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Ask HN: Why do software tutorials use meaningless GIFs?

4 points by fakedang ↗ HN
I'm building a few hobby projects in what is a new language for me, so the first step was to search for tutorials online. But it seems to be a trend to use gifs from movies and elsewhere to populate whitespace in most tutorials and videos. As someone who is an outsider, what is the reason for this? Well if it is to add a touch of humor to the video or blog post, it certainly doesn't work - on the contrary, it's irritating and distracting.

5 comments

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ctrlmeta
I don't understand it either! Unrelated GIFs in the middle of a tutorial looks silly and distracting. The same antipattern is seen in many tech articles too when they add a "hero image" to the article. The "hero image" almost always is a generic image that does not add anything valuable to the article.
bediger4000
I think this is a symptom of a larger problem. Raspberry Pi tutorials don't have an unrelated GIF problem, but they do have a copied content problem. Mistakes just get reproduced.

I suspect both of these problems are a consequence of trying to monetize everything via advertising. Looking slick and funny is a way to get clicks,and getting clicks increases ad revenue.

f1shy
I think is part of a bigger problem, maybe related to how people learn to write. In the school and university, the paperwork that comes with science projects, for example, gets better notes (or at least puts the TA in better humor) if it is "pimped" with graphs, pictures, etc.

If you make a sober, LaTeX report, TAs are usually not impressed. Not always, but I've seen some ridiculous things...