Yea, gods. Clippy is a persistent little beggar. Over 20 years since it infested our screens and it’s now being used as a dating meme by people not born when Office 97 annoyed us.
The infamous Office paperclip, Clippy, continues to pop up just like it did in Office 97. Now it’s become a meme to describe an annoying type of date among millennials.
It started with Samantha Rothenberg’s clever Instagram post describing a particular type of annoying wannabe boyfriend.
Source: VioletClair/Samantha Rothenberg
It’s better than more Clippy Porn.
PaperClipping
Paperclipping describes an old boyfriend/girlfriend who mysteriously pops up after a break (see ghosting)
The paperclipper starts sending messages again, almost as if nothing had happened. The messages aren’t rude or threatening, just annoying and irrelevant.”What’s up?” or ‘Doing anything on Friday?”.
It’s nothing truly new. It’s a long-standing human behavior with a new name.
Clippy’s persistence
Clippy’s persistence as a meme is amazing. Original Clippy was ‘born’ in 1997, over 20 years ago.
Paperclipping meme is taken up by people not born when the original Clippy annoyed Office 97 users. At best they were in rompers.
Clippy is so persistent that Microsoft feels the need to rewrite its history, so they don’t look so bad. 2016 saw some Redmond revisionist history saying that Clippy wasn’t bad just ahead of it’s time. That’s complete nonsense but helps Microsoft’s corporate image.
Don’t panic – Clippy isn’t coming back
Add Office Clippy to your web page
Clippy lives again and coming to a program near you
Microsoft revises Clippy history
Word porn – this is not a joke