RIP, Microsoft Clip Art. You Will Be Missed.

You and I had many late nights together. We spent hours and hours wasting time as I scrolled the depths of your catalogue, you slowly loading and revealing your inner secrets. But those came to an end on Monday when Microsoft announced that you, Clip Art, would be retired from the Office suite.

Microsoft must have already realized the grave impact of this decision to mercilessly kill you off, as it took down its announcement on the same day it went up (cached here, because you can't escape the Internet, Microsoft!). It's as if they could hear the death cries of 1,000 Clippys all over again.

You were such an animated figure in my life, Clip Art. You always had a smiley face or a lovely rainbow border to brighten up my PowerPoint. You colored the projects and presentations for a girl with serious crafting deficiencies, taking me from feeling like a kid whose parents refused to do her assignments for science class to a technological genius with a keen eye for two-dimensional ice cream cones. But you didn't just help me see the world through a new lens. You helped the world see things in bizarre pastel animations. Today, we salute your life and legacy.

Clip Art is survived through its distant Apple cousin, emojis. It inspired a generation of people, now using the inexplicable dancing twins to express excitement, to begin exploring their emotions through pictorial representation. Where would the emoji smiley poop have come from if it hadn't had the forefather of Clip Art leading the way in seemingly useless images? Where would delicious digital cake slices have come from without the animated frosting-topped confections of yesteryear? How else would we effectively get a point across if we didn't have animations stepping up where words fail us?

Thank you, Clip Art, for all you have done. You gave us the tools...

...to succeed, the ability to accomplish our goals...

...(or at least throw together a last-minute PowerPoint that would keep us from failing), and the curiosity and hunger to ask tough questions such as, "Why the hell are there books sitting on Australia?"

So cheers to you, Clip Art.

May your ridiculous spirit continue to manifest itself in all that we do.

And may we honor that spirit in our daily lives, thus never rendering you completely obsolete.

Images: Wikimedia Commons/BBxxayay, Wikimedia Commons/Lani Giesen,Wikimedia Commons, OpenClipArt (3), Flickr/kr/Bil Simser, FlicJames Kirkus-Lamont