GIF and Meme Culture

Despite GIFs having no sound, there is something about them that grabs our attention, Patkar describes them as “a little more than the digital flip-book”[1]. With people believing that GIFs are newly invented, we are wrong, the first viral GIF is back in 1996 when a popular video to GIF spread across the web. It is evident that GIFs have evolved very much since then and become extremely popular over the recent years, being names word of the year by oxford dictionary in 2012.

“Typically a GIF in conversation is used as a visual analogy to a relevant topic,” Orin adds. “Feeling overwhelmed? Here’s a cat being chased by a dozen puppies. Part of the humour – and humour is almost always the reason for using a GIF – is finding a visual analogy that is completely surprising but relevant. Maybe you’re doing a mundane task like filing expense reports, but a clip from a Japanese game show, which is completely removed from the task at hand, perfectly conveys your emotion at the moment. The phrase ‘surprising but inevitable’ comes to mind.”[2]

The GIF culture is perfect for social media platforms, to share how your feeling through moving image but also just the whole journey of discovering a new GIF and sharing it with others. In terms of language through the web, we obviously do share for social media but it generates the emotional response from others watching/viewing your profile.

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[1] Patkar, M. (2015). GIFs, The Language Of The Web: Their History, Culture, and Future. Available: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/gifs-language-internet-history-culture-art-future/. Last accessed 2nd Jan, 2019.

[2] Patkar, M. (2015). GIFs, The Language Of The Web: Their History, Culture, and Future. Available: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/gifs-language-internet-history-culture-art-future/. Last accessed 2nd Jan, 2019.