A brief history of the GIF (so far)

Dulac N Gaudreault A (2004) Heads or tails: The emergence of a new cultural series, from the Phenakisticope to the Cinematograph. Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture 8. Available at: rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_8/dulac_gaudreault.html (accessed 29 August 2014).

Manovich L (2001) The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT, p. 316.

Dulac N Gaudreault A (2004) Heads or tails: The emergence of a new cultural series, from the Phenakisticope to the Cinematograph. Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture 8. Available at: rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_8/dulac_gaudreault.html (accessed 29 August 2014).

Gunning T (2008) Early cinema and the variety of moving images. American Art 22(2): 9-11.

Graphics Interchange Format (1987) Available at: www.w3.org/Graphics/GIF/spec-gif87.txt (accessed 29 August 2014).

Graphics Interchange Format: Version 89a (1990) Available at: www.w3.org/Graphics/GIF/spec-gif89a.txt (accessed 29 August 2014).

Trevor S (2014) RE: GIF 89a Release Date. Personal email correspondence with the author. 19 May.

For an excellent illustrated look at the particulars of the format, see: Flickinger M (2005) Project: What’s in a GIF. Available at: www.matthewflickinger.com/lab/whatsinagif (accessed 29 August 2014).

Burn All GIFs. Available at: burnallgifs.org/archives/ (accessed 29 August 2014).

Humphrey S (2007) Frame delay times for animated GIFs. Available at: humpy77.deviantart.com/journal/Frame-Delay-Times-for-Animated-GIFs-214150546 (accessed 29 August 2014).

Johnson J (2012) Animated GIF minimum frame delay browser compatibility study. Available at: nullsleep.tumblr.com/post/16524517190/animated-gif-minimum-frame-delay-browser-compatibility (accessed 29 August 2014).

LaCarte D (1999) The hampster dance. Available at web.archive.org/web/19991123001948/http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/4157/hampdance.html (accessed 29 August 2014).

Know Your Meme (2014) Dancing baby. Available at knowyourmeme.com/memes/dancing-baby (accessed 29 August 2014).

These GIFs (and many more) were rescued by Jason Scott and Archive Team in the months prior to Yahoo! shutting down GeoCities: Scott J (2009) Please be patient - this page is under construction! Available at www.textfiles.com/underconstruction (accessed 29 August 2014).

Much credit is due to Olia Lialina for her tireless defense of the amateur web of the 1990s (and for likely inspiring the visual treatment of this history). See ‘A vernacular web’ (pp. 19-33) and ‘A vernacular web 2’ (pp. 58-69) - also available at Lialina’s website (art.teleportacia.org) - for essential examinations of the attitudes and aesthetics of what is now referred to as Web 1.0: Lialina O Espenschied D (eds) (2009) Digital Folklore. Stuttgart: Merz & Solitude.

This was located on the home page of Heathers Animations for many years, though it is not currently being used there: Heathers Animations (2004) Available at: web.archive.org/web/20040322213247/http://www.heathersanimations.com/ (accessed 29 August 2014).

TidBITS (1997) It’s ‘Jiff’ and I don’t want to hear another word. Available at: tidbits.com/article/4495 (accessed 29 August 2014).

Martin K (2012) Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year 2012 is ‘to GIF’. In: OxfordWords Blog. Available at: blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/11/us-word-of-the-year-2012/ (accessed 29 August 2014).

The Webby Awards (2013) David Karp Presents Steve Wilhite with the 2013 Webby Lifetime Achievement Award. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBtKxsuGvko (accessed 29 August 2014).

The Washington Post (2013) How do you pronounce ‘GIF’? Available at: www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-do-you-pronounce-gif/2013/05/22/63fea38e-c2f1-11e2-9fe2-6ee52d0eb7c1_page.html (accessed 29 August 2014).

Rodriguez S (2012) GIF’s 25th birthday: Is it pronounced ‘gif’ or ‘jif’? [Poll]. In: Los Angeles Times. Available at: articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/15/business/la-fi-tn-gif-jiff-25th-birthday-20120615 (accessed 29 August 2014).

Whitney Museum of American Art. Whitney Artport: Past Exhibitions. Available at: artport.whitney.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions.shtml (accessed 29 August 2014)

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). SFMOMA : 010101 : ART IN TECHNOLOGICAL TIMES. Available at: www.sfmoma.org/media/exhibitions/010101/top.html (accessed 29 August 2014).

Rhizome. The Rhizome Archive | Gif Show. Available at: archive.rhizome.org/exhibition/gifshow/ (accessed 29 August 2014).

Savage J (2009) A design for life. The Guardian. Available at: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/feb/21/smiley-face-design-history (accessed 29 August 2014).

McCormack T (2013) Emoticon, emoji, text: pt. 1, I second that emoticon. In: Rhizome. Available at: rhizome.org/editorial/2013/mar/13/emoticon1/ (accessed 29 August 2014).

DiVito M (2012) cycloid. Available at mrdiv.tumblr.com/post/26634486527/cycloid (accessed 29 August 2014).

Know Your Meme (2014) Nyan cat / pop tart cat. Available at: knowyourmeme.com/memes/nyan-cat-pop-tart-cat (accessed 29 August 2014).

Community creator Dan Harmon intentionally directed moments for fans to turn into GIFs. Jeffery M (2011) ‘Community’ Dan Harmon Q&A: ‘Our fans influence the show’. In: Digital Spy. Available at: www.digitalspy.com/tv/s222/community/interviews/a349824/community-dan-harmon-qa-our-fans-influence-the-show.html (accessed 29 August 2014).

Perez S (2013) Tumblr’s adult fare accounts For 11.4% of site’s Top 200K domains, adult sites are leading category of referrals. In: TechCrunch. Available at: techcrunch.com/2013/05/20/tumblrs-adult-fare-accounts-for-11-4-of-sites-top-200k-domains-tumblrs-adult-fare-accounts-for-11-4-of-sites-top-200k-domains-adults-sites-are-leading-category-of-referrals/ (accessed 29 August 2014).

Phelps A (2012) The 2012 Summer Olympics are turning into a giant coming-out party for the animated GIF. In: Nieman Journalism Lab. Available at: www.niemanlab.org/2012/08/the-2012-summer-olympics-are-turning-into-a-giant-coming-out-party-for-the-animated-gif/ (accessed 29 August 2014).

Gabbatt A (2012) Final presidential debate in gifs – as it happened. The Guardian. Available at: www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/23/final-presidential-debate-in-gifs-live (accessed 29 August 2014).

Gasperini J (2002) Stereo images ‘Time for Space Jiggle’. Available at: www.well.com/user/jimg/stereo/stereo_list.html (accessed 29 August 2014).

NYPL Labs (2012) STEREOGRANIMATOR. Available at: stereo.nypl.org/ (accessed 29 August 2014).

Cinemagraphs™ (2011) Available at: cinemagraphs.com (accessed 29 August 2014).

For one of Buzzfeed’s most notorious listicles, see: Johnson B (2013) The story of Egypt’s revolution in ‘Jurassic Park’ Gifs. In: BuzzFeed. Available at: www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/the-story-of-egypts-revolution-in-jurassic-park-gifs (accessed 29 August 2014).

The author organized an exhibition about Reaction GIFs at Museum of the Moving Image with the help of nearly one hundred members of Reddit: Museum of the Moving Image (2014) The Reaction GIF: Moving Image as Gesture. Available at: www.movingimage.us/exhibitions/2014/03/12/detail/the-reaction-gif-moving-image-as-gesture/ (accessed 29 August 2014).