Animated Gif

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See also: Tumblr, fanvid
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An animated gif (or simply "gif") is a sequence of images stored in a single graphics file in GIF format.[note 1] When the graphic is displayed on a monitor screen, the sequence of images is run consecutively at speed, giving the impression of movement. The method is essentially the same as that used in movies or TV; but the clip usually quickly loops back to the start, resulting in a short sequence that keeps repeating itself.

Once upon a time, still images on the Web were often stored as gif files. However, nowadays still images are most often stored in JPEG or PNG format, so the term "gif" is commonly understood to refer exclusively to animations.

Fannish gif usage dates back to the 1990s and the days of Geocities fansites; in the mid-2000s, gifs were popular as icons in journal fandom, before achieving a new prominence as a form of fanwork and fannish interaction with media in the 2010s with the rise of Tumblr.

First GIF and Pronunciation

The first GIF was of an airplane, created by Steve Wilhite in 1987. "The animation feature was added in an updated version of the GIF file format." [1]

According to its creator it is pronounced "JIF." [2]

Animated Gifs in Fandom

Fans create and use gifs for several different purposes. Gif use has changed over time, partly determined by evolving technology. For example, small low resolution gifs and animated banners were common decorations for GeoCities fansites in the 1990s, whereas in the 2010s, broadband internet connections and platforms like Tumblr allowed for the posting and viewing of many high-resolution gifs at once. This made gif and gifset creation a much more common and popular form of interaction with visual media fandoms (TV shows, anime, movies, etc.).

Gifs are typically created by taking a short section of a video and animating it into a gif, adding animated effects to an otherwise still image, or by stringing a sequence of images together to make an animation. Gifs typically use or adapt an existing image or video (e.g. a photo of a celebrity or a section of film footage) but can also be fan-created "original" (i.e. non-repurposed) animations or animated from fanart.

Single Gifs

"Reaction gifs" are the most ubiquitous gif type on the internet. According to Reddit, "A reaction gif is a physical or emotional response that is captured in a gif which you can link in response to someone or something on the Internet."[3] Reaction images have been around since at least 2004 on image boards like 4chan,[4] and using animated images as reactions may have started in 2007.[note 2] When fandom adopted the reaction gif is also unclear and probably depends on the platform. ONTD, where users had previously deployed YouTube videos and still images, may have popularized the reaction gif on LiveJournal in early 2008.[citation needed][note 3]

Michael Jackson eating popcorn in a theater is a classic reaction gif that can mean, "This has the potential to be excellent wank." In forums like Fail_fandomanon where images are not allowed, simply typing "popcorn.gif" is intended to convey the same meaning.

Other uses of single gifs include expressing one's shipping preference or having an animated portrait of an attractive celebrity to gaze at. Harry Potter fans have commented on the similarities between gifs in the real world and the magical photography in the books.

Gifsets

Gifsets are a popular art form on Tumblr. A gifset consists of two or more thematically related gifs and as such is distinct from gif-heavy masterposts or text posts collecting a random assortment of a user's favorites (sometimes collected in one place for the user to refer back to when selecting a reaction gif).

The theme may be visual (similarities in color, motion, clothes, scenery, etc.) or character-based (multiple characters being awesome, one character's personal growth, etc.), often both. Many gifsets are made from a certain scene from a film or television show; fans make these gifs to squee over a new episode of a television show, to point out their favorite moments, or to use it as an illustration of their point in a meta essay about the work. People make gifsets of moments they find funny, moving, or hot. In RPF fandoms especially, footage from interviews, concerts, sports games, youtube videos, etc. may be giffed.

Aside from collecting visual moments, the creator may also colourgrade and carefully edit the short clip, resulting in an edit distinctly different from the source material, as seen in this before and after post.

Gifsets can also transform media in significant ways by re-captioning gifs and juxtaposing them with other images to radically alter the text. These include AU gifsets, the visual equivalent of an AU fanfic, but also include visual meta that make a comparison without telling a story. (See examples below.) AU gifsets are similar to constructed reality in vidding, in that they create gifs from the source material, or other sources, and use it to tell story that did not occur in canon. In historical, fantasy and science fiction fandoms, fan creators might create gifs from sources where the same actors have appeared in films or television series set within our current time period and compile the gifs into a set to tell a story set in a Modern AU, similar to fanfiction writers placing characters in a modern day setting.

Fan Credit and Ownership

Some people want credit for the gifs they make, and will add a watermark into the gif. Other fans will post gifs with a note that indicates that they can be downloaded and used freely. In January 2013, a Tumblr campaign was started to discourage the practice of "stealing" gifs by reposting (i.e. downloading and then uploading to start a new chain of reblogs) instead of reblogging. See the fail_fandomanon discussion.

Gif Examples

Animated Icons

Animated Website Banners

Blended or Overlay Gifs

May require a slightly more advanced editor to create, because they are overlaying one image over another combining them into one

Fanart Animation Gifs

Reaction Gifs

  • Reaction gif to express vehement approval of a post or a comment. This gif is a classic, used all over the internet, and is from a scene in Citizen Kane

    Reaction gif to express vehement approval of a post or a comment. This gif is a classic, used all over the internet, and is from a scene in Citizen Kane

  • Thumbs up reaction gif featuring the McDanno pairing

    Thumbs up reaction gif featuring the McDanno pairing

  • Reaction gif that is often used to express a decision between two things and the user choosing both, featuring Miguel and Tulio from The Road to El Dorado

    Reaction gif that is often used to express a decision between two things and the user choosing both, featuring Miguel and Tulio from The Road to El Dorado

Various Other Gifs

Gifset Examples

Gifsets depicting scenes from films or TV, as well as AU gifsets, should be "read" from the top left to the bottom right like (Western) comic panels. See, for example, #the only time a character in a musical actually acknowledged the fact that they were in a musical,[5] a two-by-four gifset of a scene from the film Enchanted that represents a moment fans found funny.

one gif from the Teen Wolf AU gifset

Here is another two-by-four gifset, an AU from the Stilinski Twins meme: Teen Wolf AU, in which Stiles has a not so social skilled brother, Stuart. Everyone knows them as the Stilinski twins.[6] by brogitsune (2013). If you read from top left to bottom right, they show a lunch room scene in which Lydia Martin and Allison Argent are ogling the Stilinski twins, who in turn are talking about Stiles's relationship with Derek Hale. Each gif is captioned with the dialogue of the scene. The caption in the gif shown to the left, "The Stilinski Twins?", is meant to represent a voice-over of Allison asking Lydia a question, and the gif itself represents a point of view shot as Allison checks to see what Lydia is looking at. A film technique used in the composition of the gif is shot-countershot; footage of the actor Dylan O'Brien from a Teen Wolf episode glancing to the right is followed by footage of the same actor in the film The Internship looking to the left, creating the illusion that there are two separate people looking at each other.

a screenshot of the Harry Styles gifset; click here to see it move

A less common style of gifset is one that is not meant to be read in order, but is carefully timed to be viewed as a whole, one image shown across multiple screens so to speak. For example, see this three-by-three gifset[7] created by blamestyles on the occasion of Harry Styles's 20th birthday. Each gif in the set contains an alternating sequence of black frames, screencapped video footage of One Direction, and text on a black background, all perfectly synchronized to create a visually appealing whole. It even includes quotes from interviews, so is a bit like a documentary film.

I read daily about robustness tumblr culture and how it’s impossible to monetize etc. blah blah blah

but no one ever talks about the life’s blood of tumblr: GIFSETS.

Tumblr has longevity because it is the gifset website. A movie trailer drops and within an hour there are already multiple gifsets. Just there reminding us this movie is coming out it looks pretty good. A tumblr user thinks: I wish I had memory box containing every facial expression and movement made by Colin Firth in that 5 hour mini series of Pride and prejudice and some other tumblr user devotes their life to making that happen. Some dead guy has a birthday and a tumblr user gifs every single one of his dozens of films and puts them in a single gifset just because it makes fans of the dead guy happy.

Gifsets are amazing because gifsets are silent and they ask nothing but that you look at their pretty dancing images and smile fondly and click the like and reblog. A gifset didn’t elect trump. A gifset didn’t gaslight your grandma into believing that covid is an alien plot. A gifset just went floating by with no other thought than to look pretty and be appreciated.[8]

Some gif sets are just a collection of gifs usually of a certain scene or parallel scenes highlighting a particular character, ship, or moment in canon. However, a popular trend is to overlay the gift set with representative text to fit the character, ship, mood, or images shown. The choice of material for the text varies, but popular choices are song lyrics, sometimes referred to as "lyric gif sets", or poems, see We deserve a soft epilogue, my love as an example.

More gifset examples:

Gifsets

  • You will love a god a gif set by thoranda, featuring the use of blended gifs

    You will love a god a gif set by thoranda, featuring the use of blended gifs

  • Images of: a finger pointing out a spot on a map; dean cocking a gun; a mug of a hot beverage on a table; silhouettes of Dean and Castiel filled wit stars, with the text 'Light the World'; a notebook and pen; Castiel loading a gun; a finger tracing a road on a map.

    Set by culturethatcounts, created for the fic series Down to Agincourt, combining gifs and still images

References

  1. ^ Beloved creator of the GIF dies following complications from COVID, wife confirms (March 24, 2022)
  2. ^ "In 2013, the Webby Awards honored Wilhite with a lifetime achievement award. He played a GIF as his acceptance speech, which iterated the pronunciation as "jif," not "gif." -- Beloved creator of the GIF dies following complications from COVID, wife confirms (March 24, 2022)
  3. ^ Reaction GIFs, Archived version
  4. ^ Reaction Images, Archived version
  5. ^ archived reblog, original post deleted. Tumblr post had 365,074 notes as of 2 December 2015.
  6. ^ archived. Tumblr post had 24029 notes as of 2 December 2015.
  7. ^ "archived". Archived from the original on 2015-10-25.
  8. ^ "November 27, 2023 Tumblr post". Archived from the original on 2023-12-03.
  9. ^ reblog with 200K notes, Archived version

Notes

  1. ^ The Graphics Interchange Format (or GIF) is a method of transmitting images online. The file containing the image is given the extension ".gif"; and such images are frequently just referred to as "gifs". Because it is supported by all web browsers, the GIF format is very popular. Gifs have the disadvantage that they have a limited palette of colours, making the format most useful for black-and-white drawings, or images with large blocks of solid colors, since there can be a loss of colour detail when the format is used for photographs or complex artwork. However, the GIF format allows areas of the image to be "transparent", allowing an underlying background to be visible; and it is popular for webart. The GIF format is also typically used in making animations.
  2. ^ The Citizen Kane clapping gif has been dated to December 2007, according to Know Your Meme.
  3. ^ Early use of the popcorn gif in a February 17, 2008 comment: [1]. Another use the night before of an Orthodox Jewish motorcyclist: Oh No They Didn't! - PHOTO POST: Sexy and/or talented Jewish men., Archived version. Given the high volume of posts and comments on ONTD, it is difficult to pinpoint the "first" use of a reaction gif.
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