I might have been the only weirdo to like Clippy (the MS Word paper clip assistant), but these people are simply deranged:
Most of the women thought the characters were too male and that they were leering at them. So we’re sitting in a conference room. There’s me and, I think, like, 11 or 12 guys, and we’re going through the results, and they said, ‘I don’t see it. I just don’t know what they’re talking about.’ And I said, ‘Guys, guys, look, I’m a woman, and I’m going to tell you, these animated characters are male-looking.’
When an animated paper clip in a Microsoft program begins to look male and starts leering at you, that’s your clue that mental health assistance is urgently needed.
Clarissa's Blog 
I hated Clippy.
I didn’t impute leering to Clippy though. I just didn’t like constantly being interrupted by a non helpful widget so I turned it off.
When software developers anthropomorphize inanimate objects by turning them into cartoon characters, people will project onto the humanoid parts of the animation.
shrug
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I miss that MS Word Paper Clip! I didn’t even know it had a name. But he reminds me so much of that kangaroo from Hang-A-Roo. They’re both so fantastically sassy. I think Clippy is sort of asexual. 😉
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I’m glad I’m not alone in liking Clippy. 🙂
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The question between us,
is where is his penis?
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It’s like nothing is sacred with you, people. Not even poor innocent Clippy. 🙂
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I liked the cat better, so I usually changed it. I’ve never thought of any of them as inherently gendered, though. Maybe it’s because I was a kid and didn’t care?
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I think you were psychologically healthy. 🙂
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Thinking back, I realise that I did ‘read’ it as male… but that was for the very sexist and stereotyping reason that it was blooming annoying and assumed it knew better than I did what I was doing/what I wanted, not because of any ‘leering’.
I tend to refer to annoying things as ‘he’, for all inanimate objects. I am working on my internal bias… but it’s a long road
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That’s how my Spanish professor taught me that the word “problema” (problem) is male in Spanish: “Whenever you want to use this word, ask yourself, where do all the problems originate? The answer is obvious: men. So the noun is masculine.”
The method worked, by the way. I never forgot the gender of “problema.” 🙂
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I never found clippy particularly helpful, but I missed him when he was gone. Goodbye old friend.
They’re selling cat scratching posts in the shapes of various dictators (like Putin):
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/dictator_cat_scratch_posts_and_litter_boxes
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Hilarious! Thank you, my friend. The scratching post looks very very funny.
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