The GIF creator is dead

Stephen Wilhite, known online as the inventor of GIFs, one of the most widely used and recognized forms of communication in the online language, has passed away at the age of 74. An acronym for Graphic Interchange Format, Wilhite created GIFs in the 1980s while working as an employee at CompuServe after conceiving the idea at home, as his wife told The Verge, «He invented GIFs without any help. He did it at home and then refined the design at work.»

At a time when the Internet could not rely on today's resources, Wilhite's idea revolutionized the language of the web, becoming one of the cornerstones of online relationships such as forums or MSN or MySpace chats. Later GIFs were crucial in the spread of memes, while in recent times they have taken on a new importance with the spread of NFTs. Last year, for example, the GIF of Nyan Cat, the cat stuck in a flying cake followed by a rainbow trail created by Chris Torres, was sold at auction for half a million dollars in a testament to the power of the nostalgia effect.

Retired since 2001, Wilhite had received a Webby Award for lifetime achievement in 2013, answering on that occasion one of the questions that has always accompanied his invention: pronunciation. Although the Oxford English Dictionary has decreed both versions correct, the one with a sweet "g" and the one with a hard "g," in Wilhite's mind the only correct pronunciation has always been "Jif," inspired by the eponymous peanut butter.