Grade 4 me thought Clippy was neat. I also like that you could change characters.
If that's not enough, he specifically creeped women out according to that article:
Generally, Atteberry’s character tested well in focus groups—the best of any assistant in some cases. Yet its massive eyes could be buggy. Some women in the cohorts deemed Clippy a man, and the constant male gaze creepy. “There were comments about how Clippy was leering,” says Roz Ho, who worked in product planning for the PowerPoint team then. When Ho raised that concern, she says the men in the room—everyone else, basically—couldn’t process it. “It really wasn’t about, like, these guys were bad guys, or anything. It was just they had a hard time picturing that feedback.”
Clippy didn’t have a gender, how could something like this possible be avoided? I’m asking with a bit of snark, but I’m genuinely open to a serious answer. I’m worried that the solution would just be an attempt at making the dialogue even more obtuse, or making the avatar overtly feminine.
Give up on trying to accommodate everyone.
> making the avatar overtly feminine
In the 90s, I spent plenty of time around the type of person who might see Clippy is a male predator, and they would certainly have had a problem with the assistant being feminine.
https://youtube.com/shorts/se33Fv_sEEA
This guy gets it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfJJk7i0NTk
>Jim: "Remember you told me to tell you when you're acting rudely and insensitively? Remember that? You're doing it right now."
The way Nero Wolfe (also played by Maury Chaykin) reacted to Timothy Quayle (played by Robert Bockstael) reminds me of how people reacted to Clippy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HszQwf_76w
>Nero: "Bah!"
>Timothy: "Don't Bah me! I want to know what you're up to."
>Nero: "This is ridiculous. I like eyes at a level. If you will only blather at me, Mister Goodwin will put you out. If you will take that chair, change your tone, and give me an acceptable reason why I should listen to you, I may listen!"
>Timothy: "I know about you. I know how you operate. If you want to hook Missus Altos for some change, that's her business. But you're not going to drag Miss Hinkley into ..."
>Nero: "Archie, Fritz will open the door."
>Timothy: "Get your hands off me! Get your paws off of me! Awk! Aah!"