OS-tan or An Anime Girl for Your OS

Ah, Wikipedia. How wonderful are thee?

A small Internet phenomenon on Futaba Channel, the OS-tan (OS for Operating System, and -tan as an overly cute Japanese honorific for a person, specifically a child slurring “-chan”) or simply OS Girls are the personification of several OSes, most famously Windows, by various amateur Japanese artists. A pure fan creation, the appearance of each character is generally consistent across artists. OSes are almost always portrayed as women, the Windows girls usually as sisters, despite sometimes seeming the same age.

Wow.

Apparently, there’s also an entire sub-culture of this. I had thought that this picture was an isolated fan art incident, but apparently not.

Thanks, James