Featured Image Credit: Michael Jackson/YouTube/NBC
Topics: Facebook, Social Media
Callum Jones
In a time when emojis and TikToks weren't even a thing, the cool thing to do in the mid 2000s was to send endless GIFs.
The looped animated videos became almost a form of communication for quite some time and believe it or not, they were very much all the range in the early days of social media.
But now, things have changed and even the company that has a database of GIFs have admitted the animated images are 'for boomers'.
That database is none other than Giphy - a search engine that allows allows people to choose from thousands of GIFs based on keywords. The popularity of GIFs has declined rapidly in recent years, however, as the TikTok-making Gen Z generation take over as the primary internet users.
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Giphy even acknowledged the decline of GIFs as an argument when the UK government tried to block a merger with Facebook's parent company, Meta.
In a filing in August, the company said: "There are indications of an overall decline in GIF use. Marketplace commentary and user sentiment towards GIFs on social media shows that they have fallen out of fashion as a content form, with younger users in particular describing GIFs as 'for boomers' and 'cringe'."
That one stung a little, we won't lie...
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Giphy said in the same filing that prior to Meta's firm interest, there was also contact with the likes of Amazon, Apple and Twitter, but nothing materialised from those discussions.
Meta bought Giphy in 2020 for $400 million (£350 million), and since then has integrated the database into many of its services.
Nowadays, GIFs by Giphy are available to use in Instagram stories, Instagram messages, Facebook Messenger, and more for all those unapologetic boomers out there.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said last year the mega-money deal was a potential violation of antitrust laws as it could overpower competition in the social media and digital advertising landscape.
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Giphy's counter argument was that no other company would buy them due to its dwindling popularity.
The CMA told Facebook in November last year it had to sell Giphy after its final report concluded the deal could harm UK social media users and UK advertisers.
However, that report was thrown out the window as the Competition Appeal Tribunal quashed the findings in July this year.
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As GIFs come back into the spotlight as a result of this challenge from the CMA, 'boomers' have been sharing their favourite GIF moments.
One user on Twitter said: "I was in a meeting today where someone (rightly?) said that gifs are boomer s**t and I instantly withered into a husk and crumbled and was carried away into the wind."
A second added: "I just learned how to use reaction gifs and the teenagers are now informing me that gifs are 'cringe'."
So it looks as if GIFs are here to stay, and we aren't at all ashamed to admit we breathed a very long sigh of relief.
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