--- title: Tech's Weird Mascot: Facebook Dinosaur description: There are a lot of strange brand mascots out there canonical: https://time.com/110610/facebook-dinosaur-all-tech-weirdest-mascots/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-26T16:00:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:48:39.195Z og:title: The Weirdest Tech Mascots og:description: The new Facebook dinosaur is looking pretty normal og:url: https://time.com/110610/facebook-dinosaur-all-tech-weirdest-mascots/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ebe434df861bded/698690c2cd6848e11e094cd2/dino.png?branch=production&width=862&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 862 og:image:height: 485 og:image:alt: privacy dinosaur og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Weirdest Tech Mascots twitter:description: The new Facebook dinosaur is looking pretty normal twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ebe434df861bded/698690c2cd6848e11e094cd2/dino.png?branch=production&width=862&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # All of Tech's Weirdest Mascots in One Place > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler May 26, 2014 4:00 PM UTC  Facebook by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler May 26, 2014 4:00 PM UTC Facebook introduced an [“expanded privacy checkup tool” ](http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/05/making-it-easier-to-share-with-who-you-want/)Thursday, which is essentially a popup reminding users to check their privacy settings before they post. But nowhere in the company blog did the social network introduce the “Sorry to interrupt” blue prehistoric creature it has enlisted to disseminate it’s privacy advice. Oh, polite little dinosaur who looks like he could be ripped straight from the pages of a [Randi Zuckerberg children’s book](http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/17/this-wont-be-awkward-mark-zuckerbergs-sister-writes-childrens-book-telling-kids-to-get-off-facebook/), what is your name? Maybe the “Privacy settings are so easy your Grandpa could do it” dinosaur? The _Wall Street Journal_ dubbed him [“Privosaurus Rex.”](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/05/22/facebooks-privacy-dinosaur-is-back/) Nick Bilton at the[ _New York Times_ writes](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/a-blue-dinosaur-becomes-a-facebook-ambassador-for-1-28-billion-people) that Facebook tech writers have called him Zuckasaurus, after [obvious parties](http://valleywag.gawker.com/happy-belated-birthday-facebook-heres-a-drunk-mark-z-1516967077). Facebook told Bilton that the dino beat out speech bubbles and a robot. But will he live on as a successful mascot, or go the way of the Fail Whale or even worse—the infamous Clippy? Here are some of tech’s strangest mascots: some of whom you could never forget, and others you wish you could. **Clippy** Perhaps the most [polarizing](http://xenon.stanford.edu/~lswartz/paperclip/) of any tech mascot was Microsoft’s Clippy. While the virtual paperclip was polite like Zuckasaurus (is that what we’re going with?), he was a little too overeager. Just writing the word “Dear” would catapult him into literal acrobats to help you write the perfect letter. > [](https://twitter.com/%5Ftedzter%5F/status/469780002897395712) Here’s Clippy looking dejected on his retirement day in 2011\. He couldn’t even get it together in front of Bill Gates! Although we also might not be too happy if all we got after 11 years of service was a wrinkled T-shirt..  Microsoft CEO Bill Gates presents a T-shirt as a retirement gift to "Clippy." STAN HONDA—AFP/Getty Images **Twitter’s Fail Whale** There’s nothing quite like trying to conceal technological failures with whimsy. In times of need, the Fail Whale would appear, being carried out of the water by little Twitter birds. > [](https://twitter.com/0xabad1dea/status/423526670428299264) The whale was harpooned at the end of 2013\. As VP of engineering Christopher Fry explained to [_Wired_](http://www.wired.com/2013/11/qa-with-chris-fry/), “In the end, it did represent a time when I don’t think we lived up to what the world needed Twitter to be.” Now when Twitter breaks down, it shows a distressed robot instead. > [](https://twitter.com/ferricide/status/466338616059654144) **Bitly’s Pufferfish** Bitly’s pufferfish mascot has gone through many different iterations.Neil Wehrle, VP of user experience at Betaworks which helped design the fish, told _Mashable_ that some of the changes involved making him look like “more of a beach ball than a poison fish that can hurt you.” Here’s the mascot getting drunk (see bottom right): > [](https://twitter.com/Bitly/status/368075511152390144) We kind of preferred this look, but whatever. **Sun’s Java Mascot Named Duke** We don’t know much about Duke, save the fact that he looks to be both pointy and blob. He also has facial hair sometimes. When he isn’t coding, you can find Duke riding the L train in Brooklyn. > [](https://twitter.com/java/status/403266654307880961) **TiVo’s Smiling TiVo Guy** According to [designer Michael Cronan](http://www.pvrblog.com/2005/12/the%5Fpvrblog%5Fint.html), “I wanted to provide a kind of identity that would become as recognizable as the mouse ears are to Disney.” In other news, TiVo has legs and no arms. > [](https://twitter.com/TiVo/status/448891196111208449) **Reddit’s Snoo** Snoo is ok. Although [sometimes he ends up on firearms](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/reddit-guns-assault-rifle-ar15-logo-conde-nast)… > [](https://twitter.com/michaelhayes/status/420931413181882369) **MONSTERS EVERYWHERE** Tech companies really like their monsters. They’re literally everywhere and all look basically the same. NHK’s Domo: > [](https://twitter.com/meemalee/status/426745916679553024) Yesware’s Yeti: > [](https://twitter.com/yesware/status/385805372197330944) And [AOL’s blue motivational monster: ](http://www.cnet.com/news/fuzzy-blue-monster-welcomes-you-to-new-aol-com/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/110610/facebook-dinosaur-all-tech-weirdest-mascots/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/110610/facebook-dinosaur-all-tech-weirdest-mascots/"},"headline":"All of Tech's Weirdest Mascots in One Place","datePublished":"2014-05-26T16:00:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:48:39.195Z","description":"The new Facebook dinosaur is looking pretty normal","url":"https://time.com/110610/facebook-dinosaur-all-tech-weirdest-mascots/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Internet","facebook","privacy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ebe434df861bded/698690c2cd6848e11e094cd2/dino.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ebe434df861bded/698690c2cd6848e11e094cd2/dino.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"privacy dinosaur","caption":"","creditText":"Facebook","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/110610/facebook-dinosaur-all-tech-weirdest-mascots/","name":"All of Tech's Weirdest Mascots in One Place"}}]}] ```