Homework 2: GIF Paragraphs

Like the internet that spawned them, GIFs are a relatively new phenomenon that have practically exploded onto the scene in the short time since their creation. They are not quite a picture and not quite a video, rather a hybrid between the two that can only really exist in a digital medium. Their purposes are many: some capture short scenes, others evoke emotions, and some are simply humorous to look at. They can be beautiful, frightening, nonsensical, emotional, or a mixture of any of these. They are easy to find and share, and can serve to add tone or emotion to a bland text post, or even tell tiny stories of their own. Go on any discussion forum or browse the comments section of an image-sharing site, and you'll find that they are often full of "reaction GIFs" serving these exact purposes. In a nutshell, they are fun.

And yes, in some cases GIFs can be seen as having artistic value. The effort poured into works such as these gorgeous 8-bit-esque GIF landscapes is plain to see. There's something special about being able to capture a moment and repeat it indefinitely, studying every detail and absorbing it fully into your memory. GIFs allow for the preservation and sharing of such moments, potentially even calling into question the very concept of time, at least in the electronic realm if not the physical world.

However, the idea that GIFs are the latest and greatest form of art, that recording a few seconds of something "deep" and "meaningful", stripping it of sound (not to mention visual quality, in many cases) and calling it fine art, is ridiculous. While many GIFs may be pretty to look at, is a GIF of a model dancing in another model's hand really on equal footing with some of the works hanging in the Louvre, or any other classic galleries? Does a medium's newness automatically mean that it is good? I don't believe it does.The idea of GIFs (which are often freely available for viewing and download online) being sold for thousands of dollars is even stranger than the idea of them being considered fine art. The Internet's backbone is shared and open content, making a GIF somehow exclusive to one person removes it from it's own origin, like taking a fish out of water. The concept of GIF graffiti is equally odd, and appears at it's core to be little more than an attempt at grabbing a confused bystander's attention (as well as a waste of money--iPads aren't cheap).

GIFs are fun, but the vast majority of them are not fine art, and to be honest, to me it sounds an awful lot like snobs with too much money and too little common sense attempting to stay on what they believe to be the cutting edge of "art".