According to the Twitter universe, yesterday was “#GIFparty Day”, in which users were encouraged to share their favorite GIFs. For the past year or so, the use of GIFs and Emoji’s has become a cultural phenomenon to the extent of creating a new language of communication, a language that evokes it’s own rules of connotation between the engaged individuals. When the same GIF becomes popularized amongst mass audiences—the image signifies a visual association similar to iconography.
GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format, also known as that crappy low-resolution 8-bits per pixel image from the early 90’s. Today, we readily participate in GIF communication via social media or text message when expressing how we “feel” about a particular topic or mood. For example, it’s a Thursday night and you go out drinking with co-workers at a new local bar. The next morning you wake up to a text from your colleague reading:
“How are you surviving?”
Instead of returning the message with words, you add a little comic relief into the conversation—replying with a GIF of Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher hung-over and passed out at her classroom desk chair.
Don’t get me wrong; I love GIFs—they’re fun, and can certainly provide comic relief to an otherwise banal message. However, when we use images from a Rolodex of popular culture references and reapply their context to the personal context of our conversations, in a way, makes us thieves or imposters. We are recycling and stealing not only the copywritten image but also the humor and redefining its meaning within the inside jokes of our own dialogue. For example, when a GIF is funny, the comical origin relies on the image’s connotation and it's relation to the topic at hand.
And with GIF generators like GIPHY or the GIF keyboard, a deeper thought process is not required when using or creating a GIF because one can simply either enter information into a GIF robot or choose from a wide variety in a catalogue. Does this type of symbolic communication, which relies heavily on throwback to pop culture references, impact our intellectual potential or the way we express ourselves with words? Furthermore, will our children, overtime, effectively develop proper communication skills or a sophisticated vocabulary? I understand when a GIF is appropriately applied, it can be witty and creative in some ways but a part of me feels like we are losing the ability to communicate emotions with words or visual storytelling that is rooted in originality not butchered motifs.