Stephen Wilhite, creator of the GIF, dies at 74

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The_Heretic

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"Stephen Wilhite, the creator of the looping animated GIF image format, died this month.

The death was confirmed in an obituary, which said Wilhite, one the chief architect of America Online, died March 14 — just days after his 74th birthday on March 3. He died of Covid, his wife, Kathaleen, confirmed.

Wilhite began his career at Compuserve, the first major commercial online service provider.

In 1987, while at Compuserve, he created the Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, to compress images to make them accessible for early modem speeds.

Years later, it became social media's primary method of conveying emotion and memetic communication. The GIF format has been used as a convenient way to show graphs, drawings and simple animations.

In the early 2010s, the format exploded. Whether it was Jasmine Masters from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” saying “And I oop-” or Kermit the Frog drinking Lipton tea, there was no shortage of expression that could be conveyed by Wilhite’s GIF."

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/stephen-wilhite-creator-gif-dies-74-rcna21287
 
To be honest, I never really understood the controversy.
He made it...he gets to name it. Pretty simple.

As others said - another Pioneer lost.
RIP
 
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