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.”
Thanks writing it all out instead of making us watch the video.
For real! I hate to watch video media for things like this. I mean, I’m on Lemmy and not tiktok or YT for a reason…
The transcription with timestamps of the important taking points, chef’s kiss.
Thanks op.
:) happy to help! I appreciate the appreciation
I don’t mean to get off topic but effective synopsis of media is a massive value add. Making ideas cross platform AND cross media types is helpful, not detrimental. Advertisements are your enemy, not viewers.
When a company CEO logs into their Slack and sees 10,000 Clippy’s
Software engineers will do anything but unionize
This right here. Unions are a much more potent way to tell management “that anti-consumer idea is bullshit and we won’t do it.”
I’ve been tech conferencing all week and I’ve already seen two talks about unionizing tech workers. Maybe the tide is turning?
You could unionize and invest the minimal effort into being part of an awareness/solidarity campaign.
The best time to unionize was yesterday. Second best is right now!
Yall have the ability to change your avatars?!
Unionised software developer here. I think you’re more referring to just Americans.
Well, no
I think a lot of se jobs are not unionizable basically because they do not generate direct profit but only investments.
“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.”
Ahh yes. The CEO sees the slactivists’ avatars sand sighs loudly before turning their thoughts back to their yacht and upcoming golf vacation.
Yea this is some bonkers wishful thinking. This is basically the Jeremey Clarkson “oh no! Anyway…” meme
The CEO sees the clippys, starts crying and gives everyone a raise
Then everyone claps
I’ll highjack this comment to add my opinion - I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for the main post.
I see the profile picture as performative (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). I don’t want to fall into a habit of doing performative things and feeling like it’s enough action. I also recognize Clippy is a flawed choice, as one of Microsoft’s mascots and it’s existence as a proto-AI assistant.
All of that said, I found the solidarity in the comment section of the original video comforting. So today, I will perform (and maybe spread just a little more awareness).
I don’t see it just as a performance, but rather a way to find like-minded peopel and build a community that will eventually get things rolling in the right direction. Every movement needs some kind of criical mass to achieve something and a call to action -no matter how miniscule and benign - is a good way of setting things into motion.
True! I know “performative” has a pretty negative connotation and can be used dismissively, but I really do believe there can be power behind simple collective actions like these. Particularly as a starting point for something more.
I’m always puzzled when people tear these things down rather than use them to build into something greater. Channel that energy while it’s there and people are fired up! If someone has ideas that they believe will be more effective, now’s a great time to pitch them - and without insulting the people they’re pitching them to.
It takes a special kind of wishful thinking to think that any CEO is UNAWARE that their customers hate them.
Not a single one thinks any of these decisions are well-received.
They do it because people keep turning RIGHT AROUND and spending their money and attention anyway.
It’s a special kind of Stockholm Syndrome digital slavery because people can LITERALLY just walk away and choose not to.
I don’t know if the answer is silent protest profile pics. I think a better solution is more people getting into self hosting and ditching big tech reliance.
How dare you, sir?
The solution is to complain for a couple of weeks about a platform ON that platform, get it out of your system, and let it fizzle out without making ANY kind of changes, because people generally have the attention span of a goldfish and commitment and follow-through of a dieter with a shopping cart full of ice cream.
Never, ever ask people to accept inconvenience to bring down a tech monopoly because “muh followers!!”
While I agree, self hosting is not an option for the average person.
I believe big tech must be forced to work for the consumer interests somehow.
One way could be introducing decentralised alternatives, that present a solid competition.
I think a better solution is more people getting into self hosting
I think changing your profile picture is a bit more accessible than that
Por que no los dos? I don’t think this is being proposed as an answer that will solve the problem on its own. Set a clippy profile picture, self-host, do whatever else you can as well toward the same goal. No need to restrict all our eggs to a single basket.
ditching big tech reliance.
This is the real protest!
“The”?
I think protest profile pics are great :) But in corpo hell they don’t matter.
I just… no thanks. Zero point to doing this as far as im concerned. Wish all participants the best of luck, however!
I concur - I agree with the sentiment, but this seems so… pointless. Remember the Reddit blackouts? Some people migrated to Lemmy but I doubt the number of new members ever increased in the same proportion as it did in those days, some horrible mods were sacked (like u/awkwardtheturtle from r/art) and some subs were closed by their mods, but Reddit just reinstantiated those subs to another admins (r/unexpected on the top of my head at the moment) and… shit’s even worse than ever and they keep earning their profit as usual, if not even more. In the end the “protests” and blackouts did absolutely nothing for them.
I disagree, without the protests I would still be using Reddit. Just because it doesn’t completely collapse the system doesn’t mean it’s been ineffective
Fair, it got your attention, which I think is worth it.
But as they mentioned, Reddit is doing fine, and making more revenue than ever. The premise of the clippy protest is to scare the CEOs into submission, exactly like the reddit blackouts, but that wasn’t the result of the blackouts and that won’t be the result of YouTube users changing their avatar to clippy.
The only thing that will scare them is users actually migrating away, which again didn’t happen enough with the reddit exodus, it didn’t get a massive blow like digg did. Users are too complacent now.
I’ll still change mine in case it gets one user’s attention enough to start them down the Louis rabbit hole and make them understand the problem of corporations owning all your data, with the hope they will self motivate to leave these platforms entirely, but it ain’t gonna get any CEOs attention when they wake up and see everyone on slack has clippy, they’ll laugh it off.
Kinda bad example: the server you are posting on (lemmy.world) literally started during the time of the subreddit blackouts, and other servers’ user count shot up 5x, 10x or more. It’s likely the surge would be muted without it, and even if more than half left Lemmy and returned to Reddit, it was still the first time it could even be considered a competitor. Its a positive and concrete resulf that came of it.
I dunno what changing a profile pic can do, without more of a goal than, “get a CEO to look at clippys and think its funny”. It would have a positive effect if it was even something small like telling people to change the profile and donate $1 to EFF.org
Bad example, reddit blackouts did work. People left
Don’t make me post pregnant clippy art.
pics or it didn’t happen
I CHOOSE “IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!”
I CHOOSE “IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!”
If there is something that calls for eyebleach, this is it.
well done.
Please, I need this.
Pffft, you ain’t got none…
What else are you supposed to spam LinkedIn with?
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.
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.
Not savvy intellectual superior–Russian plant.
Thank you for writing this good and awesome comment.
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.
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:
- right to own
- right to repair
- right to live a life free of ads in things owned
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.
“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.
YouTubers doing YouTubers thing.
Can I teach you a lesson?
I’m gonna wear your skin!
I’m gonna wear your skin!
You haven’t thought of the smell, you bitch
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
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.
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.
📎💬
Predatory software has become so bad that now we have to use the previous generation’s intrusive hated features to protest the new ones.
Wait what is/was wrong with notepad?
They took a utility and turned it into an app.
(M$ took the lightweight text editor that always worked and added bloat to it making it like a cross between the original and wordpad along with adding co-pilot.)
I’m ngl this looks somewhat useful minus the copilot crap. Having lists and headers and so on are useful for actually taking notes.
I agree, as someone that was forced to use W11 work laptop. It also save states of the tabs open as long as you don’t close the tabs and close the windows itself.
This is probably just MS catching up to plenty other FOSS programs though.
Nothing. If people are protesting invasive bloat with by saying they’d rather have Clippy, I’d rather go back to Notepad.
However, it appears that Windows 11 notepad has fallen prey as well? Maybe then I need a profile pic of a needle and a magnetic plate…
