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Jan. 5th, 2023 10:55 amone social phenomenon that feels like it's massively changed in the last ~5 years is who uses .gifs in the (east coast) corporate workplace. (i say east coast because there is a huge documented cultural difference vs them and silly valley & west coast, with east coast corps being more the traditionally "stuffy"/professional/buttoned up ones. think banking, military, "family friendly" firms.)
this feels significant b/c tumblr always felt like the epicentre of the internet where the usage of gifs as reaction images/mood tones started, like, way back in '12 or slightly earlier. the chan boards didn't really do gifs, twitter was short text, facebook, it just ... wasn't a thing? if anything those other sites mocked tumblr for them. and uh, tumblr is not corporate, culturally lmao.
i distinctly remembered there was 0 gif usage in my own workplace back in '16-'17. '18-'19, one or two coworkers and I who were both definitely On Tumblr used them in the private chat. it still felt a little edgy then, thumbin' the nose at ~corporate professionalism~ in that absolutely useless way that feels good still.
then 2020 covid happened, and given the massive move to remote + all these enterprise chat apps now having gif options by default, boom, they went everywhere. not all at once, but i started noticing a lot more public ones even early on in that april-may. first in the "water cooler" group chats, then starting to be more daring in the larger ones where managers/VP'slurked underwater like alligators resided. i remember the culture shock i had when my VP sent me one for the first time as a reaction lmao.
here in the year of our lord 2023, not only do I (a manager) use them in the general chat, my ex-boss did, and my current VP who's like, two rungs down from frickin' big daddy CEO, also loves using them. (granted, we're all designers by trade (which in east coast corp parlance, are the Colorful Weirdos.) but.
man, that's a big change! from tumblr to corporations in roughly 5 years!
this feels significant b/c tumblr always felt like the epicentre of the internet where the usage of gifs as reaction images/mood tones started, like, way back in '12 or slightly earlier. the chan boards didn't really do gifs, twitter was short text, facebook, it just ... wasn't a thing? if anything those other sites mocked tumblr for them. and uh, tumblr is not corporate, culturally lmao.
i distinctly remembered there was 0 gif usage in my own workplace back in '16-'17. '18-'19, one or two coworkers and I who were both definitely On Tumblr used them in the private chat. it still felt a little edgy then, thumbin' the nose at ~corporate professionalism~ in that absolutely useless way that feels good still.
then 2020 covid happened, and given the massive move to remote + all these enterprise chat apps now having gif options by default, boom, they went everywhere. not all at once, but i started noticing a lot more public ones even early on in that april-may. first in the "water cooler" group chats, then starting to be more daring in the larger ones where managers/VP's
here in the year of our lord 2023, not only do I (a manager) use them in the general chat, my ex-boss did, and my current VP who's like, two rungs down from frickin' big daddy CEO, also loves using them. (granted, we're all designers by trade (which in east coast corp parlance, are the Colorful Weirdos.) but.
man, that's a big change! from tumblr to corporations in roughly 5 years!
