# Clippy

Clippy is the googly-eyed paperclip that Microsoft shipped as the default Office Assistant in Windows editions of Office starting in 1997. Users despised the constant unsolicited pop-ups so thoroughly that Microsoft turned its 2001 retirement into a mock corporate layoff campaign, and the character stuck around online as shorthand for intrusive, unhelpful software design.

## Overview
Clippy, officially named "Clippit," is the animated paperclip that Microsoft shipped as the default Office Assistant in English Windows editions of Office starting in 1997[3]. The character is a bent wire paperclip with two googly eyes and expressive eyebrows, best known for volunteering "It looks like you're writing a letter!" the moment a user typed "Dear" at the top of a document.

Clippy is remembered less as a working helper than as a case study in intrusive software design. Urban Dictionary bluntly defines it as "the annoying paperclip that Microsoft added to its program to make your life just that much harder"[4]. Microsoft itself eventually turned the paperclip into a joke, making Clippy the star of a 2001 Web marketing campaign that framed the character's retirement as a mock corporate layoff notice[1].

## How It Spread
Backlash inside Microsoft moved fast. At the 1998 Professional Developers Conference in Denver, product managers staged a mock public execution of the Office Assistant, running a Visual Basic snippet that made Clippy squeak "I'm melting, I'm melting" before disappearing[3]. In July 2000, the webcomic User Friendly ran an early Clippy parody as the character's reputation kept sliding online.

Microsoft turned the character's retirement into its own marketing beat for the 2001 launch of Office XP. The company built a mock layoff website where Clippy shopped around a resume, cast actor Gilbert Gottfried as its new voice, and ran an online poll asking the public to vote on the paperclip's next career as part of a $30 million ad push[1]. CNet's coverage noted that many Office customers were mainly wondering why Microsoft had waited so long to pull the plug on the assistant[1].

Clippy stayed a punchline long after Office XP shipped. In May 2012, the startup Smore released Clippy.js, a JavaScript library that let developers drop the paperclip and its Office Assistant siblings Merlin, Rover, and Links into any webpage[2]. TechCrunch, in its coverage of the launch, floated ideas like phishing Clippy and NSFW Clippy as inevitable follow-ups to the port[2].

## How to Use
Most modern Clippy usage is nostalgic. People typically caption screenshots of the original Office Assistant window with fresh "It looks like you're writing..." lines aimed at whatever the joke's target is doing, or embed the actual paperclip on their own site using the Clippy.js JavaScript library[2].

## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Clippy?
Clippy is the paperclip Office Assistant character Microsoft shipped in Office for Windows before publicly retiring it around the 2001 Office XP launch[1].

### Where did Clippy come from?
Clippy first appeared inside Microsoft Office for Windows and was widely seen as a long-despised feature by the time Microsoft began winding it down in 2001[1].

### What does Clippy mean?
Online, "clippy" is shorthand for aggressively unhelpful, interrupting software, with Urban Dictionary defining it as "the annoying paperclip that Microsoft added to its program to make your life just that much harder"[4].

### How do you use Clippy?
Most Clippy usage today is nostalgic, and the 2012 Clippy.js JavaScript library lets developers embed the paperclip and its Office Assistant siblings into any webpage[2].

### Is Clippy still popular?
Clippy is a classic Y2K-era software meme rather than a currently trending one. Microsoft itself retired the character alongside the 2001 Office XP launch after treating the assistant as a long-despised feature in its own marketing[1].

## References
1. [https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-tool-clippy-gets-pink-slip/](<https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-tool-clippy-gets-pink-slip/>)
2. [https://techcrunch.com/2012/05/29/for-your-programmers-arsenal-a-working-clippy-for-any-web-page/](<https://techcrunch.com/2012/05/29/for-your-programmers-arsenal-a-working-clippy-for-any-web-page/>)
3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/clippy](<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/clippy>)
4. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Clippy](<https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Clippy>)

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Source: https://meme.com/memes/clippy
Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library