Why Gifs Don’t Have to Be Worth Anything to Have Value

These wonderful, looping files will be still looping long after we’re gone

Jamie Cohen

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A red haired woman’s hair blows in the breeze in a cinemagram made from the 2011 film Take Shelter
Cinemagram from the film Take Shelter (2011)

“Gifs feel extremely dated. They were never easy to make and didn’t work particularly well on mobile,” says internet culture reporter Ryan Broderick in The Guardian last week. In this, he’s right. Gifs had their moment, but that era is ending, much…

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Jamie Cohen

Digital culture expert and meme scholar. Cultural and Media Studies PhD. Internet studies educator: social good, civic engagement and digital literacies