This might be a bit of a joke, but watch the video, it will make sense afterward.
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So @louis_rossmann says to switch in order to show support for services that prioritize people, not profit or promotion, first. Seems like a worthwhile cause to take a stand for, I will consider having the Clippy drip.
However, I feel like this movement may be vulnerable to slackivism due to its heavy reliance on social media; slackivism’s when people are content in feeling that they have partaken in a movement but don’t sufficiently support it.
Side note: this movement kind of reminds me of this topic and Lawzero:
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Vulnerable to slacktivism, but also use of Clippy relies on a specific demographic. I fought with Clippy plenty of times when he was new, and I learned pretty quickly how to turn him off in the settings. I know the struggle, and kids today don’t - which is to say that this is an iconic figure that anyone younger than middle Millennials won’t really recognize this anyway.
Also, of all the things….Clippy? The premise that he was annoying but only wanted to help overlooks the fact that this was MS being tonedeaf and forcing bad UI into a product they know will sell well enough to overcome the “feature” even if it sucks.
Annoying and only trying to help was also Jar-Jar Binks.
Why not Donatello the Ninja Turtle? Annoying, but trying to help the team, and also smart.
Why not Dory from Finding Nemo?
Why not Donkey from Shrek?
Lots of better options out there.
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Every time I see Clippy I think of his unholy cousin - BonziBuddy
But really, Louis has a good point in the video. Clippy represents the annoying experiments that companies like Microsoft used to do. They were annoying, but usually something they truly saw as helpful, or “cool”.
Now, it seems like every singe product has a slimy ulterior motive underneath the design.
I think he has a good idea, but it’s hard to not think of the 2010s profile pic trends like Kony 2012 lol. But it’s worth considering if it gets conversation going.
Hearing he references: A Time for Truth: Oversight of Meta’s Foreign Relations and Representations to the United States Congress
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Because Clippy is an iconic digital feature with a memorable logo
I can’t speak for Mr. Rossman, but my running theory is that this has to do with his recent livestream where he called up VISA to talk about the censorship of games on Steam. He called for viewers to participate and also call, but he had extremely quick response times on his calls, suggesting none or very few of the viewers did.
If they already don’t care enough to make a phone call, getting them to show support for a cause in a measurable way at all is better than nothing, no?
I think this is also where Clippy comes in - I rarely if ever saw profile pictures of Clippy prior to his video. If Clippy isn’t particularly well-liked, but is still so easily recognizable, this seems like it would help to make the impact measurable - if it was a character people actually liked, it’d be harder to tell who is “for the cause” and who “just likes Shrek/TMNT”.
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OK, that’s fair. Maybe I’m out of touch with the kids and their familiarity with Clippy.
I do agree with the slacktivism angle, and I’d rather just send my representatives sassy emails and call them. It’s free, after all, and the staffers catalogue the topics of calls and emails.
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To be clear: I have no idea what “kids these days” know about Clippy either. I myself never had to deal with Clippy but at least understood “Clippy was annoying”.
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