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In an age of 24/7 information, where there's pressure to stand out, people need to say things as quickly and emphatically as possible: so they say it with GIFs.
A short review of the history of GIF here↓
GIF, or graphics interchange format, has become a ubiquitous fixture of modern communication. On a mesmerizing auto-play loop, the GIF is made from a fleeting animated clip without sound and posted to convey a specific meaning or reaction.
Whether you like them or not, GIFs have become a part of daily life, either through social media or on news websites. Thanks to the humble animated image format, no emotions are too big or small to capture.
You can find GIFs featuring film or music stars:
GIFs can also come from cartoons:
Or be of cute cats:
Though these funny expressions are trendy now, it might come as a surprise that the GIF actually turned 30 this year.
Back in 1987, four years before the advent of the internet, developers were grappling with a technical problem: How could a color image be shared without taking up too much space in a computer's memory?
That's why GIFs were launched: a team led by US software writer Steve Wilhite used a compression technique to make images that could be exchanged easily between computers.
What made the format revolutionary was the compression technique called Lempel-Ziv-Welch, which can reduce the size of a file without impairing image quality. This proved to be a game-changer in an era of crushingly slow modem connections.
As one of the first batch of popular GIFs, 1996's dancing baby GIF was hailed by Steve Wilhite as his favorite.
There were challenges to its crown — such as from the PNG (portable network graphics) format, which was developed in the mid-90s as an intended replacement — but as digital culture flourished, and devices became increasingly mobile, GIFs found a path to stardom.
Nowadays, social media such as Tumblr and WeChat play a key role in popularizing GIFs among the masses.
In 2012, "GIF" was named Oxford Dictionaries' USA Word of The Year.
Three decades after it was created, the GIF still causes arguments over pronunciation, with people unable to agree on whether it uses a hard or soft "G".
Both pronunciations are in use. That's why John Simpson, chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary weighed in on the issue in 2013 to confirm that both usages are right.
However, the father of the GIF, Steve Wilhite, responded that "they (Oxford English Dictionary) are wrong" in an interview with the New York Times.
"The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations," he said. "They are wrong. It is a soft 'G', pronounced 'jif'. End of story."
In a medium where words might be limited, the emotional impact of GIFs are direct and simple, so that anyone can understand them.
GIFs enable people to get straight to the point because they're immediate and wonderfully evocative.
Within seconds, these compressed visuals can leave a lasting impression — and speak volumes about the people who are using them.
"Emojis and text communicate very specific things; with GIFs, you can add further color to that meaning. A 'thumbs-up' emoji is pretty straight-forward, but a 'thumbs-up' GIF can be excited, sarcastic, reassuring or hesitant," said Justin Garbett, senior editor of Reaction GIFs at Giphy.
Today, we are experiencing a "GIF moment", with endless GIF-making tools available for us to create boundless kinds of art, fashion and designs using the format.
▲ Graphic artist and photographer Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck created cinemagraphs which fall somewhere between a still image and a GIF.
▲ Shenzhen-based online illustrator A-Long created a series of panda GIFs.
How often do you use GIFs in your daily communication?
Sources: BBC, The Telegraph, Mashable
Editor: Jiao Jie
