They asked for 20,000 likes on a tweet to make it happen
Microsoft look set to bring back one of the most recognisable and irritating figures of the late 90s: Clippy.
Officially called Microsoft’s ‘Office Assistant’ but more commonly known as Clippy, the animated talking paperclip is synonymous with a simpler time around the turn of the century.
It was also synonymous with how bad Windows often ran, with the annoying little guy often being wrong and always being unbearably irritating.
But we’re always a sucker for nostalgia. So when Microsoft put out a tweet saying that if it got 20,000 likes they would bring back Clippy, Twitter duly obliged.
It hit the 20,000 target in less than an hour, and has racked up almost 130,000 likes at the time of writing.
Don’t panic though. It doesn’t look like the googly-eyed tormentor will be returning as an office assistant. Planet Earth has evolved beyond the need for Clippy.
Instead the plan is for Clippy to be added as an emoji in Microsoft 365, the service which offers access to productivity applications such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook.
If this gets 20k likes, we’ll replace the paperclip emoji in Microsoft 365 with Clippy. pic.twitter.com/6T8ziboguC
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) July 14, 2021
But if Microsoft is serious, the comeback will be happening in some form or another. It looks like people have forgiven Clippy and have realised they actually miss the guy.
Nostalgia does funny things to us I guess.
