Let’s Honour Stephen Wilhite, Creator Of The GIF, Who Passed Away This Week
Tributes have poured in for the American computer scientist, who passed at the age of 74 from COVID-19.
Stephen Wilhite, the creator of the GIF image format, passed away at the age of 74 on Wednesday.
The internet is honouring the creator of the .gif image format, who colleagues and family described as a “very humble, kind, and good man”. Wilhite was surrounded by family when he passed away from COVID-19, according to a statement given by Wilhite’s wife Kathaleen to The Verge.
The humble GIF — which despite furious protest online is pronounced “Jif” according to an interview with Wilhite from 2013 — was central in the early work of internet artist Olia Lialina, as seen in her David Lynch-esque storytelling piece ‘My Boyfriend Came Back From the War’.
Wilhite’s work on the GIF, or ‘Graphics Interchange Format’, started when he was hired by tech company CompuServe in the 1980s. CompuServe’s original vision for the project was a compressed file format that preserved quality while remaining small in size — to make image sharing across the internet easier in a time when internet speed was tragically bad.
Wilhite presented his team with a ‘perfected version’ of the GIF, which was formally released by CompuServe in June 1987. It allowed users to make animations through time-delayed pictures, and thus the GIF as we know it was born.
The proliferation of memes across the internet in the last two decades has been largely defined by the GIF format. Tech writers have claimed that the ability of the filetype to repackage events in TV, film, and real life as a short shareable “reaction” will secure the future of the GIF for years to come.
Without further ado, let’s examine some of our favourite GIF(T)S that keep on giving.
Wilhite’s Personal Favourite: A CGI Baby Dancing
In an interview with the New York Times, Wilhite professed that his personal favourite GIF was this CGI dancing baby. I find Wilhite’s choice very endearing, it’s proof that he was still able to be struck by the absurdity of how his laborious work in the field of computer science would be adapted by the digital public.
Homer Simpson Disappearing Into A Hedge
One of the most popular GIF’s in the world is literally this three-second video of Homer Simpson backing away into a hedge. It’s been used countless times to describe spectral ex-boyfriends, silent group members in university assignments, or inadequate federal response to natural disasters.
Michael Jackson Eating Popcorn
I can’t begin to speculate about what the original intent of this GIF was, but its use today only signifies one thing: Drama. From arguments in 4×4 Facebook pages, to disagreements in family WhatsApp groups, Michael Jackson will eternally eat popcorn while Rome burns.
How Do You Do Fellow Kids?
This simple short of Steve Buscemi from the TV show 30 Rock has stopped me from ever entering General Pants, and has even spawned subreddits designed for mocking media brands.
Keanu Being Gratuitous
A relatively new GIF, created from the Netflix movie Always Be My Maybe features actor Keanu Reeves walking backwards while blowing a kiss. It’s a touching tribute to Whilite’s work, as we look backwards with love while walking forward into the future of MPEG4 and Webm file formats.