Microsoft Considers Bringing Back Clippy, And It’s Up To You To Fight It
Image via Microsoft
Along with the announcement for Windows 365 Cloud PC, which lets you access the Windows interface from any non-Windows device, Microsoft has thrown in a weird proposition: should Clippy the paperclip be back?
If you recall, Clippy is the retired Microsoft Office virtual assistant that users loved to hate. The animated paperclip, introduced in Windows 97, would pop up unsolicited with assumptions that were rarely true.
“It looks like you’re writing a letter,” the avatar was notoriously known to ask. Usually, that wasn’t what people were doing.
Imagine users’ surprise when Microsoft took to Twitter and got them to vote on the assistant’s comeback. “If this gets 20k likes, we’ll replace the paperclip emoji in Microsoft 365 with Clippy,” it wrote.
Social media users weirdly responded to the tune of 132,000 likes, almost seven times the number it was asking for. Does that mean they actually want Clippy back?
To be fair, Microsoft was teasing the return of the paperclip as a static emoji, not as the unhelpful assistant that irritated users so much.
However, it’s unclear if the company is reintroducing Clippy in mere jest. The suggestion is probably not as definitive as the decision for its new default typeface, which Microsoft is still mulling over.
If this gets 20k likes, we’ll replace the paperclip emoji in Microsoft 365 with Clippy. pic.twitter.com/6T8ziboguC
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) July 14, 2021
[via PC Gamer, images via Microsoft]
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