Comment by pmdr
I liked Clippit and all the other assistants. I found them really useful when I was 11-12 years old and learning Office 97.
I liked Clippit and all the other assistants. I found them really useful when I was 11-12 years old and learning Office 97.
> I liked Clippit
Yes! It was called Clippit! Why is everybody calling it Clippy these days?
I feel like it's a Mandela Effect [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory#Mandela_effect
Even Microsoft used the Clippy nickname in their 2001 campaign about getting rid of him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant#History
Basically, this. My first tech job was IT support at the time and ordinary people using their computers for actual work liked them too. I remember the dog/puppy being particular popular. At worst the assistants were seen as charmingly naff, not actively hostile. They were simple for power users to disable and this weird retroactive hatred for them feels more like some kind of nerd bitterness over the fact that normies ever started using computers in the first place. There was plenty of reason to be critical of Microsoft in those days that wasn't their office assistant.