YSK: People are switching their profile pictures to Microsoft’s Clippy in protest of the unethical, immoral, anti-consumer practices by various companies. The movement was started by Louis Rossmann (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ) on August 7th, 2025.
@6:46 “Clippy’s a symbol that what used to be considered one of the worst annoyances in our life would now not only be welcomed, but for all of his flaws, celebrated as an idol. Because for all of these things that occur right now where there is negative malice of intent, […] Clippy just wanted to help. And if you were to turn him on today, unlike most cloud bullshit, he’d still work.”
Louis hopes for this to be a show of solidarity.
@5:44 “When a company CEO logs into their Slack and sees 10,000 Clippy’s looking back at them, what I hope occurs is that they intuitively understand that they no longer live in a world where they can get away with fucking over the consumer.”
@5:58 “[…] that [people] are alert and they are aware of what is going on, and they are going to politely but firmly push back against it. Every single one of those 10,000 people will be an obstacle to the anti-consumer practices and the anti-ownership practices, and they will no longer be another cog in the assembly line sending us all into a dystopia.”
Why YSK: I was curious about the number of Clippy avatars, and thought other people might be curious too.
@4:28 “Clippy never tried to normalize sex trafficking. He just wanted to help.”
Were these people too young in the early 2000s to recognize Clippy for what it was? It was never benign—ChatGPT is exactly what Microsoft always wanted to make, but Clippy was as close as it could get at the time. They are part and parcel of the same thing.
This is like protesting Trump with pictures of George W. Bush.
Fucking
NO.
The thought “well honesty Alberto Gonzalez as AG is like 10 steps up right now…” popped into my head and now I’m sad.
Never thought Donald Rumsfeld would be a step up from Whiskey Gate, but here we are.
Yeah. We only had one once-in-a-lifetime market crash under W instead of… I lost count. Also PATRIOT ACT and wars on Iraq and Afghanistan was… not as bad as the shit that’s going on now, as awful as they were (they also helped lead to the current situation). George W Bush was still one of the worst presidents in US history until Trump came along.
Well, I wouldn’t say “miss” is the right word, either. The whole system has been broken since the founding of the country.
If you could explain how you got to that conclusion I would love to know. Not trying to be rude, just interested in where it’s coming from.
Clippy (actual name Clippit), was an avatar for the Office Assistant User Interface introduced in Office 97. It read the contents of your documents and would pop up and give you advice, and was basically an attempt at an intelligent agent, but 30 years ago.
It wasn’t nearly as sophisticated and invasive as the current bullshit, but that’s largely because the tech to be as sophisticated and invasive as the current bullshit didn’t exist in 1997.
He also says in the video that clippy didn’t read your letter. It did–that’s how it could detect that you were writing one.
Exactly. That was captured in one of Clippy’s most famous lines.
“I see you’re trying to write a letter. Can I help?”
“I see you’re trying to write a résumé. Can I help?”
This of course got parodied a million times:
“I see you’re trying to write a radical manifesto. Can I help?”
“I see you’re trying to write a suicide note. Can I help?”
Not OP, but I see where he’s coming from. Clippy is still the symbol of a corporation instead of basic human rights like:
Something like this would be better. I just grabbed it, I don’t think it’s affiliated with something else:
Rossman advocates all the things you mentioned, even as far going to washington to advocate them. Which is more than most of us have ever done, or will ever do. He acknowledges Clippy was bad, but its a reminder of then to now. What we as consumers dont like and what its become. Its a symbol we all know, that microsoft doesent even use anymore, so i dont think its a problem using it as a reminder and symbol of solidarity.
I don’t disagree with you and I think his intentions are good, it’s just that there are other symbols that he could have used. Especially now that a lot of people don’t even know what clippy is and it’s a corporate symbol.