Who killed the Gif? How the dancing banana split

In a 2021 Twitter (now ‘X’) post, US journalist Jenny Zhang wrote, “Any time I see someone use a reaction gif I immediately know they are above the age of 33”. The replies to the post featured a mix of indignation and applause, but Jenny had a point. Once the quick and easy reaction to an instant message, social media post or even as a cheeky addition to an email, by 2021 GIF usage was dropping. And it continues to do so. A 2022 report by Zoom noted that, while 20 per cent of their users loved GIFs, 28 per cent hated them and 53 per cent were indifferent. 

In the same year, even Giphy, the internet’s biggest GIF database, admitted the use of their product was on a downhill slide. In a bitingly honest filing valuation, the database admitted that “user sentiment towards GIFs on social media shows that they have fallen out of fashion as a content form, with younger users in particular describing GIFs as ‘for boomers’ and ‘cringe’”. 

As technologies evolve, so too do generational demographics around what’s considered cool or socially appropriate

Jess Rauchberg, assistant professor of communication technologies at New Jersey’s Seton Hall University, says GIFs are now largely the domain of boomers. “As technologies evolve, so too do generational demographics around what’s considered cool or socially appropriate,” she says. “GIFs are coded as uncool for newer gens.” London-based UX strategist Millie Spalding agrees. “There is a stigma associated with feeling behind the times,” she says. “Cultural references used in GIFs are becoming less well-known, the visuals are tacky and the rise of content creation on platforms like TikTok have increased the desire for short-form video over other content.” 

The first Graphics Interchange Format (GIF for short) was an aeroplane in flight created by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite in 1987 as a way of animating static images (for the record, Wilhite has confirmed the unpopular opinion that GIF is pronounced ‘jiff’ rather than ‘giff’). Wilhite led a team of software engineers at CompuServe, the US technology firm that became the first to offer internet connectivity in 1989. 

So when the first publicly-available version of the world wide web was unleashed in 1993, CompuServe was there to help users get online. Now anyone with the time and the required equipment could build a website, and anyone with a browser could explore the internet. By the end of 1995, more than 24 million people were spending an average of five hours per week online in the US and Canada, and homemade versions of Wilhite’s invention were being sprinkled across newly sprouted websites like psychedelic, looping confetti. 

The Hampster [sic] Dance, the fighting stick men and Under Construction GIFs count amongst early classics. Designed in 1999 by Canadian art student Deidre LaCarte, the jiggling hamsters GIF featured on the front page of her website. The stick men were homemade content for the 1990s Stickdeath site and the Under Construction GIF (and its variants) was the ideal placeholder for burgeoning web developers building an online presence. There are plenty more vintage GIFs on the gifcities.org website. 

Some GIFs took on a life of their own, gaining a cult status in the process. The frankly terrifying Dancing Baby surfaced in the mid-nineties as an experiment in animating the human figure and went on to become a symbol of the lead character’s ticking biological clock in the sitcom, Ally McBeal. Created in 1999 by Norwegian web developer and music producer Trym Stene, the Dancing Banana GIF originally appeared on Norsk FreakForum, a late-nineties online notice board for people who took part in phreaking, the practice of manipulating communication systems.

By 2005, Stene’s creation was so big that Family Guy’s talking labrador Brian Griffin dressed up as the Dancing Banana. Trym is phlegmatic about the demise of the GIF. “Now we have so much content on social that GIFs have become a small part of the vast amount of content we consume daily,” he says. “You won’t find many GIFs on websites anymore unless they’re put there ironically. In my experience, GIFs still have a place to quickly and low-key express our emotions with something more than words.”  

That GIFs have reached ‘cringe’ status explains part of the usage decline, but there are other factors in play, too. Take the reduction in relevance of micro-blogging site Tumblr. By the time Facebook added GIFs to its Messenger service in 2015 and to comments in 2017, and WhatsApp began allowing users to send GIFs in early 2017, the format was already an intrinsic part of Tumblr culture, especially those made by the site’s community.

One of the world’s most-used sites at the time, Tumblr users once revelled in its outsider status. Its busiest period was during 2014, when activity hit over 400 million posts a year. Rauchberg cites the sale of Tumblr to Yahoo in 2013 as another nail in the GIF coffin. “Obviously, there are still many users on that platform,” she says. “But after Yahoo acquired Tumblr its popularity began to decrease due to governance changes”. These changes included Yahoo introducing adverts and tighter censorship controls, leading users to feel Tumblr had lost its anything-goes edge and become, well, uncool. 

Designer and web expert Jason Eppink was curator of digital media at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City from 2006 until 2018. He highlights the role of smartphones in declining GIF use. “We spend more of our internet time on our phones than ever, and they all have incredible cameras and microphones just a tap away,” he says. “That ease of use frames a way of understanding what our devices are for. Now TikTok dominates the social media landscape, so its default assumption about the audiovisual nature of the moving image on mobile devices will, too.” 

Eppink goes on to point out that GIFS are silent, while users can add sound and music to their phone-made Tikkoks, Instagram reels and Snapchats. Plus, GIFs are a short watch, while videos made for sharing between friends and contacts can be as long — or as brief — as the creator wishes. “They’re also low resolution, are not easily responsive, their colour palette is limited and they have slow frame rates and slow loading times,” adds Spalding.

Eppink mentions the recurring theme of something becoming too popular as well. “I remember seeing Giphy being integrated into everything in the mid 2010s — Slack, Twitter, iOS keyboards — and thinking ‘this is how it ends’,” he says. “When anyone can do something cool, it becomes uncool. I’ve always had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, GIFs are fun. Everyone should be invited to the party. But also, there’s an art to hoarding and using GIFs.

So when millions of GIFs are stuffed into a database, flattened by lowest common denominator indexes, and easily searchable and accessible by your grandma, of course that becomes a less fun space to play in. The effort and knowledge it took to use a GIF well was a key element of its value.” The rise of the meme — typically a static image but more recently incorporating videos and moving images — has also diluted the potency of the GIF in a similar way.

Then there’s the generation gap effect. Boomers, Generation X-ers and Millennials have persisted in sharing GIFs like the Barack Obama mic drop, Homer Simpson backing into a hedge and the lady spitting out her tea, but Generation Z (born between the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2010s) and Generation Alpha (born during the 2010s) have moved on.

As younger generations romanticise early 2000s cultures, like Y2K and indie sleaze, I predict we’ll see a resurgence in older Web 2.0 practices, such as GIF use, as ironic and satirical

“Millennials and Generation X were prime users when the GIF became a popular media form to share in conversations,” says Rauchberg. “Now, younger generations, like Gen Z and Gen Alpha, have other ways to interact in digital spaces. We’ve seen this happen with emojis. Gen X, Boomers and Millennials will use the crying-while-laughing emoji to indicate a humorous interaction over text, whereas Gen Z and Gen Alpha use a skull emoji when they’ve found something funny.” 

But perhaps all is not lost. Stene thinks the humble GIF may be down, but it’s not out. “GIFs will have their place for years to come in people’s social media apps,” he says. “I don’t think there will be a renaissance, but they will play their small part in people’s lives. When we communicate digitally, it can be hard to show our feelings and empathy, and GIFs can provide those small extras that deepen our interpersonal connections.”

What about Rauchberg? Does she think GIFs might stage a renaissance, even if it’s an ironic one, like with moustaches and the mullet? “Yes! As younger generations romanticise early 2000s cultures, like Y2K and indie sleaze, I predict we’ll see a resurgence in older Web 2.0 practices, such as GIF use, as ironic and satirical,” she says. “We’re starting to see younger generations turn to older media tools, like using point-and-shoot cameras and camcorders instead of phones to take pictures. I wouldn’t be surprised if GIFs have a similar moment in the next two to three years, if not sooner.”