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The GIF That

Keeps on Giving

Matt Beale Old Dominion University	Jamie Henthorn Catawba College	Megan Mize Old Dominion University

Session H.2

Saturday, May 26

3:45 - 5:00

http://bit.ly/gifgivepres

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Introductions & Icebreakers

Pick an adjective you’d use to describe yourself.
Enter that adjective into the Giphy site - https://giphy.com/
Select a GIF you like.
Type your name into the chart – first and last name.
Insert the GIF below next to your name, using this link:

http://bit.ly/gettoknowyourgif

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History of the GIF (in 3.3 minutes)

Credited as the first animated GIF (1987)

Steve Wilhite as Nyan Cat

Dancing baby GiF from your Angelfire/ Geocities/ Tripod website that you found using Alta Vista

Steve Wilhite worked at CompuServe in the mid-80s and faced a challenge:

How could a color image file be shared without taking up too much of the computer’s memory? Wilhite found a way to do so using a compression algorithm combined with image parameters like the number of available colors (256). His new creation could be used for exchange images between computers, and he called it Graphics Interchange Format. The GIF was born.

Initially used exclusively for still images

What made the format revolutionary was a specific compression algorithm, named Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) for its three creators (Abraham Lemepl, Jacob Ziv and Terry Welch). The way it worked was to identify repeating patterns, then simplify them, allowing for lossless compression of files—meaning none of the data is trimmed in the shortening process. Wilhite used this algorithm in combination with image parameters to create the GIF format.

All fine and dandy until it was discovered that the LZW algorithm was under patent by Unisys and in 1995 the company wanted to cash in and start receiving royalty fees for any software that used the algorithm. Developers in the mid to late 90s responded by deleting their GIF files and creating the PNG format (which stood for ‘Ping Is Not Gif’).

GIFs were largely phased out, which was fine for still images because there were multiple file formats that handled them better now anyway. But no format could fill the niche that GIFs had cornered: the animated image. It was through this advantage that the format was able to hang on for dear life as the web evolved in the early 2000s.

Kevin Hu, a researcher at MIT, says GIFs have become better indexed and are more easily usable, thanks to platforms like Giphy. Ironically, today many of the GIFs seen on sites like Twitter and Imgur are actually video files that have been coded to behave like GIFs, simply because new video technology is more efficient than the outdated GIF storage format.

According to Hu, quote “The format kind of transcended the file format to become a name for this specific cultural meme” end quote.

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Integration of GIFS in Communication

GIFs have long been part of internet culture. In many forms.

Memes with meaning

Giphy integration into professional communication (for example, slack)

We’ve been using GIFs as communication for a long time and as digital communication has matured, so has the the GIF. We can see the ways that they have moved from being overly simplistic and brightly colored images on static pages on GeoCities. At the time, they reflected the nascent understandings of usability, design and literacy that much of the first generation of digital adopters had. We can see the ways that GIFs have continued to evolve with other digital technologies. We can see how facebook started with text, then static images, then video. Facebook supported GIFs for years before providing a ‘GIF’ button, almost allowing a more digital literate community to establish GIF practices before easier access was opened to all users.

As digital literacies become more widely accepted we can likewise see the incorporation of GIFs and memes into informal professional communication. For instance, Slack, a corporate communications platform, not only hosts giphy, but a host of giphy short commands that allow users to quickly respond with GIFs, which allows for the use of GIFs as a literacy to spread even further.

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Affective Nature of GIFs

Katrina Passick Lumsden's review of 50 Shades of Grey

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Avenues of Research and Inquiry

Potential Topics for GIF Assignment to Explore or Design Around

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Digital Composition

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Issues of Identity

Digital blackface in reaction GIFs: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/digital-blackface-reaction-gifs

Myspace, Blingee, and teenage identity in the mid-00s: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/08/15/sparkle-kitten-animation/

GIFs as millenial culture: https://mashable.com/2012/10/19/animated-gif-history/#8TyfhqrMxiqb

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Hierarchy/Canon

https://www.reddit.com/r/HighQualityGifs/comments/67o66w/so_im_thinking_about_trying_out_this_gif_thing/

High Quality GIFs subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/HighQualityGifs/

A framerate of at least 25 frames per second (0.04 seconds per frame).

Note: Frame rates that differ drastically from the original source may be removed.

At least 120,000 pixels (multiply the height x width).
No side smaller than 300 pixels.
A crisp and clear image.

Also note that any added text and elements must contribute to the quality of the gif, not take away from it.

Issues of classism and ableism

Who is permitted to create GIFs and in what context?

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GIF Genres

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Mindfulness & Wellness Discourse

10 Awesome GIFs for Calm Breathing

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Creation and Archiving

Why some American libraries are obsessed with making viral GIFs

Megan: Libraries across the country are increasingly making GIFs to expand access and usage of their collections, showcasing their resources in approachable ways. More than 80% of libraries with special collections said that digitizing them was “critical” to their library’s future, according to a 2013 study from the Association of Research Libraries and Ithaka S+R. These GIFs are sometimes tongue in cheek, or allow users to see an artifact in a new way (book edge pictures for instance), thereby humanizing the past and raising interest in the preservation and use of such materials. Moreover, several institutions, from museums, libraries, universities, so on, now host competitions inviting users to interact with digitized material, creating new GIFs and therefore crowdsourcing this larger project.

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Community/ Integration into Text Messages

Google hopes to make GIF-hunting a lot easier for all of us

Finally catching up with the rest of the internet, Facebook just added a GIF button

GIFs Are About to Change How You Use Instagram Stories Forever

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Copyright and Property

Amy Poehler does not want the NRA using a GIF of her.

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GIF Assignments & Examples

Matt: Gif Essay & Reflection

Student Example: Public Transportation in France

Megan: Concurrent Interpretative Response

Student Example: Reading “A Rose for Emily” / Creating a GIF Rubric

Jamie: Academic Article Analysis

Low Stakes Library Quest

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Activity: Creating a Reaction GIF

For this activity, we will use GIPHY, an online tool for finding, embedding, and creating GIFs online. (http://bit.ly/reactgif)

Search YouTube for “happy reactions,” “sad reactions” other similar phrases (find a video that is at least 30 second long).
Open GIPHY and click “Create” at the top of the screen
Using YouTube, copy the site link into the “Add Any URL” field and wait a moment for GIPHY to load the video.
Select the timing from the video. Create a GIF that is at least two (2) seconds long.
Once you have selected the moment, add captions, drawings, or other resources to the GIF.
Finally, once finished, click on the “Upload to GIPHY” button.
Enter your name and either download (using the “Social” link) and insert the created GIF or copy the link to it in the table below

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Activity: Brainstorming a GIF Assignment

Please visit this Google doc to get your GIF on!

Short URL: https://bit.ly/2kffOzu

GIF Tools

GIPHY, GIPHY Gif Maker, Imgur, GIFGIF (MIT Projects)
Recordit - GIF a Tutorial!
“Selfie” GIF Creator

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Thank You! See more materials here: http://bit.ly/gifgive

Matt Beale Old Dominion University mbeale@odu.edu	Jamie Henthorn Catawba College jhenthor17@catawba.edu	Megan Mize Old Dominion University mmize@odu.edu

How to Make a “Selfie” GIF