Can I just rant for 5 minutes about how the majority of the time when I pull up social media and open a trending topic or what have you, 90% of the posts are just people trying to come up with the perfect reaction gif and zinger. I often just close the page without ever knowing what happened, but just seeing the same five images trying to be forced into the same melodramatic reaction joke over and over.
No I really don't need to see the universe mind exploding guy in response to a story about some minor medical survey again. It's been done, thanks.
Youtube comments are the worst for written memes. The smaller or more niche the channel, the less it seems to occur. It's always a breath of fresh air to see informational/interesting comments on the smaller channels (and to have responsive Youtubers). I don't really use FB much so I don't know if it's equally as bad these days, in terms of memes as comments.
Regarding the Show HN, personally I'd like such a repo for WhatsApp conversations, but nothing work-related for the reasons others have mentioned.
Unfortunately it's not just social media. I've seen this creep into programming tutorial articles, including ones that are otherwise high-quality. Time to install a browser add-on to filter this noise out?
Maybe I’m harsh, but I’d say a lot of the point is signaling that one is fashionable, in a sense. Meme styles and popularity changes so fast, it’s like a niche sport keeping up with it.
That is, it’s much less about concisely (or arguably lazily) communicating meaning and more about scoring internet points.
It doesn't bother me as much on social media, as it does on tech articles where other developers are the primary target audience. When I'm at work, I really don't need to see a reaction GIF every 5 paragraphs. Not only does it add nothing to the article, it also makes me uncomfortable, as people might be passing by and see this on my screen. It makes me look unprofessional, and to be honest, it makes the author look unprofessional.
On ocasions it might be an ice breaker. I have started to use a few scenes from movies (not quite reaction gifs) as boundaries on some presentations to make the audience laugh (a bit of relief from very technical topics) and also add a clear boundary where I can ask them "did you all get that? let's move on to another topic then".
Sometimes I've yearned for a 'Serious' checkbox, similar to 'Dark mode'. Depending on mood and context, I'd love to turn off all the cuteness and baby talk I've encountered in error messages and mail responses. Do why really need a pastel rhino crying over a failed banking transaction?
Oh gosh please no. Gifs are fine on Reddit, but I personally don't think they should be used in professional communications. I don't find it humanizes companies so much as it makes it look like they're trying too hard to appear youthful. It's like a parent insisting on repeating an inside joke you had with your friends.
The media/school/professional-env posts on https://www.reddit.com/r/FellowKids/ epitomize this perfectly. I felt facepalmy about this stuff since I was a little kid, so it was nice to find out later in life that it wasn't me, it was them.
Once people adapt to it, that conversion rate of 27% will dwindle, just like click-through rates on banner ads were great in the 90s. It only works while it's novel. Once everyone does it, it's no longer a differentiator.
Have also wondered about this. At this point it must be well understood/accepted that clips this small fall under "fair use" (or else there would have been a major legal sh*tstorm by now) but I would LOVE it if someone could chime in with specifics.
IANAL but basically, yeah this is probably mostly Fair Use.
You consider a few factors to determine if something is Fair Use, like what the work was originally, how much was copied, and what was done with it. For a GIF from a movie that gets put into an email/slack, you're looking at a tiny portion being used in a different format that isn't being sold directly but rather just part of emails.
If a copyright holder cared, they might be able to get an injunction stopping a company from using GIFs of their characters in promotional emails. They probably wouldn't get anything in terms of damages as what harm really occurred? It's not like I saw a gif and didn't need to see the whole movie. There might be statutory damages but those usually require bad faith which would be hard to argue.
StartupGIFs might be less fair use-y though. If they are selling access to the gifs or otherwise using it for marketing purposes, now there is money that can be directly tied to the use of GIF, which is a factor that is considered in Fair Use AND an argument to be used for damages.
You can do whatever the hell you want as long as you’re prepared to face consequences. In the case of sending gifs in an email, someone will first have to litigate you and then get to some kind of financial settlement/award. Then you gotta convince the other party to pay up / try and collect. The juice ain’t worth the squeeze. So yeah, you can.
The answer is no, a company cannot legally just send any old gif containing copyright material. The only time it’s automatically legal is when the copyrights holder gives explicit license or permission. Under the Fair Use doctrine, it depends on what the source material is, how much of it is used, whether it damages the copyright holder’s ability to make money, whether the infringement is for commercial or non-profit purposes, etc..
A company is really unlikely to get sued for one or a few GIFs though, because there is an absolute deluge of minor copyright violations on the internet. If your entire business model depends completely on distributing minor copyright violations, you might be at risk for legal trouble...
Some companies do actively defend their copyrights and are actively suing over GIFs and YouTube clips. There are brands that you don’t see in most GIF collections. Many companies don’t bother, or don’t have the money to bother, or can’t stop the flood, or don’t want to piss off the public who thinks that anything they can find in digital form can be legally distributed on social media. For some companies, they might like it and view it as free advertising.
I'm morbidly curious to know how many emails have actually signed up to be notified of a new gif. Seems like you can't throw a compressed jpeg without hitting a web page asking for an email address to "be notified" of the new thing high atop the whatever.
I'm old enough to have written a gif decoder and for my effort receiced a threatening mail from Unisys, demanding protection money USD 10000 up front, which absurdity - after consultation with my national patent office - I laughed off and ignored.
Back then I didn't imagine I would one day come to almost wish the Unishysters had in fact managed killing the damn format off for good.
It seems insensitive to communicate an outage to a customer using an animated gif. If I’m paying for and/or depend on your service, i would like to know that you’re taking the issue seriously.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadNo I really don't need to see the universe mind exploding guy in response to a story about some minor medical survey again. It's been done, thanks.
Regarding the Show HN, personally I'd like such a repo for WhatsApp conversations, but nothing work-related for the reasons others have mentioned.
With regards to small youtubers, you can occasionally have an actually Q/A in comments.
Universe mind exploding guy haha...what you need to see is some Tim and Eric ;) https://youtu.be/FYJ1dbyDcrI
That is, it’s much less about concisely (or arguably lazily) communicating meaning and more about scoring internet points.
A few emoticons or emoji? Fine. Reaction gifs in business email? Ehhh, no thanks.
Sigh. Just write yer email and gimme the info short and sharp. Don't bulk up my inbox with 99% image dross, it look amateurish and plain sad.
I see so many companies doing it, even tweeting it.
You consider a few factors to determine if something is Fair Use, like what the work was originally, how much was copied, and what was done with it. For a GIF from a movie that gets put into an email/slack, you're looking at a tiny portion being used in a different format that isn't being sold directly but rather just part of emails.
If a copyright holder cared, they might be able to get an injunction stopping a company from using GIFs of their characters in promotional emails. They probably wouldn't get anything in terms of damages as what harm really occurred? It's not like I saw a gif and didn't need to see the whole movie. There might be statutory damages but those usually require bad faith which would be hard to argue.
StartupGIFs might be less fair use-y though. If they are selling access to the gifs or otherwise using it for marketing purposes, now there is money that can be directly tied to the use of GIF, which is a factor that is considered in Fair Use AND an argument to be used for damages.
A company is really unlikely to get sued for one or a few GIFs though, because there is an absolute deluge of minor copyright violations on the internet. If your entire business model depends completely on distributing minor copyright violations, you might be at risk for legal trouble...
Some companies do actively defend their copyrights and are actively suing over GIFs and YouTube clips. There are brands that you don’t see in most GIF collections. Many companies don’t bother, or don’t have the money to bother, or can’t stop the flood, or don’t want to piss off the public who thinks that anything they can find in digital form can be legally distributed on social media. For some companies, they might like it and view it as free advertising.
But I'm with you — GIFs at work are for birthday greetings. Maybe.
https://www.startupgifs.com/gifs/4736f47b854
I'm morbidly curious to know how many emails have actually signed up to be notified of a new gif. Seems like you can't throw a compressed jpeg without hitting a web page asking for an email address to "be notified" of the new thing high atop the whatever.
[1] The trend of having blog posts where there's a reaction gif after every other paragraph
Adding a gif to an e-mail you sent me is a sure way to make me not respond.