Microsoft’s much -hated paper clip mascot, which left users frustrated with its unreasonable advice, will return as an emoji.
Clippy, a friendly anthropomorphic paper clip, was introduced as a ‘virtual office assistant’ in Microsoft Office in 1997.
This digital mascot is designed to help Microsoft Office users perform a number of tasks by providing advice and tutorials.
But it became uncomfortable by many as a nuisance and annoyance as it often appeared on screen unsuspectingly and the company killed it in 2007.
Now, Microsoft is bringing it back - but not in its previous capacity as an overly enthusiastic assistant.
Microsoft has changed the design for more than 1,800 emojis in Office, making them more ‘smooth’ and three -dimensional. This includes replacing its old long paper clip emoji on the Office software network with Clippy.
The new Clippy Emoji (right) will replace the pretty boring, long, flat (left) paper clip emoji in Office
Microsoft promises - or threatens, depending on how you look at it - to return Clippy as an emoji
Microsoft tweet Clippy’s photo updated the emoji on Thursday with the words: ‘If this gets 20k likes, we’ll replace the paper clip emoji in Microsoft 365 with Clippy.’
On Friday morning, the tweet had nearly 163,000 likes, so the firm had to keep its promise.
After a similar number exceeded 20,000, a Twitter user replied to the company, ‘Microsoft, are you playing?’ Microsoft tweeted back timidly: ‘Wait and find out’.
But Claire Anderson, art director and ‘emojiologist’ at Microsoft, has confirmed her return in a Microsoft Design blog entry, which she used as a preview of the opportunity to update designs from a total of more than 1,800 emojis.
Clippy’s return ahead of World Emoji Day on Saturday (July 17), which often features emoji -themed announcements from tech companies.
This fresh design from Microsoft, which better supports the ‘new work landscape’, will be launched in the ‘coming months’, Anderson said in a blog post.
“We chose 3D design over 2D and chose to animate most of our emojis.
“We have to use this opportunity to make changes that only we can make - long standard paper clips and hello Clippy!
Pictured, the original Clippy. Finally, after being hated by many, Clippy suffered a major blow and was completely assassinated by Microsoft in 2007
“Sure, we may use fewer paper clips today than we did in Clippy’s heyday, but we can’t resist the pull of nostalgia.”
Clippy has made a very brief comeback recently - in 2019, he appeared in a sticker pack for Microsoft’s unified communications platform, Teams, and later on the company’s official Github page for Office developers.
But as easy as Microsoft is bringing that virtual personality back, the company’s ‘police brand’ - its marketing division - is bringing it back immediately.
According to Adobe’s 2021 Global Emoji Trend Report, which also coincides with World Emoji Day, the most popular emoji around the world is Face with Tears of Joy.
Face with Tears of Joy is the favorite emoji of global emoji users around the world, according to Adobe’s 2021 Global Emoji Trend Report
Completing the top five global emojis are Thumbs Up, Love Heart, Face Blowing a Kiss and Crying Face.
For the report, Adobe surveyed 7,000 people in the U.S., UK, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, and South Korea.
It also found 55 percent of global emoji users are more comfortable expressing emotions through emojis than phone conversations.
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