Giphy’s New Views Counting Tool Makes Reaction GIFs Smoother
What I like is popular now and that’s bad. Thanks to GIF databases like Giphy , GIF Reaction, once an elaborate art form, has now evolved into a soft mass market dominated by a handful of retail-approved celebrity faces. Today, Giphy has accelerated the medium’s slide to mediocrity by adding views to GIFs from an “official artist or partner.”
The very concept of an official GIF encompasses the corporate Internet that unifies and then supplants the wild and precious independent Internet. It’s a world of brands tweeting , GOP memes ,indulgent corporate brand pages .
The official GIF is contrary to the spirit of GIF. It is not a means of self-expression, but a means of marketing. Technically, it’s not even a GIF anymore – on Twitter and Facebook, GIFs are actually inline videos, so you can’t drag a GIF off the timeline to save it like you’ve been on most websites for decades. Now, if you want to find that GIF again, you just have to rely on Giphy. As stated in a Popular Mechanics article linked in Giphy’s own press release: “GIF is a dandelion that grows ruthlessly from year to year among other flowers in the garden. Gifi is an asphalt pavement. “
Until recently, if you wanted to publish an animated GIF online, you had to find (or create) and upload it yourself. You can save your favorites in your local GIF folder or memorize complex search terms so they can be found in Google Images.
But in 2013, Facebook and Twitter added built-in support for Giphy, encouraging users to search for a term and use Giphy results, or simply choose from default categories like “Eww” and “Applause”. It’s now three clicks away from inserting a quick loop of Shia LaBeouf, an outdated, salted-salt-flavored GIF in the store.
The partnership with Giphy also gives Giphy a big opportunity, which has a clear profit motive to favor brand-friendly GIFs.
Today, for example, Giphy unveiled GIFs from MTV’s VMAs, filling their front page with “official” GIFs with 6- or 7-figure views. It’s not that scary! VMA is a very popular TV event and people love to share their moments. This is a smart and rewarding partnership.
It’s just that the next time you’re looking for a GIF to express disgust or approval, Giphy will have a financial incentive to show you these VMA GIFs to prove to MTV that the partnership was worth it. So they’ll nudge you towards those payola gifs, and your search turns into an advertising session you don’t even know you were, and you land in the warm, tight embrace of monoculture.
Giphy is still a great promoter of GIF culture in general. You can download GIFs from any source, or create GIFs from a YouTube video file or clip. These are fantastic tools that support the insane world of GIFs, but on the other hand, putting all of our GIFs in one official store makes them all addicted to the motives and weaknesses of that source.
We recently saw the danger of centralized communication when Facebook was caught defending hate speech and punishing government critics. Twitter regularly battles subpoenas for anonymous accounts. Animated GIFs are usually not a medium for critical political speech, but meme culture is a popular form of dissent in countries like China, where Internet users must be smart to avoid censorship. Centralization makes it easier to control this speech. It is much easier, say, to prohibit people from posting GIFs with the words “Fuck you” on the president’s schedule if you only need to block access to one site that hosts all of these GIFs.
But day after day, Giphy makes GIFs boring. When everyone chooses the same defaults and posts the same three-clicks of Katy Perry’s face, the internet gets boring. So try looking elsewhere for your gifs. In Google Images, tap Tools, Text, and Animation . Check out what’s new on Tumblr GIFs . Try searches other than the Giphy defaults. Dig into / r / GIF , / r / GIF and / r / ReactionGIF and save your favorites or find forums that suit your tastes. Find something you don’t recognize from the NBC sitcom. Maybe even learn how to roll yourself in Photoshop. Whatever you do, find the most specific and amazing GIFs. Don’t settle for the same reaction that everyone else is using.