Internet Pays Tribute To GIF Creator Stephen Wilhite

Stephen Wilhite created the GIF within the Eighties

Whereas many won’t know the identify of Stephen Wilhite, many have made use of his invention, the GIF. Wilhite died final week from COVID on the age of 74. He developed and made the GIF whereas working at a tech firm known as CompuServe within the Eighties. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format, and it permits people to ship excessive decision pictures in movement that loop again. The corporate CompuServe put the GIF within the public area within the Eighties as a solution to ship pictures in color at a time when web speeds have been extraordinarily sluggish. Wilhite retired within the 2000s and spent most of his time travelling together with his spouse.

As soon as GIF’s exploded everywhere in the web, being utilized in meme’s in addition to common textual content and WhatsApp conversations, an enormous debate unfurled on-line over the right pronunciation of the phrase. The principle level of competition was whether or not it was pronounced with a “comfortable” G much like phrases like big or with a “arduous” G just like the phrase grape. Wilhite himself nonetheless was extraordinarily clear how he pronounced it, and anticipated it to be pronounced. In an interview in 2013 with The New York Instances he stated “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts each pronunciations. They’re unsuitable. It’s a comfortable ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ Finish of story.”

Submit Wilhite’s demise a number of Twitter customers honoured him in probably the most applicable means attainable, with GIFs. Stephen Wilhite himself had stated that certainly one of his favorite GIFs was the dancing child that went viral earlier than we even used the time period viral on the web.

RIP Stephen Wilhite pic.twitter.com/gTbuMBbuiK

— Kev Day (@kpday9) March 23, 2022

And his favourite gif was the dancing child. pic.twitter.com/A5I1zwgDkG

— As You Want (@MicheleErwin) March 24, 2022

For Stephen Wilhite, a trailblazer whose innovation all of us take without any consideration, I current my most commonly-used GIF. pic.twitter.com/fBBqC9SEWd

— Cameron Frew (@FrewFilm) March 23, 2022