What sets the internet apart from other modes of communication—video, audio, text, imagery—is the way it translates a combination of forms into meaning through the use of animated gifs.
I will admit right now, right here that I have a huge collection of hilarious and weird animated GIFs. I don't know why, but they're so much better than regular videos. posted by spiderskull at 5:57 PM on October 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
Oh great. Next up: Barbara Walters interviews Christopher Poole. But first, is cancer killing bees? posted by anigbrowl at 5:59 PM on October 18, 2010 [5 favorites]
This is why space aliens gave us the internet. posted by absalom at 6:04 PM on October 18, 2010
I will admit right now, right here that I have made a huge collection of hilarious and weird animated GIFs. I don't know why, but they're so much better than regular videos. I spent a large chunk of time yesterday making a gif of a squirrel poking its head out of Nicki Minaj's underpants. posted by louche mustachio at 6:06 PM on October 18, 2010 [15 favorites]
I'm not really sure what emotion they are supposed to express, tho. posted by Ideal Impulse at 6:34 PM on October 18, 2010
"Hey you got Spaceghetto in my Metafilter."
"You got Metafilter in my Spaceghetto!" Note: Do not Google Spaceghetto posted by msbutah at 6:34 PM on October 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
brundlefly: "Never would have expected Celine Dion to be making all those goofy faces. That is her, right?"
Of course, this thread would be much better if there was still an image tag. posted by 517 at 6:45 PM on October 18, 2010
GIFS ARE OLD NEWS. THERE IS NO EMOTION IT CANNOT EXPRESS.
AND EVEN
GIFS ARE MERELY THE USE OF SHARED CULTURAL REFERENCES USED AS SHORTHAND FOR COMPLEX EMOTIONS AND SOCIAL ACTIONS. A PHENOMENON NOT UNLIKE LANGUAGE. BUT THE BLINK TAG IS MORE. IT IS A WAY OF LIFE. THE BLINK TAG CAN DO ALL THAT THE GIF CANNOT, AND MANY THINGS THAT EVEN THE BLINK TAG CANNOT. THE BLINK TAG IS NOT ONLY THE FUTURE, IT IS ALWAYS. SAY GOODBYE GIF AND HELLO AGAIN TO BLINK. posted by TwelveTwo at 6:51 PM on October 18, 2010 [8 favorites]
That Oh No They Didn't needs a great big NSFW tag.
Mind you with a thread like this it should probably be assumed posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:54 PM on October 18, 2010
ah, brings back memory of the Hamster Dance page. And just about as browser-crippling, too. posted by Old'n'Busted at 7:08 PM on October 18, 2010
I don't normally care for Jezebel, but this is pretty great. posted by X-Himy at 7:14 PM on October 18, 2010
So, the Dramatic Hamster Prairie Dog is being voted off the island because he isn't an airheaded B-List celebrity? I don't think so. posted by oneswellfoop at 7:20 PM on October 18, 2010
Just as lame as expected.
" I have a huge collection of hilarious and weird animated GIFs"
No, No you don't. You have a huge collection of animated GIFs. posted by blackfly at 7:32 PM on October 18, 2010
This seems to be a stunning example of the world gone awry. posted by ND¢ at 7:33 PM on October 18, 2010
I don't know why, but they're so much better than regular videos.
"There is an appealing economy to these GIFs. They get to the point instantaneously, and at the exact moment when one feels the impulse to rewind and watch the climax again, the loop restarts right where it should." posted by Jpfed at 7:40 PM on October 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
Animated gifs! I love this art form. No thread about animated gifs is complete without mentioning the great cyriak. (previously) If this were the renaissance, and I were nobility, I would be a serious patron of that man.
I realize this doesn't meet the wordless display of a sentiment as the Jezebel post describes them, but I feel that the venerable You're the Man Now, Dog was instrumental in pushing gifs beyond the poor man's binaries and shaping the tone of the internet today. posted by frecklefaerie at 7:54 PM on October 18, 2010
I stand by my previous statements.
Feel free to mention it every chance you get. Or, you know, don't. posted by muddgirl at 8:07 PM on October 18, 2010
Of course, I had to go through my personal collection (and remind myself why I should NOT be blogging)...
(some are very NSFW) posted by zinfandel at 9:09 PM on October 18, 2010
I realize this doesn't meet the wordless display of a sentiment as the Jezebel post describes them, but I feel that the venerable You're the Man Now, Dog was instrumental in pushing gifs beyond the poor man's binaries and shaping the tone of the internet today.
Is this now the thread where we post our favorite YTMNDs? Mine is Lol is my child. posted by heathkit at 9:27 PM on October 18, 2010
I stand by my previous statements.
Feel free to mention it every chance you get. Or, you know, don't.
I figure he's just very proud to be hosting all of those websites on his local machine. Odd to use a server for metafiltering, but what are you gonna do? posted by flaterik at 9:27 PM on October 18, 2010
The total lack of IMG tags and avatars and signatures is the #1 reason MetaFilter has remained so much better than almost every other forum-style website. posted by straight at 9:50 PM on October 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
I could totally stare at this one for hours, it's just so... sinister! posted by drinkyclown at 9:51 PM on October 18, 2010
I was going to comment on the "Deal With It + Sunglasses" meme, but I think this covers it. posted by oneswellfoop at 9:56 PM on October 18, 2010
(And this, just because.) posted by kmz at 10:19 PM on October 18, 2010
I made an American clown once. It took ages to make. It didn't mean anything either. Don't know why I bothered really. Did I mention that it took a long time to make? posted by unliteral at 10:26 PM on October 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
This gif expresses the discomfort felt when disembodied legs erupt out of a chandelier and begin circling you. posted by benzenedream at 10:30 PM on October 18, 2010
Once I made a great gif once using images from a old-timey stick-fighting manual that was posted to MetaFilter, but I uploaded it to free Imageshack and the computer it was stored on died. I had been planning on making a series of them featuring the two combatants, one a rich dude and another a poor guy, with the rich dude always exclaiming 'Egad, a pauper!' before giving the wretch a well-deserved drubbing. As often with my clearly brilliant ideas I never followed through, but I've always suspected that Kate Beaton telepathically stole the opening line of my idea, altered it enough to evade litigation, and to compound the hurt, made pretty awesome comics. posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:03 PM on October 18, 2010
All right, one of my favorite subjects. Braindump time!
My speculative history of the revival of animated GIFs on the web:
On 4chan, a lot of the images posted (that aren't macros) are "reaction images" — images of faces that represent readers' responses to the original post. This site has the authoritative collection of reaction images: MyFaceWhen — and it calls them "Like using emoticons, on steroids!"
That is exactly what's going on, and it's fantastic: instead of having text abstractions stand in for our faces, they/we use other people's faces to stand in for our faces when talking anonymously and virtually.
Then ONTD borrows this idea of reaction images from 4chan, being another insanely active community of deeply internet-savvy people -- but LJ allows for embedding inline GIFs, unlike 4chan, and ONTD members make and share tons of GIFs of animated reaction faces, because that's an even more fun way to appropriate other people's expressions as your own. This catches on in the vast hordes of ONTD-influenced LJ communities as well, and then ONTD-influenced sites like Jezebel and some areas of Tumblr, and on and on throughout the web. Excellent.
See also:
What sets the internet apart from other modes of communication—video, audio, text, imagery—is the way it translates a combination of forms into meaning through the use of animated gifs. — they're half-joking, but there's a bit of truth to this. See In Defense of the Blink Tag by Timoni West: "the blink tag is the HTML tag that truly makes use of the dynamic possibilities of the digital medium beyond what’s available in a conventional (e.g., paper) 2-d setting." I don't know of anything really equivalent to a GIF in other mediums — a short loop of something moving alongside static elements. Maybe related to familar sounds like the Wilhelm scream or the Amen break, repeatable and recognizable snippets inside other works, but not really.
The Year of The Animated Gif at Art Fag City: "So why are artists suddenly more interested in the file format? It’s hard to say, but one theory tabled in a recent conversation, suggested a reaction to a decrease in websites and search engines able to handle the file format as a possible explanation." — I really like Art Fag City, and it's a good post, but I don't know about this. I think there is something web-nostalgic about people appreciating GIFs, and something sophisticated, too: quick and easy embedded video was novel and interesting a few years ago, and slick easy self-publishing was novel a couple years ago, but what next? The novelty of collective shared bits of culture as embedded in GIFs, maybe.
And for the art theory reader in you: The Affect of Animated GIFs as quoted on Tom Moody's blog (one of the most interesting gif artists around): "animated gifs function like cinematic close-ups — 'abstractions isolating the object from the time-space coordinates in which we were moving'...A close-up immediately cancels out the whole that precedes it...the endlessly looping structure does enhance a kind of 'anaesthetic' state..."
And more thinky thinking:
GIFs are the form of art native to the web, in the same way that basketball is the sport native to the United States — maybe not the most popular or well-loved product of the web, but genuinely created and produced and grown here. They're weird and ugly and spontaneous and complex and incredibly diverse, easy to save and post and trade, supported in every browser, authorless and public domain. I love them. (I really want to make a FFFFOUND just for gifs, but maybe with Delicious-style tagging so I can easily view and access all my pizza-related gifs on a whim. I call it the "labyrinth of forking gifs" in my head. We'll see if I ever get around to actually making it happen.) posted by dreamyshade at 11:37 PM on October 18, 2010 [21 favorites]
I think that one is perfect for any time you want to say "WTF," but "WTF" is not quite..enough. posted by wierdo at 9:49 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
The total lack of IMG tags and avatars and signatures is the #1 reason MetaFilter has remained so much better than almost every other forum-style website.
If we had the IMG tag here I would never leave the house. I would be hunched over my Wacom tablet all day long. I would dine on nothing but microwaved fishsticks and Fresca, and would lose all my depth perception.
posted by brundlefly at 5:46 PM on October 18, 2010