6 ms·

anyone know why these photos have random paperclip/clippy icons?

by stevehawk 11mo ago

slicktux 11mo ago
Probably OPs’ version of watermark..?
- Archonical 11mo ago
  Watermarks usually have branding to indicate ownership. Two distinct 3D paperclip overlays don't seem like watermarks and JonNYC doesn't use them in all photos he's posted on his thread on Bluesky. They don't even seem to serve as visual cues.
dmbche 11mo ago
Not sure but first thought was part of the right to repair movement having adopted clippy as a mascot/logo (louis rossman)
- echelon 11mo ago
  They use clippy, not paperclips. Specifically the cartoon stock art clippy from the original video essay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ Notice how almost all the comments on that video bear the clippy icon. It's spreading everywhere. Twitter, Reddit, Instagram ...
  - numpad0 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - echelon 11mo ago
      The most "2020s internet" tldw ever: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R-qrjJr5Ets https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R-qrjJr5Ets Despite the "internetedness" of this, it's a pretty concise summary. I'm actually really proud of these kids for doing this. It probably won't amount to much, but they're increasingly conscious of and vocal about the problems caused by Big Tech.
      - numpad0 11mo ago
        ...tldw? Seriously. Or could you timestamp it? I can't find attentionmaxxed flicks as attention grabbing. It fills up my attention receptors and my brain marks them as done literally 1-2 seconds in with generated mental summaries.
        harshreality 11mo ago
        Seriously, watch at least half of Louis Rossman's video in the GGGP post. It's worth the 2 minutes at 2x speed it'll take (4mins at 1x speed). You won't get the spirit of the thing quite the same if you don't hear him explain it. It's a signal of disgust and rebellion against modern evil that companies do — they abuse attention, data-mine, etc. The clippy mascot represents something that, in contrast, may have been dumb and annoying, but was not actively evil. "Clippy just wanted to help."
        numpad0 11mo ago
        so it's a dog whistle and a cult symbol, got it...
        Gigablah 11mo ago
        Just say “virtue signaling”, it’s not that deep
        hnbad 11mo ago
        I don't think you know what those words mean. A dog whistle is intended to be only recognized by those who are intended to "hear" it - like how an actual dog whistle appears almost entirely silent to humans but can be heard by dogs. It exists to signal alignment to those "in the know" while providing plausible deniability that can be used to paint anyone pointing it out as a conspiracy theorist. A lot of far-right/neo-nazi 4chan/8kun memes fall into this category: the "OK" hand sign, the use of Pepe the frog (although that one quickly saw wider adoption making it too ambiguous for signalling purposes), even simply the concept of drinking milk, but also of course "number codes" like 14, 88 or 13/50. These don't have to have an inherent/original meaning as they're often more effective if they're sufficiently obscure/rare but have pre-existing unrelated meaning. Clearly Clippy is not a dog whistle then: although it references a pre-existing thing, there's no semantic ambiguity nor any attempt to hide or deny its meaning. The intent is to get people curious, find out its meaning and adopt it if they agree with it. Cult symbols are also usually meant to be easily obscured and meaningless to the uninitiated. They're also often used as a form of communication but otherwise usually behave similarly to dog whistles. Unlike the dog whistles I mentioned they usually have no prior meaning (unless they're adopted from pre-existing occult/religious symbolism) and primarily profess shared mantras/beliefs. Some more widely known examples can als be found in Christianity: the crucifix symbolizes the professed belief that Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross as a human and rose from the dead as the Son of God, the "Jesus fish" (ICHTHYS) symbol represents a bunch of ideas in addition to being derived from an abbreviation of the professed belief in Jesus as the Son of God and Savior - the latter is widely claimed to originate very much in a "cult symbol" by allowing Christians to identify each other in a way not obvious to outsiders during times in which they were facing religious suppression. If there is a mantra in Clippy, it's "Clippy never hurt anyone" and that seems a bit too self-referential - plus as I said "followers" will happily explain this meaning to you. A sibling suggest "virtue signal" and I guess that's a better fit but only through the semantic erosion the term has experienced as part of the US conservative culture war on "wokeness" (a term that suffers from the same problem). I'd say the French flag profile pictures following the ISIS attacks in France or the rainbow colors adopted by various corporations on social media for Pride Month pre-Trump were a better example for virtue signals. Clippy seems a lot more confined and specific to really fit in the same bucket. The French flag really just expressed some vague notion of "solidarity", the rainbow colors in corporate imagery just vaguely expressed support for "diversity". So they literally exist to signal virtues - vague "support" for a concept generally understood to be positive - nothing concrete. Clippy on the other hand seems to specifically represent opposition to specific common business practices in the (US especially and AI in particular) tech industry.
    - program_whiz 11mo ago
      The TLDW : In the 90s clippy was a symbol of a friendly product feature that wanted to help you do one thing (but you could opt out). Clippy wasn't stealing your data, serving you ads, or anything malicious, it just wanted to help you do one specific thing (e.g. write a letter). The clippy movement is about sending a message to big tech that we don't appreciate ads in our start menu, having our data scraped and sold, being forced into dark patterns, having AI try to take jobs and/or destroy industry, blatant theft of work, etc. Basically, "make computers friendly again".
      - HeyLaughingBoy 11mo ago
        And yet, at the time, everyone (at least devs) hated Clippy!
        cncjchsue7 11mo ago
        I liked clippy. You could make him dance.
        account42 11mo ago
        Yeah, Clippy was one of the early examples of infantilization and annoying anthromorphization in software, no better than the "cutesy" error messages or engagement popups that plague us today. It should be an example of what not to do but I guess nostalgia is a powerful drug.
  - fennecbutt 11mo ago
    I don't think that it's spreading anymore. At least from what I've seen. Thr thing about the general public is that they're apathetic, they can't boycott their way out of a paper bag.
stephen_g 11mo ago
If it's not an unusual watermark, perhaps it's to confuse AI classifiers?
randomtoast 11mo ago
It could be a size reference.

anyone know why these photos have random paperclip/clippy icons?

slicktux 11mo ago

Probably OPs’ version of watermark..?

Archonical 11mo ago
Watermarks usually have branding to indicate ownership. Two distinct 3D paperclip overlays don't seem like watermarks and JonNYC doesn't use them in all photos he's posted on his thread on Bluesky. They don't even seem to serve as visual cues.

dmbche 11mo ago

Not sure but first thought was part of the right to repair movement having adopted clippy as a mascot/logo (louis rossman)

echelon 11mo ago
They use clippy, not paperclips. Specifically the cartoon stock art clippy from the original video essay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ Notice how almost all the comments on that video bear the clippy icon. It's spreading everywhere. Twitter, Reddit, Instagram ...
- numpad0 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - echelon 11mo ago
    The most "2020s internet" tldw ever: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R-qrjJr5Ets https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R-qrjJr5Ets Despite the "internetedness" of this, it's a pretty concise summary. I'm actually really proud of these kids for doing this. It probably won't amount to much, but they're increasingly conscious of and vocal about the problems caused by Big Tech.
    - numpad0 11mo ago
      ...tldw? Seriously. Or could you timestamp it? I can't find attentionmaxxed flicks as attention grabbing. It fills up my attention receptors and my brain marks them as done literally 1-2 seconds in with generated mental summaries.
      - harshreality 11mo ago
        Seriously, watch at least half of Louis Rossman's video in the GGGP post. It's worth the 2 minutes at 2x speed it'll take (4mins at 1x speed). You won't get the spirit of the thing quite the same if you don't hear him explain it. It's a signal of disgust and rebellion against modern evil that companies do — they abuse attention, data-mine, etc. The clippy mascot represents something that, in contrast, may have been dumb and annoying, but was not actively evil. "Clippy just wanted to help."
        numpad0 11mo ago
        so it's a dog whistle and a cult symbol, got it...
        Gigablah 11mo ago
        Just say “virtue signaling”, it’s not that deep
        hnbad 11mo ago
        I don't think you know what those words mean. A dog whistle is intended to be only recognized by those who are intended to "hear" it - like how an actual dog whistle appears almost entirely silent to humans but can be heard by dogs. It exists to signal alignment to those "in the know" while providing plausible deniability that can be used to paint anyone pointing it out as a conspiracy theorist. A lot of far-right/neo-nazi 4chan/8kun memes fall into this category: the "OK" hand sign, the use of Pepe the frog (although that one quickly saw wider adoption making it too ambiguous for signalling purposes), even simply the concept of drinking milk, but also of course "number codes" like 14, 88 or 13/50. These don't have to have an inherent/original meaning as they're often more effective if they're sufficiently obscure/rare but have pre-existing unrelated meaning. Clearly Clippy is not a dog whistle then: although it references a pre-existing thing, there's no semantic ambiguity nor any attempt to hide or deny its meaning. The intent is to get people curious, find out its meaning and adopt it if they agree with it. Cult symbols are also usually meant to be easily obscured and meaningless to the uninitiated. They're also often used as a form of communication but otherwise usually behave similarly to dog whistles. Unlike the dog whistles I mentioned they usually have no prior meaning (unless they're adopted from pre-existing occult/religious symbolism) and primarily profess shared mantras/beliefs. Some more widely known examples can als be found in Christianity: the crucifix symbolizes the professed belief that Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross as a human and rose from the dead as the Son of God, the "Jesus fish" (ICHTHYS) symbol represents a bunch of ideas in addition to being derived from an abbreviation of the professed belief in Jesus as the Son of God and Savior - the latter is widely claimed to originate very much in a "cult symbol" by allowing Christians to identify each other in a way not obvious to outsiders during times in which they were facing religious suppression. If there is a mantra in Clippy, it's "Clippy never hurt anyone" and that seems a bit too self-referential - plus as I said "followers" will happily explain this meaning to you. A sibling suggest "virtue signal" and I guess that's a better fit but only through the semantic erosion the term has experienced as part of the US conservative culture war on "wokeness" (a term that suffers from the same problem). I'd say the French flag profile pictures following the ISIS attacks in France or the rainbow colors adopted by various corporations on social media for Pride Month pre-Trump were a better example for virtue signals. Clippy seems a lot more confined and specific to really fit in the same bucket. The French flag really just expressed some vague notion of "solidarity", the rainbow colors in corporate imagery just vaguely expressed support for "diversity". So they literally exist to signal virtues - vague "support" for a concept generally understood to be positive - nothing concrete. Clippy on the other hand seems to specifically represent opposition to specific common business practices in the (US especially and AI in particular) tech industry.
  - program_whiz 11mo ago
    The TLDW : In the 90s clippy was a symbol of a friendly product feature that wanted to help you do one thing (but you could opt out). Clippy wasn't stealing your data, serving you ads, or anything malicious, it just wanted to help you do one specific thing (e.g. write a letter). The clippy movement is about sending a message to big tech that we don't appreciate ads in our start menu, having our data scraped and sold, being forced into dark patterns, having AI try to take jobs and/or destroy industry, blatant theft of work, etc. Basically, "make computers friendly again".
    - HeyLaughingBoy 11mo ago
      And yet, at the time, everyone (at least devs) hated Clippy!
      - cncjchsue7 11mo ago
        I liked clippy. You could make him dance.
      - account42 11mo ago
        Yeah, Clippy was one of the early examples of infantilization and annoying anthromorphization in software, no better than the "cutesy" error messages or engagement popups that plague us today. It should be an example of what not to do but I guess nostalgia is a powerful drug.
- fennecbutt 11mo ago
  I don't think that it's spreading anymore. At least from what I've seen. Thr thing about the general public is that they're apathetic, they can't boycott their way out of a paper bag.

stephen_g 11mo ago

If it's not an unusual watermark, perhaps it's to confuse AI classifiers?

randomtoast 11mo ago

It could be a size reference.