real life

Before there was Siri, we had Clippy. Now he's back to do nothing on your desktop.

Once upon a time in the year 2000, there was paper clip named Clippy. Original.

Annoying as he was useless, the Clippit ‘Clippy’ Microsoft Office assistant was the O.G. Siri long before smart phones and Facebook, taking up space on the desktop of your clunky computer monitor under the guise of being helpful.

Unlike Siri’s impartial tone, Clippy was widely regarded as a patronising little thing.

He popped up whenever you didn’t need him, offering to help with the simplest of tasks like ‘writing a letter’ or ‘making a spreadsheet’.

He was also typically nowhere to be found or of no use whatsoever on the odd occasion you actually needed him.

And those big, creepy googly eyes – you couldn’t help but feel like Clippy was… leering at you, watching your every click on eBay and Limewire.

So prickly was Clippy’s disposition, the tool was retired to minimal duties in 2005 before being completely deactivated in 2007.

Now, he’s back. Sort of.

Brought back from the dead, you can now find Clippy as a Microsoft Visual Studio extension.

The important thing to note about Clippy 2.0 is he’s an extension, meaning you now have the ~choice~ to have him in your life. Or not.

Do you remember Clippy? Was he ever useful?

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Top Comments

queen_of_all_things_potato 7 years ago

This article made me feel so young. First I hear of Clippy - no (to the name), They should have just left it at clip


Cath Fowlett 7 years ago

I have a Creepy living across the road. Does that count? He also leers.