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.”
The target audience are we, the tech literate people who give a damn. It’s then on us to propagate it further to those who are affected, but unaware. Build a critical mass and things will get rolling.
I’ll be frank and say that this is idealist nonsense - these types of movements/boycotts/protests don’t work even with critical mass reached.
Remember when the internet was boycotting Blizzard and their video games after all the sexual abuse and workplace treatment things came out about them, and just the classic ask-for-more-money-while-decreasing-quality-itis? There was a ton of posts about it, hundreds of thousands joined in and it was the talk for a couple of weeks but then people kinda forgot, Blizzard released a new trailer and a lot of the boycotters bought in.
Slightly less related example but still an useful one is one that’s still ongoing - there’s student protests in Serbia against the current government that’s undemocratic or whatever, and many outside people did say how they support the protests and how they’re 100% behind students, “if they want us to strike we’ll strike!” type of shit, yet nothing came from these pledges because it’s infinitely easier to talk than to act.
Changing your pfp to Clippy is pretty much like that - it’s a 0 effort action, it doesn’t require you to change anything as you continue using platforms that you’re supposedly fighting against. What would “things starting to roll” even look like, assuming people don’t lose interest - will it be just a bunch of 0 effort actions that everyone is going to forget/be confused about or even benefit the sites by generating buzz around? If there even are some useful actions that require a bit of inconvenience or effort, most of them are going to not do it due to the lack of investment into this type of activism.
Currently I feel like the plan of this movement is for CEO’s to “see it, feel bad then fix everything”.
Ok, but we have to start somewhere, don’t we? This is the same type of thing like all the awareness campaigns. The effectiveness can’t be measured that easily and societal change is slow. Most people would love if things changed over night and tomorrow brought a new, better world.
How long did workers fight for basic rights? How long did people fight against monarchies and absolutists in favor of democracies?
Blizzard was the holy grail of gaming up until the rumors started floating around. Then came the evidence and the boycotts. Most of their clients have no interest in gaming news and heard just the hyper around Blizzard games (just like Bethesda). Spread the word as far as you can to reach those people and change will follow.
The student protests you mentioned started fairly recently compared to the opression and brain-washing that have been going on for decades. It takes idealists and public pressure, and not careere politicians to change society. If just a few of those see a growing mass which they can ride to secure their position, they sure will at least bring some positive action.
We can disagree on the methods used, but not on the goal. You are free to fight the same battles the way you see fit. Don’t forget that most of the traffic to Lemmy came from the Reddit boycott - myself included. I stayed and so did many others. Even if it is just a small dent in Reddit’s profits.
A yes the enlightened tech literate people that will.brijg salvation from silicon valley.
GTFO your high horse mate.
There is absolutely ZERO need for such hostility. If you disagree, do so respectively or if you for whatever reason can’t, just downvote and move on.