Walking Techbane: Difference between revisions
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* Shin Seijuro from ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'' has a tendency to break any piece of technology handed to him within a minute, at the most. It started with him breaking a video camera by accident, which was followed up by him trying to open a GPS like a normal map. He apparently breaks the ticket machine every time he takes the train to school, and he can't even buy a can of soft drink from a vending machine without disabling it. Considering the guy is able to perform vertical push-ups ''on his index fingers'', one can make a [[Does Not Know His Own Strength|plausible guess]] about the reason. The most technologically advanced piece of equipment he is shown using in the series is a stopwatch.
** In the supplemental material within the manga, there is a girl who look like him and has a crush on him, that in order to be as much like him as possible, she breaks three computers a month on purpose.
* Mr. Yashiro (Ren's manager) from ''[[Skip Beat!]]'' is one of these. However, it only works if he has direct skin contact with the object, and said contact is for at least ten seconds. He uses this as a threat against Ren to get information out of him, holding Ren's cellphone as a hostage. Ren is later seen receiving a new cellphone from the LME president, obviously deciding the sacrifice was worth keeping the information.
* Nina Mercury from ''[[Lost Universe]]'' is ''infamous'' for breaking or ruining ''anything'' electronic she touches.
* Mihoko from ''[[Saki (manga)|Saki]]'', when trying to print off [[Mahjong]] tournament records from an average personal computer, somehow turned the whole of the room into a [[Naughty Tentacles|mass of wire wrapped around her body]] with the intent of not letting her go.
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* And the same thing applies to Laura Anne Gilman's ''The Retrievers'' series, though for a different reason. {{spoiler|Magic ''is'' electricity. A wizard can recharge simply by tapping the nearest power source -- usually shorting it the hell out. All wizards are VERY careful when recharging, not to mention when using anything electrically powered.}} This occurs to all wizards in varying degrees.
* Likewise in Nick Pollotta's novels based in the Bureau 13 universe; wizards tend to cause nearby technology to fail in mysterious to spectacular ways. This is actually used as a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] when the team is attacked by a vampire high school football team equipped with lasers. (it's that sort of book...) When one of the wizards is confronted with a laser point-blank in her face, ''she grabs the barrel'', preventing it from working and giving her teammates time to stake its surprised holder.
* The [[Isaac Asimov]] story ''Saving Humanity'' eventually featured such a person, though he was initially just a natural jinx (called a ''teleklutz'') before he was reformatted into an anti-computer weapon to prevent [[
* Wobbler in Terry Pratchett's ''[[Johnny Maxwell Trilogy]]''... sometimes. In the first book he's a fairly skilled [[Playful Hacker]], but by the second he can't turn his computer on without it smelling of burning plastic.
* This overlaps with [[Science vs. Magic]], but a ghost character in [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''SERRATED Edge'' series was told to stay away from Tannim's tapes because [[Our Ghosts Are Different|ghosts in that 'verse has a devastating effect on electromagnetic items]]. He eventually prevented a [[Big Bad]]'s getaway by walking through a plane's navigation board, rendering it completely useless.
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** Also his namesake, Hillaire Belloc's Lord Finchley, who "tried to mend/the electric light himself," with fatal results.
* Neil from ''[[The Young Ones]]''. He even laments that technology is rebelling against him.
* Captain Kirk was never this in ''[[Star Trek]]'', but he is often [[Flanderized]] into it in humor based on the series, due to the fact that he destroyed several [[
* Spencer from ''[[iCarly]]'' has had this joke used on him in a number of episodes in which many things - even things that don't have an ignition source or don't even use electricity (one example being a drum set) - spontaneously combust. At one point, after putting out a fire with a liquid, ''the liquid caught on fire''. [[Lampshade Hanging|He was unaware as to how, exactly, that could occur]].
== Newspaper Comics ==
* Roger from ''[[FoxTrot]]'' has blown up his wife and younger son's computers at least five times. He also seems to have the "talent" of accidentally deleting the files of the computer ''with one click''. He needs an entire manual to find the ON button, and once even mistook the computer simply being turned off as being frozen! He once bought the Windows version of a program even though their PC was a Mac (he thought "windows" meant the one on the wall of the house) and when it said, "You've Got Mail!" he went outside to check their mailbox, and then came back and called it a liar.
** It's not just the computer that he has wrecked. He also wrecked several other electrical appliances, and in one arc, he also ended up flooding the house just by attempting to use the dishwasher.
** Other than Roger, there's also an implied instance of this trope in this comic:
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'''Manager:''' Johnson, I said to wash out the '''''butter''''' server!
'''Johnson:''' ''(offscreen)'' Oops. }}
* In ''[[Dilbert]]'' the titular character has this happen to him when he loses "The Knack" (for engineering) in the animated series.
** This trope also pays a visit to Dilbert starting [http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2000-02-21/ here] when he's assigned a new lab partner named [[Meaningful Name|Paul Tergeist]].
** Wally is [http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-08-31 a danger to robots].
* While not a computer, Jon's father from the ''[[Garfield]]'' comics has never seen a faucet head before in his life, having used pumps. As a result, he's assured he can figure out how to work it, but rips off the faucet by mistake, although he chalks it up to the faucet being faulty and poor.
== Tabletop Games ==
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** And it has returned yet again where {{spoiler|1=a group of Dalek [[Expies]] have deemed Art a threat, as they are [http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=711 "of technology."]}}
* Gabe of ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' is apparently one of these, if Tycho is to be believed.
* Erin from [https://web.archive.org/web/20130719023505/http://www.drunkduck.com/Dragon_City/ Dragon City] is terrible with computers since she's always causing them to crash and needs help from her family to do basically anything. This is a contrast to her family since her parents and brother are VERY computer savvy to the point her dad is a computer technician for a power plant and her mom used to be one.
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