GIFs stands for Graphical Interface Format. It is a combination of images to make a simple animation. We use GIFs in our daily chats, group chats, stories, etc., as it is the most convenient way to show our reactions. Marketers make GIFs to spread their brand awareness, and users enjoy the updated and latest GIFs.
Importance of GIFs in recent years
GIFs were invented in 1987 and became famous worldwide by 1995. Now GIFs are part of daily conversations and memes. According to the latest survey by Giphy, there are about 500 million daily users on its GIF platform. GIFs are primarily used in those platforms that only share videos or take a little time to send or receive videos. However, these are very convenient as you can get any reaction, movie dialogues, or stills with a single keyword. Moreover, memes have been part of our social media entertainment for a long time. GIFs have become essential for meme makers as they give life to the post without consuming their time. From posts to comment sections, GIFs go hand in hand with both creators and the audience.
How do you Pronounce GIF?
The pronunciation of GIFs has been a topic of debate for a long while. Few suggest that it is pronounced as it is written, while some say it is pronounced as “JIF.” The debate ended when the GIF maker, Steve Wilhite, said the correct pronunciation is “JIF.” However, many experts still need help finding it correct. Hence, the Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations.
A Few Viral GIFs in Recent Years
Wait a minute! Who are you? Who doesn’t know this GIF? This was a trend on Twitter and Doge GIFs. Donald Trump GIFs are one of the most viral GIFs in recent times. Furthermore, you would have also noticed many other celebrities and other shows GIFs like Leonardo DiCaprio and the evergreen show “FRIENDS” GIFs, which are users’ all-time favorite ones. Many GIFs have become parts of our daily life, like peach Mocha, a cute cat couple, or you can also consider Iron Man’s ‘Love you 3000’ dialogue. The trend of GIFs keeps changing but always stays in our conversation. Have you ever noticed GIFs play a vital role in making meme virals? You can use a single GIF with so many different contexts. Now the GIF sites themselves have added unique features to customize images into GIFs or write texts on GIFs, images, etc., which has become very helpful for the meme makers to give their audience a good laugh. GIFs make it easy to convey your reaction. Type the movie or dialogue, and your text is ready with the same energy you want. If you are searching for the best free GIF sites, let us help you. Here are some of the best GIF sites you must visit to send your friends the best updated and latest GIFs and also make memes.
Giphy
Giphy is a well-known American GIFs provider that allows users to search, share, and make small, no-sound animation files called GIFs. In the beginning, this site was used only as a search engine to find the best GIFs for the user, but later, with more use, they added many more features. According to the site’s founders, Giphy is a “conversational search.” This is the most common site which provides GIFs in our keyboards GIFs section to have a soulful and reactive conversation. Soon Giphy became part of Facebook and allowed users to find and share the best GIFs on Facebook in a single click. Now Giphy allows users to search, make, and share GIFs, and they also launched their own app in 2015. Giphy has so much influence in the digital world that it is also used for social media marketing and spreading brand awareness better. Giphy has become a convenient tool for business marketers. It has all the vital content creation features for the users to create their GIFs in a fraction of the time. This site has dramatically taken over GIFs through partnerships with famous brands like Disney, Calvin Klein, Pepsi, etc.
Tenor
While using or surfing for the best GIFs, you would have seen a few with a watermark in the left corner written as by ‘tenor.com.’ Tenor is an online GIFs search engine owned by none other than Google. And who isn’t familiar with Tenor’s GIFs keyboard? Tenor is available on Android, iOS, and Mac too. The platform was limited before, but after getting acquired by Google now, this site provides GIFs to mostly all parent apps and has partnered with the micro-blog app Twitter too. Tenor is a free site for users to get the best GIFs as per the situation and revive the conversation. The search engine of the site is beneficial. If you type a dog, it gives suggestions like a cute dog, angry dog, sad dog, etc. Tenor will now charge money from GIF makers to spread and let people use their GIFs. If you are a person who wants to make a blog, site, or Instagram account colorful or attractive, then this is best for you.
Gfycat
Like it’s a cute name, this site also has a cute logo. Gfycat is an online web platform allowing users to upload and host short video content on Android and iOS. This site was founded in 2015 and soon became popular, and now it integrates with many famous social media sites like Tango, Microsoft Outlook, Skype, etc. What makes this site different from others is its language support. This site supports many languages like Russian, Spanish, Korean, etc. Moreover, it is primarily designed for the age group between 18 to 35. Gfycat has brought a significant change in GIFs. Where traditional GIFs are slow and have only 256 color palettes, this site offers millions of colors with fast speed, and you can also save the file in multiple formats. Furthermore, this site has changed the view of URLs too. They have creative and easy-to-remember URLs, making it easy for users to use and remember them. Now Gfycat has been acquired by the well-known social media platform called Snapchat. This site has a very user-friendly interface that also offers memes and short videos besides GIFs. Overall, this is the best spot if you want to embed, download, share, or link any images or videos.
Imgur
Imgur, pronounced as “imager,” is an online image-sharing and hosting platform integrated with many popular social media sites like Reddit, Twitter, and Digg. The platform is also called “the magic of the internet,” which justifies this as this site is popular and different from other platforms due to its easy and flexible use. Imgur allows users to host images in various formats, whether GIF files, advertisements, or anything. On this site, users can upload any picture regardless of their size, and it also provides the users with the primary crop, resize, and rotate tools. This site is also famous for its fantastic meme generator tool, which allows you to add custom text and a wide variety of images to easily keep fun and entertainment on the internet alive. This site is most suggested for B2C content creators, and the site tools can help them in marketing and connecting with a targeted audience. Imgur is a fantastic mobile and desktop website where you can find, make, and host images quickly, and it’s best if you are a meme lover and want to kill time on the internet.
Reaction GIFs
The subtitle of this platform itself says, “Say it with a GIF!” Reaction GIFs are a quick and easy source to find the best GIFs based on your situation. This site is less advanced than other sites like Giphy or Imgur. But it is instrumental if you want to find energetic and funny GIFs in seconds to share on social media or with your friend in text because of its excellent search engine. Reaction GIFs are now a form of communication that combines a loop of bodies in motion. This site can get you all types of GIFs, and you are just one click away from finding the best one.
GifBin
If you are a person who loves old classic themes, then GifBin is the best place for you. This site has its team members create GIFs and collections of GIFs from different sites too. Hence, you can get a massive number of GIFs in one place. You can find many GIFs here in a fraction of the time as this site is very well organized. You can find your GIFs either category-wise or as per keyword. However, this site doesn’t provide advanced features like Giphy and Imgur, but this site is highly suggested if you want GIFs only for fun and chats. This platform is also suitable for killing time, as they have numerous funny videos and short clips for entertainment.
Who doesn’t know about Reddit? It is an online platform where people discuss and update news, reviews, and information about everything happening on the internet. There has been a great craze on Reddit recently, as you can find anything on any topic here from a real audience. The information here is neither paid nor written by writers. Reddit became cooler after it updated its policy by allowing users to use GIFs. This site allows users to reply with GIFs in user-created boards called subreddits. However, a person should follow specific rules, but it’s fun and helpful for everyone. Reddit allows users to use high-quality GIFs which are integrated with Giphy. It offers plenty of animated and categorized GIF options for choosing one according to emotions. Hence, this shows the craze of Reddit and the active users.
GifCities
As its name suggests, it is a web city filled with numerous GIFs. GifCities is a project of the old Yahoo-acquired site called GeoCities. GeoCities has been one of the oldest internet site platforms for 20 years, allowing users to build web pages. However, the site was soon closed. But while closing, they started the project called GifCities. While doing this project, the team collected approximately 4,500,00 animated GIFs and images in 1999 when GIFs weren’t in the trend as they are today. The site has worked and developed a great search engine that each GIF directly links to the original GeoCities page where it was made and linked. Hence, this site is best for you if you are old-school or want to find classic GIFs and images. It can send you to the old retro time in just a few clicks.
GIFDB
GIFDB is a new free GIFs website with easy access to all kinds of GIFs. You can find many GIFs previewed in a well-categorized format when you enter the page. The site owners prioritize humor over everything. GIFDB has a collection of hilarious GIFs and videos as they hire employees with the best sense of humor to make funny GIFs for their users. This site is free to use, and you can share and download any GIFs and images without any hazardous process.
Conclusion
GIFs have become a part of our daily routine. It acts as a bridge to connect our reactions with animated soundless clips. GIFs make the conversation exciting and also helps the opposite to understand your emotions and reaction better than emojis. Emojis may create confusion in an individual’s mind, but GIFs always show the proper reaction in a moment. We all are blessed to be born in a generation where the internet has made everything easy. You can get any GIFs from one or the other free site. You may also explore some best YouTube to GIF converters.