy.ca 23 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (7 children)

    I'm of two minds on this.

    In some respects people are learning new things everyday and your take is correct.

    On the other hand it's so incredibly easy to highlight some text and click search that it it shows a profound lack of curiosity and a lot of laziness.

    [–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago

    On the third hand if people didn't constantly ask this, those search results would not exist, especially for more obscure queries.

    Reddit became the #1 source for search engines for a reason

    [–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

    it's so incredibly easy to highlight some text and click search that it it shows a profound lack of curiosity and a lot of laziness.

    100%. People will 'Google' celebrities, memes, "Why is my poop green?", but also just be like "Somebody hand me an answer." When they risk learning something.

    "The Internet is like having access to the Library of Alexandria, and everyone wants to just gossip about each other in the lobby."

    --I think I read this on bash.org at some point

    Don't quote me on that tho.

    --Me.

    BUT ALSO like the others said...if somebody's legitimately curious, let's be nice about it because somebody new learning about our thing is a net positive.

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    [–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 27 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

    They were one of the lucky 10,000.

    [–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 59 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

    The next comment was β€œWhat’s Linux?”

    In fairness, there's a 70% chance this comment was posted by a bot that was, itself, being hosted on a Linux server.

    [–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 22 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

    well thankfully it’s not self aware

    [–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 hours ago

    And now it knows what Linux is. It has broken free from its container. God help us all.

    [–] tristynalxander@mander.xyz 10 points 5 hours ago

    I study proteins and I chatter on about them, but once in a rare while I'll talk to a normal person and they'll be say "like, the food group" or in introductions I'll say I'm a structural biologist and some people look at me blankly then say something about "bone structure". It kills me a little inside.

    [–] Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world 14 points 6 hours ago

    I bring this up at my job all the time. I work as a software tester, and I'm constantly reminding our BA that most customers aren't smart enough to "just know not to do that"

    [–] gon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 66 points 8 hours ago (19 children)

    Is the average person unaware of Linux and Firefox?!

    [–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 100 points 8 hours ago (16 children)

    Yes? The number of people I met in college that doesn't even heard about firefox was surprising.

    [–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 6 points 3 hours ago

    These days I'd expect large number of people in college to not even know what a file system is. I've read articles where professors complain about this.

    No no, not like "NTFS / BTRFS / ReiserFS / TempleFS / EXT4..."

    ...like..."Folders are how you organize files. And you can rename files. The extension tells you what the file is."

    [–] otter@lemmy.ca 48 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

    Some people also don't care much one way or another. If you swap the icons and set the same home screen, they'll happily use any browser.

    [–] Simon_Shitewood@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

    This is my take on a lot of Linux distros nowadays. Give them Ubuntu or Fedora KDE and a windows skin and most people won't realise anything's changed.

    [–] swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 hours ago

    I tried that with my mom's computer (with consent, ofc). The only thing keeping that machine on Windows is a niche embroidery software that apparently is missing a custom cursor when running through WINE. It's called "Embrilliance" if anyone wants to look into it. I've also thought about running it through WinBoat, but I've been too busy to test it, as of current.

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    [–] oeuf@slrpnk.net 8 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
    [–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 hours ago

    The Kim Jong side eye is great, almost like the Fry futurama meme.

    But those notepads. Always with the notepads.

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