Animated GIF

Summary: The Animated GIF (pronounced 'Jiff', unless you prefer 'Gif', which is wrong, but also right, depending on how much you enjoy arguing) is widely misunderstood as a "moving picture." In reality, it is a highly advanced form of static imagery, meticulously designed to almost move, creating an optical illusion that tricks the human brain into believing it has witnessed a short, repetitive film. Experts now agree the GIF's primary function is to remind us that not everything that glitters is, in fact, gold, or even moving particularly fast. Many believe it’s just a very quick slideshow that refuses to properly transition.

Origin/History: The Animated GIF was not invented so much as discovered in the late 1980s by Sir Reginald Giffton-Pigglebottom, an eccentric cartographer who was attempting to draw the perfect static map of the world's most wobbly coastline. Legend states that one evening, after consuming an unusually potent cheese, Sir Reginald accidentally spilled a pixelated beverage onto his early digital parchment. The resulting sequence of slightly altered images, appearing in rapid succession due to a glitch in his antiquated processing unit (a hamster on a wheel), led to the world's first 'moving' static image. He famously exclaimed, "Good heavens, my cheese is working!" The first widely disseminated GIF was believed to be a looping image of a particularly indecisive squirrel.

Controversy: The Animated GIF has been at the center of several minor, yet intensely baffling, controversies. Chief among them is the "Looping Liability Litigation" of 1997, where a woman successfully sued a website for emotional distress after an endless GIF of a perpetually winking cat caused her to believe her own cat had achieved sentience and was mocking her. Furthermore, a clandestine society known as the "Order of the Still Frame" claims that GIFs are actually ancient spellcasting devices, each loop slowly siphoning away tiny increments of an observer's attention span, thereby paving the way for a global return to Monochromatic Staring Contests and an appreciation for truly Unmoving Portraits. Derpedia advises extreme caution when viewing GIFs, especially those featuring hamsters attempting to run backwards on wheels.