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."

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[–] 313 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Thanks writing it all out instead of making us watch the video.

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  • [–] 101 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago

    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.

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  • [–] 239 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    When a company CEO logs into their Slack and sees 10,000 Clippy's

    Software engineers will do anything but unionize

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    [–] 111 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

    "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 and sighs loudly before turning their thoughts back to their yacht and upcoming golf vacation.

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  • [–] [S] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    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).

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    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.

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  • [–] 80 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    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.

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    [–] 80 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago*

    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!!"

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    [–] 55 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    Don't make me post pregnant clippy art.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)
  • [–] 47 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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    [–] 51 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I just… no thanks. Zero point to doing this as far as im concerned. Wish all participants the best of luck, however!

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago

    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.

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    [–] 41 points 1 year ago* (13 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)
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    [–] 23 points 1 year ago

    YouTubers doing YouTubers thing.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    "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

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    [–] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    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.

    📎💬

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    [–] 15 points 1 year ago

    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

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago*

    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.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Predatory software has become so bad that now we have to use the previous generation’s intrusive hated features to protest the new ones.

    Here’s my protest profile pic.

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    [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    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.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    I'm sure this will work just as well as changing out avatars to green helped overthrow the iranian theocracy.

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