Winter Rant

Hate it all you want, but Clippy is the single best thing that Microsoft worked on to gain cultural relevance in the world.

It is the OG of smart assistants — it was the precursor to Alexa, Google, Siri and (yes) Cortana. I never understood why it got all the hate, I loved it! (In part because I would change Clippy to the Wizard.)

But in its universal hate towards it, it became a household name and overtime Microsoft owned the icon. And it is an effing icon. And at this point, it just feels like a celebration.

Culture as how tech influences it has been a fascinating thing, I think about often. Microsoft lost some of that influence when it lost the mobile wars with Android and iOS. But I am glad that this piece of quirky tech from the 90s brings smiles to our faces.

Note to self: there is a whole world of cultural influcences from the early days of tech that impact our iconography even today: the floppy, the phone icon, the cut and paste icons.

I hope it makes a come back to an actual product at some point. 😁

– vijay, listening to MKBHD

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