Linked Paperclips Emoji

Two or three silver paperclips linked together. Emojipedia says it's "occasionally used to represent school/office supplies or metaphorical connections." That's the boring version. The paperclip has one of the wildest backstories of any object in Unicode.

It was a symbol of resistance against Nazi occupation in Norway during WWII. It inspired a Tennessee middle school to collect 30 million paperclips for a Holocaust memorial. It's the foundation of AI's most famous existential risk thought experiment. And Microsoft turned the single paperclip emoji (📎) into Clippy on Windows 11 after a tweet got 175,000 likes.

In texting, 🖇️ is mostly used for connections and attachments: linking topics together, indicating something is attached, or metaphorically saying "we're connected." Some people use it before hyperlinks in bios. It's one of those emojis that almost nobody uses but rewards anyone who looks into its history.

🖇️ is deeply niche. You'll find it in three places.

First, in professional and academic contexts: linking references, indicating attachments, or organizing thread-style posts. It's common in Twitter/X threads as a visual "this connects to that" marker. Some people use it in Instagram link-in-bio prompts.

Second, in relationship contexts: a small subset of users send 🖇️ to mean "we're linked" or "connected." It's the quiet, understated cousin of ❤️. Not romantic in a hearts-and-flowers way. More like "our lives are clipped together and I like that."

Third, in aesthetic and stationery culture: bullet journalers, planners, and stationery enthusiasts use office supply emojis as aesthetic markers. 🖇️ pairs with 📎, 📌, 📝, and 🗂️ for the organized-life aesthetic on TikTok and Instagram.

The paperclip's origin is disputed. Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian inventor, patented a paper-fastening device in Germany (1901) and the US (1901). Norway credits him as the paperclip's inventor, and there's even a giant paperclip statue in Sandvika. But Vaaler's design was different from the modern "Gem" clip we know today, which was already being produced by the British Gem Manufacturing Company before Vaaler filed his patent. The myth that Norway invented the paperclip spread after WWII, when the paperclip had already become a national symbol.

During the German occupation of Norway (1940-1945), wearing national symbols was banned. Norwegians had tried red hats and vests, but those were too noticeable. Starting in autumn 1940, students at Oslo University began wearing paperclips on their lapels. The symbolism was perfect: paperclips bind things together, they're called "binders" (bindere) in Norwegian, and they were cheap and readily available. The gesture meant "we are bound together" in silent resistance. The Nazis eventually banned paperclip-wearing too, and violators could be arrested.

The emoji version arrived in Unicode 7.0 (June 2014) as U+1F587U+1F587 LINKED PAPERCLIPS and was added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.

In Norway, the paperclip carries national pride. There's a 5.5-meter tall paperclip sculpture in Sandvika, and the WWII resistance association means the object carries weight that doesn't translate outside Scandinavian culture.

In the US, the paperclip has a separate memorial significance. In 1998, Whitwell Middle School in Tennessee started collecting paperclips to represent Holocaust victims after learning about the Norwegian resistance connection. They set out to collect 6 million. They received over 30 million. The school now has a Children's Holocaust Memorial featuring an authentic German railcar filled with paperclips. A Miramax documentary) (Paper Clips, 2004) was made about the project.

In tech culture, the paperclip means something else entirely: Clippy, Microsoft's infamous Office Assistant (1997-2003). Clippy was so universally hated that Time named it one of the 50 worst inventions ever. Then nostalgia kicked in. In 2021, Microsoft tweeted that they'd replace the 📎 emoji with Clippy if the tweet got 20K likes. It got 175K. Clippy is now the official 📎 emoji on Windows 11.

• •Norwegian students wore paperclips on their lapels during WWII as a resistance symbol against Nazi occupation. The Norwegian word for paperclip is binders (bindere), making the "we are bound together" metaphor literal.
• •Whitwell Middle School in Tennessee set out to collect 6 million paperclips for a Holocaust memorial and received over 30 million. Their memorial features a German railcar filled with paperclips.
• •Kyle MacDonald traded a single red paperclip for a house in 14 online trades over one year (2005-2006). The town of Kipling, Saskatchewan has a giant red paperclip sculpture as a tourist attraction.
• •Microsoft's Clippy was named one of the 50 worst inventions by Time, retired in 2003, then brought back as the 📎 emoji on Windows 11 in 2021 after a tweet got 175,000 likes.
• •The paperclip maximizer thought experiment by Nick Bostrom (2003) is the most famous illustration of AI alignment risk. An AI converting all matter into paperclips became shorthand for "misaligned superintelligence."
• •Norway credits Johan Vaaler with inventing the paperclip, but his 1901 patent was for a different design than the modern Gem clip. The British Gem Manufacturing Company was already producing the standard paperclip before Vaaler filed his patent.

• •Microsoft replaced the 📎 emoji with Clippy on Windows 11 in November 2021, after a tweet promising the change got 175,000 likes (they'd asked for 20,000). It's one of the few times an emoji design was changed by popular demand on social media.
• •Kyle MacDonald traded one red paperclip for a house in 14 trades over one year (2005-2006). The chain included an afternoon with Alice Cooper and a movie role. Kipling, Saskatchewan now has a giant red paperclip sculpture and a cafe named after the project.
• •Nick Bostrom's paperclip maximizer (2003) is the most cited thought experiment in AI alignment. A paperclip factory AI that converts all matter in the universe into paperclips is now shorthand for "misaligned superintelligence" in tech circles.
• •*Paper Clips* (2004)), a Miramax documentary, tells the story of Whitwell Middle School in Tennessee collecting 30 million paperclips as a Holocaust memorial. The students chose paperclips after discovering their WWII Norwegian resistance symbolism.
• •Time magazine named Clippy one of the 50 worst inventions ever made. At Microsoft's Office XP launch event in 2001, a man in a Clippy mascot costume was dragged offstage by a comically large magnet.

• •🖇️ is U+1F587U+1F587 (LINKED PAPERCLIPS) + U+FE0FU+FE0F (variation selector). The single paperclip 📎 is U+1F4CEU+1F4CE.
• •Discord: :linked_paperclips::linked_paperclips:. Slack: :linked_paperclips::linked_paperclips:. GitHub: :paperclips::paperclips:.
• •On Windows 11, 📎 renders as Clippy (the Microsoft Office Assistant) since November 2021. 🖇️ still renders as standard linked paperclips on all platforms.

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