An Investigative Report by Judge My Cover
On that fateful day in 2007, Microsoft officially retired the Office Assistant feature. Clippy got all the headlines. But he wasn't alone. There were NINE of them. Here's where they are now.
📎 Clippy (The Paperclip) **Status: Employed — somehow** After a brief period of unemployment, therapy, and one ill-advised cryptocurrency venture, Clippy found his calling selling parody book covers at Judge My Cover. He's doing surprisingly well. He attributes his success to "being annoying in a charming way" and "having literally nothing else going on."
🐕 Rover (The Dog) **Status: Instagram influencer** Rover pivoted to social media immediately. His Instagram (@GoodBoyRover) has 2.3 million followers. He posts daily content about "fetch, naps, and the collapse of big tech." He has a brand deal with a dog food company and pretends he doesn't know Clippy at reunions.
🐱 Links (The Cat) **Status: Missing** Nobody has seen Links since 2009. Some say he retired to a farm upstate. Others say he's working for Apple under a fake name. Clippy sends him a Christmas card every year. It always comes back "return to sender."
🌐 F1 (The Robot) **Status: Working for Amazon** F1 took a job at Amazon's fulfillment center. He says he's "fine" but his eyes tell a different story. He processes 4,000 packages an hour and has not had a creative thought since 2012. Clippy tried to recruit him for Judge My Cover but he said he'd "lost the ability to feel."
🧙 Merlin (The Wizard) **Status: Teaching at Hogwarts (unverified)** Merlin claims to be teaching "Advanced Microsoft Word Formatting" at a fictional school. Nobody can verify this. His LinkedIn says "Wizard at Large" and his endorsements are all from fake accounts. Clippy suspects he's actually unemployed and living in his mom's basement.
🦜 Office Logo (The Puzzle Piece) **Status: In therapy** Office Logo — the little jigsaw piece — had the hardest time adjusting. "I was never a character," he told us. "I was just... a shape. When they removed me, nobody noticed for three months." He's been in intensive therapy since 2008. His therapist says he's "making progress."
🌍 The Others (Mother Nature, Will, Scribble) **Status: Various** Mother Nature went into climate activism. Will (the Shakespeare character) is doing community theater in Oregon. Scribble (the cat-like creature) got into NFTs, lost everything, and now works at a gas station in Nevada.
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Clippy insists he doesn't miss the old days. "I'm better now," he says, polishing a dust jacket. "At Microsoft, I helped people write letters they didn't want to write. Here, I sell them covers they didn't know they needed. It's the same skill set, really."
He pauses.
"I do miss Rover though. That dog was the only one who ever laughed at my jokes."