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.”
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
“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
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?
Let’s see where this goes
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
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.
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.
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.
Thanks writing it all out instead of making us watch the video.
Don’t make me post pregnant clippy art.
pics or it didn’t happen
