the abbreviated reign of “neon” leon spinks

Lesson #17
KNOW “HELPFUL”
FROM “ANNOYING”
clippy—microsoft’s relentless
software irritant
The bizarre, bug- eyed anthropomorphic paper clip
was supposed to make Microsoft software easier to use.
Instead, Clippy became such an unpop u lar pest that even
its creator ended up mocking it.
NOW THAT CLIPPY is no longer popping up to infuriate users of the
Microsoft Office suite of word-pro cessing, spreadsheet, and other business
software programs, perhaps we can at last ponder the question, What
was it that made so many people hate him with such a passion? Perhaps it
was the plaintive eyes, enormous as one of those kitschy waifs from a Walter
Keane painting, or the way he emoted with what one newspaper critic
called “hyperactive eyebrows.” It could have been the disturbing incongruity
of the metaphor—we’re accustomed to talking cartoon animals,
but an inanimate object offering advice is something out of a bad LSD
trip. Undoubtedly, Clippy’s exquisitely bad timing was a factor. He seemed
to have the knack for choosing moments when business users were in the
midst of some particularly stressful, time-sensitive assignment to appear,
uninvited, and breezily offer unsolicited advice on some basic function of
the program. “It looks like you’re writing a letter” was his exasperating
mantra.
As Timothy Dyck of the computer publication eWeek put it, Clip-