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.”
Let’s see where this goes
Clippy
clips
back
His name is Clipit, god damn it.
This comment section is full of god damn losers who enjoy losing, and want to use any given opportunity to help a little bit to instead sing the praises of their enemies.
Maybe it’s not just the evil maga cunts and the spineless democrats alone who made this mess. Maybe it’s you defeatist whining pussies in this comment section, too.
The correct energy is “fuck yeah, what other ideas and movements can this fit into, support, and help”. Get on board with that, whether you Clippy or not.
Clippy sucked and was annoying NGL. There is so much nostalgia for stuff that we all hated at the time.
That’s the point… it’s literally explained in the text - Clippy sucked and everyone hated it, but guess what? It’s better than anything we have now, all of which can be turned off at a moment’s notice for no reason at all, with absolutely no recourse. And when it does work, it’s usually either lying or its only goal is manipulate you (or both).
Its as bad as what we have now. Its on by default and provides 0 value to the user. The only reason it didnt collect data is because internet had data limits and computers were struggling for resources.
I ain’t using a Microsoft product to head a movement against corporate greed and exploitation.
I ain’t using a Microsoft product
Literally nobody asked you to use any product
Read the rest of the sentence you moron.
“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.”
No they won’t, they will understand that they need to make sure they’re improving the PR for their shitty practices and have robust RnD in place to make sure their long-term shitty practice plans are evolving
Against an ever-rising tide of pushback and not putting up with it and seeing through their bullshit?
I dunno this sounds like how somebody talks when they’re trying to get the good guys to lose. I’m sure it’s nothing though.
If the Apicalypse of Reddit was any lesson…
They will first think “Yo, that’s trademarked!” and then “Lool, a little strawfire, this’ll quickly burn out”.
You can not expect human empathy or even ability to reflect on self from their kind. They are broken by human standards.
This reminds me of old “solidarity” profile picture filters that came out after the Arab Spring and later for France. Solidarity was cool but 2 clicks and a picture that doesn’t amount in any significant action or real participation and is VERY ignorable by people above the line. News media will easily spin it into whatever narrative they want as well
People whenever something like this (particularly protests that aren’t violent uprisings) happens: “It’s not a sole and immediate solution, so it’s pointless. Also I’m not going to provide a realistic sole and immediate solution that I’m personally willing to act on or lead. Might as well shut up and go quietly.”
I get that it’s frustrating, but stop trying to slam the door on people trying to build up an environment of resistance, solidarity, and hope. If you can encourage that energy into a more effective direction, then by all means: lead the way. Trying to appear like some savvy intellectual superior and just telling people they’re wasting their time isn’t the way to do that.
Not savvy intellectual superior–Russian plant.
Thank you for writing this good and awesome comment.
Don’t you know that doing anything ever is a complete waste of time unless it immediately solves the problem in a single action? It only took five afternoons online watching ineffectual people whine about people doing literally anything for me to learn that valuable lesson.
I’m not doing the profile picture thing, sorry. It’s stupid and forces me to commit to one issue at a time.
Instead, I’ll put a clippy in the replies when relevant.
📎💬
Oh yeah, let’s show them! We’ll show them that even as a symbol of protest we have to use something corporation made.
Microsoft thanks you for the free advertisement.
The video isn’t that long.
Definitely not spending 8 minutes of my time on a “protest” video that somehow ends up advertising a corporation.
I did read the transcript in the post and the reasoning is idiotic.
It’s not advertising a corporation lmao, he spends half the video ranting about how much he hates Microsoft
Cool, cool and as a revenge he chooses a cute looking symbol made by said corporation. Yeah, that’ll show them!
That’s free advertisement, all common people need to see is a funny ad featuring Clippy and suddenly all the profile pictures will have a different meaning.
I have no idea why you’re so proudly ignorant.
Just watch the video or move along and accept that you aren’t informed.
deleted by creator
I did read the transcript. How the fuck does it change the fact that you’re giving Microsoft free advertisement?
Like, no matter how much you spin the story, the fact remains that this is a Microsoft’s mascot you’re now spreading around.
I’ll keep my corporate boycott without advertising company’s mascots to everyone.
YouTubers doing YouTubers thing.
Uhhhh, that’ll show them…?
Probably the biggest problem with this is that you need to read an absolute wall of text or watch a YouTube video to actually understand what’s going on, something that the target audiences are unlikely to do, not to mention other issues like how ignorable it all is.
You’re right, the target audience will ignore it, until it grows to a point that they can’t ignore it any longer, and they finally decide to ask some flunky what’s going on.
The point when some Sociopathic Oligarch finally learns what it means, and realizes that it has been growing and growing, as he ignored it until it reached a point of critical mass, will be a powerful one for them.
The target audience are we, the tech literate people who give a damn. It’s then on us to propagate it further to those who are affected, but unaware. Build a critical mass and things will get rolling.
I’ll be frank and say that this is idealist nonsense - these types of movements/boycotts/protests don’t work even with critical mass reached.
Remember when the internet was boycotting Blizzard and their video games after all the sexual abuse and workplace treatment things came out about them, and just the classic ask-for-more-money-while-decreasing-quality-itis? There was a ton of posts about it, hundreds of thousands joined in and it was the talk for a couple of weeks but then people kinda forgot, Blizzard released a new trailer and a lot of the boycotters bought in.
Slightly less related example but still an useful one is one that’s still ongoing - there’s student protests in Serbia against the current government that’s undemocratic or whatever, and many outside people did say how they support the protests and how they’re 100% behind students, “if they want us to strike we’ll strike!” type of shit, yet nothing came from these pledges because it’s infinitely easier to talk than to act.
Changing your pfp to Clippy is pretty much like that - it’s a 0 effort action, it doesn’t require you to change anything as you continue using platforms that you’re supposedly fighting against. What would “things starting to roll” even look like, assuming people don’t lose interest - will it be just a bunch of 0 effort actions that everyone is going to forget/be confused about or even benefit the sites by generating buzz around? If there even are some useful actions that require a bit of inconvenience or effort, most of them are going to not do it due to the lack of investment into this type of activism.
Currently I feel like the plan of this movement is for CEO’s to “see it, feel bad then fix everything”.
Anything that gets people thinking correctly, understanding how evil big tech is being, especially out there in the wild where they might forget, is helping. Directly. Because it is improving the quality of what goes into peoples’ heads.
Every movement that thinks that’s not relevant will fail because of it.
Ok, but we have to start somewhere, don’t we? This is the same type of thing like all the awareness campaigns. The effectiveness can’t be measured that easily and societal change is slow. Most people would love if things changed over night and tomorrow brought a new, better world.
How long did workers fight for basic rights? How long did people fight against monarchies and absolutists in favor of democracies?
Blizzard was the holy grail of gaming up until the rumors started floating around. Then came the evidence and the boycotts. Most of their clients have no interest in gaming news and heard just the hyper around Blizzard games (just like Bethesda). Spread the word as far as you can to reach those people and change will follow.
The student protests you mentioned started fairly recently compared to the opression and brain-washing that have been going on for decades. It takes idealists and public pressure, and not careere politicians to change society. If just a few of those see a growing mass which they can ride to secure their position, they sure will at least bring some positive action.
We can disagree on the methods used, but not on the goal. You are free to fight the same battles the way you see fit. Don’t forget that most of the traffic to Lemmy came from the Reddit boycott - myself included. I stayed and so did many others. Even if it is just a small dent in Reddit’s profits.
A yes the enlightened tech literate people that will.brijg salvation from silicon valley.
GTFO your high horse mate.
There is absolutely ZERO need for such hostility. If you disagree, do so respectively or if you for whatever reason can’t, just downvote and move on.
Truth!!
Fighting the global rise of fascism isn’t for the lazy or whinge-prone. If you can’t be bothered to read a single wall covered in writing (how ironic)… get the fuck out of the way, citizen.
Lazy politics leads to movements like MAGA. We need to educate and motivate our citizens to care enough to want to read an explanation.
Fuck Clippy. Clippy represents Microsoft’s monopolistic practices in the office suite space by using proprietary formats and making sure ODF was less supported.
We should have a different character that annoyingly explains things instead, like Navi, Kaepora Gaebora, or Omochao.
Navi, Kaepora Gaebora, or Omochao.
What you said but for Nintendo and Sega
I’m sure this will work just as well as changing out avatars to green helped overthrow the iranian theocracy.
