Anyone who thinks an intricate illustration of a quill and ink communicates to the user "Hey this app is our Microsoft Word"...is not thinking about what function an icon is supposed to serve.
It's like comparing a road sign to an 18th century painting and saying "LOOK HOW FAR WE'VE FALLEN!"
The quill and ink at least communicates that it's about writing. The new one is so abstract that when I first looked at it I had no idea what I was even looking at, it certainly doesn't communicate "this is like word" to me. Without comparison to the previous icon, how many people do you think would understand that the bottom line is intended to be a stroke drawn by the pen?
I think you might be post-hoc rationalizing an emotional feeling, as clearly this meme is emotionally triggering to everyones nostalgia/pessimism nerve (hence why it went viral).
I'm 100% positive more people would guess the far left icon is a text editor compared to the far right icon. Not that I like the left icon aesthetically. Both are pretty weak icons.
Leftmost is probably a pen, rightmost is definitely a pen and specifically a fountain pen. I've never seen these icons before, and I'm trying to be the fairest I can, and I think rightmost wins at evoking "text editor". But the one exactly in the center wins by a mile. Pen on lined paper, hard to do better.
Same thought.
The one on the left just conveys "notes" to me. Middle actually seems to be about a more "well put together" document. A fountain pen by itself doesn't necessarily mean documents to me, but signing them.
Anyone who thinks an intricate illustration of a quill and ink communicates to the user "Hey this app is our Microsoft Word"...is not thinking about what function an icon is supposed to serve.
It's like comparing a road sign to an 18th century painting and saying "LOOK HOW FAR WE'VE FALLEN!"
These are not serious people.