Clippy, the former Microsoft Office assistant that has since become a part of Internet culture is set to officially come back to life in Office. Earlier today, the official Microsoft Twitter account teased that the company would replace the paperclip emoji with Clippy across Microsoft 365 if its tweet crossed 20K likes, and the milestone was crossed after just an hour.
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
If you belong to generation Z or are even younger, you probably didn’t get the pleasure to see Clippy in its full glory. The Office Assistant shipped first in Office 97, where it regularly asked Office users if they needed any help with what they were doing. Clippy was poorly received by most Office users who saw it as nothing more than a useless distraction, and the Office Assistant was later discontinued in Office 2007 for Windows and Office 2008 for Mac.
Clippy has been a longtime subject of mockery, just like other poorly-received Microsoft apps and services such as Microsoft Bob or the Bing search engine. However, the Internet slowly but surely realized that Clippy was actually pretty cute and probably didn’t deserve to be forgotten. Microsoft has finally acknowledged that as well, and we’re looking forward to hearing more details about Clippy’s comeback as an Office emoji.
Do you think Microsoft is right to finally bring back Clippy from the company’s junkyard? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
