Clippy’s Designer Shrugged Off Associations As He Was ‘So Embarrassed’ By Him

That overzealous, metallic Microsoft assistant had worked a thankless job. His eagerness to help was both his blessing and curse, and it got so overwhelming that people wanted him off their computers.

Regardless, it was evident that Clippy found great joy in his responsibilities—or maybe, just maybe, this need to serve others and bury himself in (digital) paperwork stemmed, in part, from a few abandonment issues. Behind that unwavering smile, it turns out the Office helper had a less optimistic background. The contention that followed the paperclip grew so much that his designer felt “so embarrassed” and excluded the iconic character from his portfolio.

Luckily, graphic designer Kevan Atteberry has healed from this troubled relationship, as revealed in an enlightening video feature on the Great Big Story YouTube channel.

Atteberry says he enjoyed the simplicity of a paperclip as a character. These objects were flexible too, and could easily morph to take on new forms and expressions.

Clippy, or Clippit, as the character was originally called, wasn’t the only design he came up with when his firm was tasked by Microsoft to dream up a trustworthy, likable, and humorous virtual assistant. Alongside the paperclip was a stapler, a pencil, and a coffee mug—all of which were rendered on the designer’s Macintosh computer, he cheekily points out.

Microsoft was left with a total of about 260 sketches to pick from, but it only wanted to ship out 10 in the Office suite. The company enlisted members of the public, in addition to Stanford psychologists, to shortlist the character designs. During each decision round, the paperclip oddly made it to the top, which kind of irked some employees at Microsoft.

That annoyance was felt by customers too, who thought Clippy’s capacity to help was “too basic.” This left Atteberry feeling “so embarrassed” about his work, and he would conceal his involvement in the creation of the avatar with potential clients.

Microsoft eventually put Clippy into retirement. Years later, in 2021, the company changed its mind and brought the character back as an emoji.

This distance turned out to be a good thing, as Atteberry, who writes and illustrates children’s books now, notes that “nobody hates Clippy now.”

[via Insider and Great Big Story, cover image via Microsoft]