The GIF has become a popular mode of communication on the Internet.
Why? Because GIFs are fun and seem to describe our crazy lives perfectly.
Like when it is so bitter cold outside, so you don’t go to class.
Or when it is still bitter cold outside, but you manage to rally your gal pals together to go out.
The GIF basically describes our lives perfectly.
But is the GIF always good?
Journalism has to adapt to our 21st century life on the Internet. It seems as if almost every printed publication now exists on our phone, computer or tablet via the Internet. But does journalism have to change even more? Does that mean not just moving from print to online but, moreover, from the traditional, five-body paragraph article to twenty GIFs and their respective one-sentence descriptions?
How many of you had read the article thus far? Was it because of the GIFs? Now, how many of you stopped reading the article after the first few sentences of this chunk of text? I hope that most continued to read the article, despite the change of format.
The integration of GIFs into journalism has certainly been fun and entertaining. It makes us laugh in reflection on our lives and how crazy they can be at times. But, at the same time, it seems as if the GIF format has completely taken over the world of online journalism. It becomes more and more rare to see the traditional article without a single GIF.
Perhaps this trend contributes to why older generations deem Generation X as “lazy” because we want what we want and we want it now. We are dependent on visuals and indulge in instant gratification.
I do not think that is 100% true. Certainly, we enjoy a funny GIF here and there, but that does not reflect our generation as a whole. We are still hard-working individuals. But why not show that in how we interact and communicate on the Internet?