Many a link-baiting slideshow and BuzzFeed post have been using animated GIFS, the moving images assembled from videos, sequences of photos or original animations.
But how did the initially cheesy, early computer and Internet age animation trick using a file format become the au courant method for obsessing over celebrities and being web-ready shorthand for expressing emotions? SXSW has the answer: According to the GIF artists and writers in “The Economy of the GIF,” you can blame your phone and microblogging platform Tumblr.
The GIF lineage goes something like this: they were first used in website banners and as quickie animations in those quaint AOL disc days of the Internet — and then Flash animation came along. Remember when websites resembled the futuristic, highly-interactive interfaces of science fiction films? With those slick drop-down menus and fancy moving ads? That was Flash.
Flash still exists, but with Apple and its iPhone (which famously does not support Flash-based animations or videos), web designers and animators and branding gurus had to rethink their media strategies. Suddenly, entire websites were rendered unreadable on phones and other mobile screens.
So as Flash fell out of fashion, simpler web designs prevailed and led to a GIF renaissance of sorts — because GIFs will still display on phones and tablets and other magic, mini computer devices. And it helps that social networking sites and phone web browsers have made using the Internet much more photo-centric (hence, Tumblr).
Plus, GIFs, says writer Lindsey Weber (who’s done some GIF work for BuzzFeed and New York magazine) are better representations of how we consume the Internet in 2013.
“[GIFs] span this space between photos and videos,” Weber says. “The GIF takes the best parts of a photo and the best parts of a video and puts them together. It’s just a better way to ingest that.”
And they’ve become so wildly popular, argues artist Jimmy Repeat (who’s GIFed for MTV in the past), they’ve become a new art form all in themselves.
“GIF is the new medium because it’s more of a challenge than a static image,” he says.
Perhaps their greatest claim to legitimacy is their looming legal precedent: Weber says GIF-related lawsuits and copyright cases are just around the bend — she’s come up against all kinds of rights issues with the GIFs she worked with.
But for now, there’s still plenty of GIF fun to be had. Just go on Tumblr and get lost for days.
forward thinking
Texas lands inside top 15 in new ranking of most innovative states
It's another year of slow but steady progress for the Lone Star State on an annual report on the top states for innovation.
Texas ranked No. 14 with a score of 48.43 points on personal finance site WalletHub's Most and Least Innovative States in 2024 ranking. Last year, Texas ranked No. 15. The state has steadily inched up the list — Texas was No.16 on the list in 2022 and No. 17 in 2021.
According to the report, Texas had the following ranking across the following categories:
- No. 19 – Share of STEM Professionals
- No. 16 – Projected STEM-Job Demand by 2030
- No. 25 – Eighth-Grade Math & Science Performance
- No. 19 – Share of Science & Engineering Graduates Aged 25+
- No. 13 – Share of Technology Companies
- No. 31 – R&D Spending per Capita
- No. 15 – Venture-Capital Funding per Capita
The report analyzed the 50 states and the District of Columbia and how each performed across 25 key metrics and across two key dimensions, “Human Capital” and “Innovation Environment," per the report. The data was pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Science Foundation, National Center for Education Statistics, United States Patent and Trademark Office, and other records.
“The most innovative states are especially attractive to people who have majored in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, as they offer abundant career opportunities and investment dollars, both for jobs at existing companies and for startups," says Cassandra Happe, a WalletHub analyst in the report. "These states also instill young students with the skills they need to succeed in the current workforce, skills which are useful whether or not they pursue a STEM career.”
The report's top 10 included:
- No. 1 – District of Columbia with a score of 71.65
- No. 2 – Massachusetts with a score of 69.93
- No. 3 – Washington with a score of 66.36
- No. 4 – California with a score of 65.63
- No. 5 – Colorado with a score of 63.93
- No. 6 – Maryland with a score of 62.41
- No. 7 – Virginia with a score of 59.86
- No. 8 – Delaware with a score of 54.58
- No. 9 – Utah with a score of 53.66
- No. 10 – New Jersey with a score of 53.2
This report originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.