Stephen Wilhite, Inventor of the GIF, Has Died

[atomheartbevo 89304]

His invention has touched every subform of this site, and pretty much every other site on the internet in some form or fashion.

https://www.megiefuneralhome.com/obituaries/Stephen-E.-Wilhite?obId=24311617#

https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/gif-history-steve-wilhite-olia-lialina-interview/

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/23/22992066/stephen-wilhite-gif-creator-dies

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Stephen Wilhite, one of the lead inventors of the GIF, died last week from COVID at the age of 74, according to his wife, Kathaleen, who spoke to The Verge. He was surrounded by family when he passed. His obituary page notes that “even with all his accomplishments, he remained a very humble, kind, and good man.”

Stephen Wilhite worked on GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, which is now used for reactions, messages, and jokes, while employed at CompuServe in the 1980s. He retired around the early 2000s and spent his time traveling, camping, and building model trains in his basement.

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Although GIFs are synonymous with animated internet memes these days, that wasn’t the reason Wilhite created the format. CompuServe introduced them in the late 1980s as a way to distribute “high-quality, high-resolution graphics” in color at a time when internet speeds were glacial compared to what they are today. “He invented GIF all by himself — he actually did that at home and brought it into work after he perfected it,” Kathaleen said. “He would figure out everything privately in his head and then go to town programming it on the computer.”

Supposedly the first ever animated GIF, released in 1987

 

Here's to you Steve Wilhite

Even though you said GIF was pronounced "JIF" instead of like "gift".

No matter how you say it, It'll live on for many years to come.  Internet Archive trying to preserve a bunch https://gifcities.org/

 

 

[TexasEd 8058]

Dang but can we still be pissed he pronounced it “JIF”?

[butthurt 1508]

[DaysOff 7785]

G motherfucker G

[ztejas 43190]

[clapclapclap 9000]

RIP.  Still the best peanut butter (smooth, not that crunchy crap.)

[ztejas 43190]

Just now, clapclapclap said:

(smooth, not that crunchy crap.)

[atomheartbevo 89304]

37 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

Dang but can we still be pissed he pronounced it “JIF”?

 

It's "Graphics Interchange Format" not "Giraffes Interchange Format"

[Radical Larry 28498]

[Mantis Toboggan, MD 1499]

[hornian 5186]

48 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

Dang but can we still be pissed he pronounced it “JIF”?

Go drink some gin, maybe you won’t be so pissed off that he pronounced it correctly. 
 

Or if you’re on the wagon, have a ginger ale. It calms the stomach; which is apparently angry that someone pronounced the word correctly. 
 

And if that doesn’t work, go take a walk at the zoo. Go look at a giraffe; that should remind you that even animals with very long necks understand that GIF should be pronounced the way the first two letters of their name is. 
 

And if none of the works, I hope you drink some water with giardia, and when you’re pondering why you’re unable to pass a solid shit, you will remember it’s because you can’t pronounce GIF correctly.  

[TwiceHorn 31085]

6 minutes ago, hornian said:

Go drink some gin, maybe you won’t be so pissed off that he pronounced it correctly. 
 

Or if you’re on the wagon, have a ginger ale. It calms the stomach; which is apparently angry that someone pronounced the word correctly. 
 

And if that doesn’t work, go take a walk at the zoo. Go look at a giraffe; that should remind you that even animals with very long necks understand that GIF should be pronounced the way the first two letters of their name is. 
 

And if none of the works, I hope you drink some water with giardia, and when you’re pondering why you’re unable to pass a solid shit, you will remember it’s because you can’t pronounce GIF correctly.  

Or you could give the GIFt of the inconsistency of the English language.  But that might lodge in your GIlls.

[AeroHorn 735]

It is an acronym that is being pronounced as a word. The person to decide how to do it is the one who came up with the acronym. How actual words are pronounced is not relevant.

[Kel Varnsen 8425]

Posting in correct forum

[NWBuck 8536]

 

 

[Your Mom 4774]

[RPM 26167]

4 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Or you could give the GIFt of the inconsistency of the English language.  But that might lodge in your GIlls.

You should call Geoff and ask him.

[grazinhorn 472]

[Neonmoon 38127]

[South Austin 51976]

7 hours ago, hornian said:

Go drink some gin, maybe you won’t be so pissed off that he pronounced it correctly. 
 

Or if you’re on the wagon, have a ginger ale. It calms the stomach; which is apparently angry that someone pronounced the word correctly. 
 

And if that doesn’t work, go take a walk at the zoo. Go look at a giraffe; that should remind you that even animals with very long necks understand that GIF should be pronounced the way the first two letters of their name is. 
 

And if none of the works, I hope you drink some water with giardia, and when you’re pondering why you’re unable to pass a solid shit, you will remember it’s because you can’t pronounce GIF correctly.  

[Celery Man 20832]

[Hate 20095]

[Serak The Preparer 3421]

8 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

 

It's "Graphics Interchange Format" not "Giraffes Interchange Format"

How do you pronounce scuba, radar, laser, or NASA? Do you make sure you pronounce each letter of the acronym like the start of the word it stands for?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13388]

8 hours ago, AeroHorn said:

It is an acronym that is being pronounced as a word. The person to decide how to do it is the one who came up with the acronym. How actual words are pronounced is not relevant.

Who says the acronym inventor gets to dictate pronunciation?  The international acronym foundation (IAF) which I declare is pronounced Eff.

[Native Horn 3476]

Jodspeed, my good sir.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10098]

[Deej 76396]

[dcar00 14002]

Imma call it  .jfeg instead of .jpeg

[Pig Bellmont 8664]

9 hours ago, hornian said:

Go drink some gin, maybe you won’t be so pissed off that he pronounced it correctly. 
 

Or if you’re on the wagon, have a ginger ale. It calms the stomach; which is apparently angry that someone pronounced the word correctly. 
 

And if that doesn’t work, go take a walk at the zoo. Go look at a giraffe; that should remind you that even animals with very long necks understand that GIF should be pronounced the way the first two letters of their name is. 
 

And if none of the works, I hope you drink some water with giardia, and when you’re pondering why you’re unable to pass a solid shit, you will remember it’s because you can’t pronounce GIF correctly.  

“He was a programmer, not a fucking linguist”

[atomheartbevo 89304]

13 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

“He was a programmer, not a fucking linguist”

[Surly Bevo 24686]

[NorthLoop 14053]

gotta post the GOAT

 

 

 

[clapclapclap 9000]

1 hour ago, Hate said:

There will come a day, and youth will pass away
What'll they say about me?
When the end comes I know they'll say just a GIFolo
And life goes on without me

Cause

I-i-i-i-i

Ain't got no body....

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by clapclapclap
(creamated GIF)

[Jerry Callo 8646]

10 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Posting in correct forum

Neg rep for posting .jpeg instead of .gif.

[TurkeyChew 383]

He wanted it pronounced JIF but the masses (e.g. everyone else in the world except hornian, it seems) has spoken. It organically has become hard-G-GIF and that's just how critical mass and evolution of language and normalization of words, works. 

It's like George when he tried to give himself his own nickname. You don't get to come up with your own nickname, Coco, others will dictate that for you.

[WhatTheBuck 28696]

Damn. RIP. I met him when I worked at CompuServe in the early 90’s.

My high school psychology teacher had a saying: “The masses are asses.” The correct pronunciation of gif is with a soft ‘g’ like in giraffe. It’s like Jif the peanut butter. Just because a lot of people learned to say it wrong and refuse to correct themselves doesn’t mean they’re not wrong. The correct pronunciation of the word is not determined democratically. Say it right. If anyone questions you, you have the virtue of being correct on your side. If they insist on saying it wrong, tell them they’re dumb. 

[BabaYaga 15190]

[Serak The Preparer 3421]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Say it right. 

Correctly.

[atomheartbevo 89304]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Damn. RIP. I met him when I worked at CompuServe in the early 90’s.

My high school psychology teacher had a saying: “The masses are asses.” The correct pronunciation of gif is with a soft ‘g’ like in giraffe. It’s like Jif the peanut butter. Just because a lot of people learned to say it wrong and refuse to correct themselves doesn’t mean they’re not wrong. The correct pronunciation of the word is not determined democratically. Say it right. If anyone questions you, you have the virtue of being correct on your side. If they insist on saying it wrong, tell them they’re dumb. 

I get it, but GIF and gift are too close to one another.  and the whole Graphics Interchange Format.

I would like to think this debate will die with the creator, even if it displeased him.

[Bigbend1812 12873]

 

 

Thank you!  RIP.

[utee94 15733]

9 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I get it, but GIF and gift are too close to one another.  and the whole Graphics Interchange Format.

I would like to think this debate will die with the creator, even if it displeased him.

It will continue as long as any .gif files are still being used.

To Stephen, I say, RIP and Jo with Jod.

[demos 2983]

Joing to see jod.

[SurlyGator 858]

14 hours ago, grazinhorn said:

Surly slippin.  I can’t believe it took this many post for the correct reply.

[WhatTheBuck 28696]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

I get it, but GIF and gift are too close to one another.  and the whole Graphics Interchange Format.

I would like to think this debate will die with the creator, even if it displeased him.

It’s not a debate. One way is right. The other is wrong. I went years before I ever heard anyone say it incorrectly. I will never hear someone pronounce it with a hard ‘g’ and not think less of that person. If I pronounced “gym” with a hard ‘g’ you would rightly think me an idiot. (Yeah, yeah, you do anyway, I get it. Ha ha.)

The Germans have a word “schadenfreude” which means taking pleasure in someone else’s misery. I wonder if they have a word for the stubborn insistence to be wrong. It’s an interesting study in human psychology, though. How people can be told that they’re wrong and they’d rather stay wrong rather than correct their behavior. Maybe it’s just a reluctance to admit they’re wrong. Maybe it’s a pressure to conform to their peers who are also wrong. Maybe it’s just rebellion against authority. “You can’t tell me what to do!”

And yet some of these same people will bitch about others saying, “I could care less,” or about Greek immigrants calling their Mediterranean-spiced meat sauce “Cincinnati chili.”

[83Horn 1637]

So, because you learned to say it incorrectly, you insist everyone else is wrong.  Merely telling people they're wrong without providing any context on why they're wrong is not a very convincing way to convince them they're wrong.  Please explain why you are so insistent that you are correct and everyone else is wrong; and "Because they are", or "Because this is how I learned it" are not convincing arguments.

[Surly Bevo 24686]

You guys don't get it....words can't ever change pronunciation based on the shifting norms of a society 🙄

 

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/60267/10-words-whose-pronunciation-has-changed-over-time

[atomheartbevo 89304]

2 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

It’s not a debate. One way is right. The other is wrong. I went years before I ever heard anyone say it incorrectly.

I went for over 15 years before hearing somebody pronounce it "JIF", because I learned about GIFs in the early 90s (thanks porn!) on BBSes when nobody was around telling people how to say it, and then by the time I was using the internet daily in the late 90s where I could have heard somebody pronounce it the way the inventor wanted it, JPEGs had taken off in popularity.  Outside of "under construction" animated GIFs or the occasional animated porn GIF, I mainly saw/used JPEGs, so GIFs weren't a thing for me again until maybe the last 5-10 years (I tended to shun animation/video-heavy websites until about 5 years ago when I had a smartphone with decent speeds).

That's my theory (in addition to GIFT/Graphcis Interchange Format) for why so many people, especially older people, pronounce it with a hard G.  We didn't have anybody correcting us in the 90s.

But irregardless....

Edited March 25, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[WhatTheBuck 28696]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

I went for over 15 years before hearing somebody pronounce it "JIF", because I learned about GIFs in the early 90s (thanks porn!) on BBSes when nobody was around telling people how to say it, and then by the time I was using the internet daily in the late 90s where I could have heard somebody pronounce it the way the inventor wanted it, JPEGs had taken off in popularity.  Outside of "under construction" animated GIFs or the occasional animated porn GIF, I mainly saw/used JPEGs, so GIFs weren't a thing for me again until maybe the last 5-10 years (I tended to shun animation/video-heavy websites until about 5 years ago when I had a smartphone with decent speeds).

That's my theory (in addition to GIFT/Graphcis Interchange Format) for why so many people, especially older people, pronounce it with a hard G.  We didn't have anybody correcting us in the 90s.

But irregardless....

But now since you know that the correct pronunciation is with a soft ‘g’ then why not change the way you say it? I used to pronounce creek as though it rhymed with brick (that’s where we caught crayfish). Now I pronounce it correctly. Is there some sort of mental block? Would it cause you some psychic pain to decide that you’ve been wrong all this time?

Also, you should turn your phone sideways when you shoot video. 

[Anastasis 23329]

A place for broken brained assholes. 

[TKthunder2 4973]

How do you pronounce Hanukkah or Hawaii or half of the items on the menu of a Mexican restaurant? People say things wrong all the time, that how language evolves.  Once a pronunciation reaches critical mass, insisting you are correct and everyone else is incorrect just makes you a douche.