They also seem brightly millennial – so it might come as a surprise that the gif actually turned 30 this year.īack in June 1987, the gif was originally launched by a CompuServe team led by US software writer Steve Wilhite. These are potent little shots of melodrama gifs are inherently camp.
These gifs might feature film or music stars, cartoons, or cats – and they embody a range of expressions that have become everyday patter, thanks to social media: the ‘eye roll’, the ‘facepalm’, the ‘mic drop’. More than anything, it’s now synonymous with the ‘reaction gif’: a fleeting animated clip, usually on a mesmerising auto-play loop, posted to convey a specific emotion.
The gif (graphics interchange format) has become a ubiquitous fixture of modern media, in various forms, whether it’s a flashy brand logo, or a festive e-card. The photographs that are like paintings In an age of 24/7 information, where there’s pressure to stand out, and a general expectation that we should react to news in real time, we need to say something as quickly and emphatically as possible – so we say it with gifs.
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