The Tech Industry's 10 Most Annoying Fictional Characters

In this slideshow, we'll examine the very worst fictional characters that marketing departments have unleashed on the general public over the years, ranging from smarmy wireless salesmen to dotcom-promoting sock puppets to annoying graphics of paperclips that SIMPLY REFUSE TO GO AWAY not matter what you do.

The Mac Guy: Admittedly, these ads were cute when they started out, as the two characters served as metaphors for the hip and fresh Mac (pictured right) and the outdated and hopelessly square PC (pictured left). But as the advertising campaign wore on I found myself feeling a Nixonian resentment toward the Mac guy, a self-satisfied Generation X-type who smugly looks on while his friend PC, a hard-working Everyman if there ever was one, tries to claw his way to respectability. While I have no particular insight into how well this ad campaign played to the public, it wouldn't surprise me if Steve Jobs and friends have suffered an angry backlash from America's Silent Majority of PC users.

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