I can't seem to remember how it used to be, in a world without gifs and memes. A lot has changed, it almost felt like these things have always been around. I remember in those years, all we had was boring text and some weird emojis. Everything changed when social media became more prominent, out manner of texting evolved from what used to be just a text, we learnt how to communicate through some unexpected manner of illustration.
I would like to call it illustrative communication. With emojis, it was bearable but with gifs, it wasn't about texting anymore. With gifs, a person could convey a message without actually saying anything. That is the thing about model of communication, as long as the receiver is able to decode the message, then whatever was sent has done what is needed. I have chatted with some of my friends and all we key using was gifs, it demonstrated our thoughts in ways text might not.
Apart from gifs being more illustrative than text, it is not hindered by illiteracy. Even if you can't make sense of all English words, with gifs; you don't need to be professor to get the gist. All you need is eyes and your mind will decode the rest. This is another aspect of communication brought to life through gifs but it didn't stop there.
We also have memes, which used to be just pictures and caption, till it could be used for something far more entertaining. All that is needed is a picture that perfectly portrays a caption. Adding the necessary caption to it an using it when needed, you have already crafted the perfect meme. With meme, you don't have to go around capturing live reactions from people, it might be a picture from a scene in a movie.
In fact, people use memes for content creation to prove how widely accepted they have become,I have come across sme content that is just compilation of memes. What would a world without gifs and memes feel like, definitely boring. I don't know about most people, there are times when I want to say something to someone but I don't know what to say, all I have to do is search and get a gifs that agrees with what I have in mind. Just like that, the person gets the message. There are times when I want to pass a message but I don't want it to look too serious, with gifs, it is very easy to apply euphemism.
Memes can make you laugh all day without spending a penny watching comedy shows. My favorite source of meme is X, some people are so creative with meme, you would wonder how they were able to craft it. They are simple and can be about anything. Memes are also used for advertising, so it is not about chatting only, people in the advertising and marketing field also make use of memes to communicate vital message to their audience.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled Memes and Gifs in hive learners community.
Cover Image - generated using chatgpt
