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.”
I don’t know if the answer is silent protest profile pics. I think a better solution is more people getting into self hosting and ditching big tech reliance.
“The”?
Louis Rossman (the guy pushing this) is also running the consumer rights wiki, has made countless videos on board level repair of Mac devices, and just recently offered a $5000 bounty for jailbreaking a smart thermostat that pushed out an update to lock out owners unless they agree to a $100+ subscription. He’s constantly pushing for self hosting and less big tech reliance, has released a number of guides.
This is just a small side piece in the overall strategy.
How dare you, sir?
The solution is to complain for a couple of weeks about a platform ON that platform, get it out of your system, and let it fizzle out without making ANY kind of changes, because people generally have the attention span of a goldfish and commitment and follow-through of a dieter with a shopping cart full of ice cream.
Never, ever ask people to accept inconvenience to bring down a tech monopoly because “muh followers!!”
Por que no los dos? I don’t think this is being proposed as an answer that will solve the problem on its own. Set a clippy profile picture, self-host, do whatever else you can as well toward the same goal. No need to restrict all our eggs to a single basket.
I think changing your profile picture is a bit more accessible than that
I think protest profile pics are great :) But in corpo hell they don’t matter.
While I agree, self hosting is not an option for the average person.
I believe big tech must be forced to work for the consumer interests somehow.
One way could be introducing decentralised alternatives, that present a solid competition.
This is the real protest!