the myth of the good tech giant

So... where can we buy this in sticker form?

here!

I know that it is common to turn a symbol initially built against you into one which now benefits you, but I don't think that's whats going to happen with Clippy primarily because of message here isn't "Clippy wants us to move into a future where we own our tech/social infrastructure" but instead "man, im really nostalgic for the way corporations used to treat us"

I have no problem using a symbol developed my Microsoft to spread anti-big tech messaging. The problem is that to a lot of people, the messaging doesn't feel ant-big tech or anti-capitalist so much as it is just nostalgic. Microsoft was never a nice company. Even in the 1990s they were exercising their E.E.E (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish) strategy to beat federated and decentralized platforms and technologies. The goal of these companies (and you can see it now in their attitudes towards AI) is to own as much social infrastructure as they can. From where you get your news to where you get your friends. The only way to work against this is to work against big tech. There is no other way.

Part of me wonders if the message behind the current Clippy symbol can be bent into something more forward facing, but I also feel that that would be hard/would feel artificial because of the fact that Clippy is just now so connected to nostalgia.

I know that it is common to turn a symbol initially built against you into one which now benefits you
The idea behind using clippy was that when created, it wasn't against you; it was always just there to help, with no alterior motive.
The problem is that to a lot of people, the messaging doesn't feel ant-big tech or anti-capitalist
Seeing clippy is more of a message without a message. It could have been any image, but seeing this one thing everywhere starts to show you how many of us there are and that we are capable of working together to achieve a goal (in this specific case: outreach).

"Clippy sucked and everyone hated it but tech giants currently do mych more and nobody complains."

it looks like you're trying to invoke nostalgia for older days, do you want help with that?

It's a symbol, it's easily recognizable for it's simplicity and only aim to help.

It helps us feel less alone and to find the resolve to fight togheter.

Y'all just love to feel miserable don't you?

I don't even use computers.
- That's just it, kid: you're in one.
- Everything's computer!
  (Some pedophile)
It is just homemade Reddit after all.
not really. meaningless acts like this only serve to satisfy people enough that they don't feel the need to do something more meaningful. a protest that doesn't inconvenient anyone is not a protest. it's compliance with an asterisk.
- meaningless acts like this only serve to satisfy people enough that they don’t feel the need to do something more meaningful
  someone who is satisfied by doing a "meaningless act" wouldn't do something more direct either way.
- This is not a protest, this is a rally to arms, misery doesn't motivate change

If I knew it was lucrative to steal and sell your data. In clippy's era this was unheard of.

No! If we just change our avatars to Clippy the tech giants will feel really bad and stop harvesting our data and locking us out of our products! Then we'll be able to keep forking our money over to those same companies but it'll be okay 'cause they'll be nice now!

Clippy, how much is my information worth to you?
- This communication serves as a formal notice regarding your unauthorized use of the likeness of Microsoft Clippy, a trademarked character owned by Microsoft Corporation. Your actions constitute a clear violation of our intellectual property rights.
  The use of Clippy’s likeness in your project not only infringes upon our trademarks but also creates significant consumer confusion regarding the origin and sponsorship of your work. Such misrepresentation poses a direct threat to the integrity and reputation of the Clippy brand.
  Please be advised that if you do not immediately cease and desist from this unauthorized use, we will take all necessary legal actions to protect our rights, including but not limited to the potential shutdown of your servers to prevent further infringement.
  You are required to remove all references to Microsoft Clippy from your project and provide written confirmation of compliance by [specific date, e.g., 14 days from today]. Failure to comply will compel us to pursue legal remedies without further notice.
  We expect your immediate attention to this serious matter.
Lol... I saw that headline ("Everyone should change their avatar to clippy. Seriously," or something like that), and saw that it linked to a video, and I was just like 'nah'.
- It comes from Louis Rossmann. He said this, so that we (i changed my profile pic as well) know, that we are not alone, and see how many of us there are. Obviously if we dont do anything else, this clippy thing wont do anything.
the tech giants will feel really bad and stop harvesting our data
That's not what changing your profile picture is meant to do, nobody (as far as I'm aware) is claiming that's the goal. The goal is to get people wondering why others have a Clippy profile picture, then they might search it up and learn about consumer rights and enshittification.

We're sorry to see your disapproval of corporate capitalism. Please take 1 hour of your day to send us some feedback so we can improve.

First, just download our UMata app from the app store, by reading this message you have already agreed to our terms of surveillance. Once the UMata app is installed on your device, it will be granted kernel level access so it can periodically extract biometric identifiers like facial and iris scans in the background without you needing to do anything. After verifying your facial scan against our database of government identities, the UMata app will generate a unique URL for you to take a "totally anonymous"™ survey.

Once at the survey page, you just need to enable JavaScript, disable adblocker, accept our cookies and solve a simple CAPTCHA identifying any homeless people. If the UMata app was somehow not able to record you breathing for your biometric signature to our licensing agreement, you will be asked to breathe harder.

We are excited to hear back from you!

I'm reading 'The Circle' by Dave Eggers right now, and he totally foresaw all knowing corporative control back in the 2010s.
It is a tome at 500 pages, but a great read, so far.
- Not gonna shit on Eggers or anything, but I don't think that concept was new in the 2010s.
  Snow Crash is one that comes to mind right away, but I haven't read The Circle, so maybe I'm wrong about what you're referring to. I think William Gibson probably wrote about similar themes at some point as well.
  If you haven't read Snow Crash, btw, you should. It's fucking awesome
I will just as soon my Jack2Head finishes downloading the latest update!
- Please drink verification can to continue

Somebody in the MS marketing department: 'Everyone hates clippy. What can we do about this?'

'Paste a couple gifs of a CGI dog on top of it?'

'Genius! Let's go to our two week lunch!'

30 years later:
'Everyone hates us. What can we do about this?’
'Make it fashionable for people born in 2003 to pretend to be nostalgic for Clippy?'
- How long until there is a Clippy Fortnite skin?
- It started from right to repair advocate Louis Rossman. If MS has got their claws in him the right to repair movement has just stalled out.

I didn't think I'd get a chance to use this again.

'Looks like you could use some help investing in crypto! Let me help, but you should have a solid investment in a couple tech stocks first...'

BonziBuddy was a herald of the apocalypse.

- Lol my ex made that YouTube video. Hilarious to see it here
We shouldn't have stopped at punching the monkey. We should have been punching CEOs.
- Personally, I was spanking the monkey.

This is my new pfp btw

That's allowed!
- I love u 😳

Holt shit this is so good

One of my favorites of theirs, easily.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/30427558
And so the game of telephone begins.

I have a sudden urge to play Universal Paperclips

Isn't it about clippy and not microsoft

Yes, the people who are somehow getting the message that Louis Rossmann was praising Microsoft either didn't watch the video or generally struggle with nuance, or both.
- It's not irrelevant. Using a corporate mascot as a symbol against another corporate mascot/product isn't going to spread the message Louis intended. You argue the people complaining about it aren't getting his point, but do you really think it will/has survived the word-of-mouth spreading it? The game of telephone that viral trends like this follow is lightning fast and warps messages in extreme ways. And it's not much of a stretch to assume that, if MS churned out a new Clippy chatbot, people would rally around it to spite the others since they have no understanding of why they were doing it in the first place.
  *Also, people already mischaracterize the sincerity of early tech giants. I've certainly seen many people lament "the good Internet" of the mid 2000s, as if the very issues we have today weren't percolating back then. None of those companies were ever good or harmless, the idea that them or their products are "different" now is naive, and relying on that naivety to push for change is a mistake.
It's also not explicitly not about them either. Kinda the problem with symbols is that they're marred by association. This movement is ultimately symbolic and the Clippy people (Microsoft) are at the heart of everything this symbolic gesture goes against.
It would be like me trying to make a symbol of how cars are bad by simply showing an old one.