Science & Tech Quote by Dave Barry

Dave Barry’s line lands because it flips a supposedly neutral piece of tech vocabulary into a petty, ugly truth: “user” often isn’t a description of agency so much as a polite container for contempt. The joke depends on the double meaning baked into the word. A “user” is someone who uses a tool; a “user” is also someone who takes advantage of others. Barry lets both senses hum at once, implying that the relationship between computer professionals and the public is less “service” than mutual exploitation: the expert hoards competence, the layperson demands miracles.

The specific intent is to puncture the sanctimony of tech culture by naming its favorite euphemism. IT workers, programmers, and “computer professionals” have long needed a term that sounds objective while venting frustration at mistakes that feel obvious from inside the system. “Idiot” is too honest, too rude, too revealing. “User” is the corporate-safe substitute that keeps the smile on during support calls and preserves the myth that technology is user-friendly when, in practice, it’s expert-friendly with a help desk.

Subtextually, it’s also a jab at how the industry frames blame. When software is confusing or brittle, “user error” becomes a moral failing rather than a design failure. Barry’s cynicism points at the power dynamic: the professional defines the language, and language quietly defines who gets to be competent. In the late-20th-century boom of personal computing, this was a cultural moment: machines moved into everyday life faster than anyone could learn them, and the people who spoke fluent computer got to decide whether everyone else was a customer, a citizen, or a punchline.