https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/23/22992066/stephen-wilhite-gif-creator-dies

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Stephen Wilhite, creator of the GIF, has died

New, 29 comments

It's pronounced 'jif'

By Mitchell Clark Mar 23, 2022, 4:02pm EDT

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The 17th Annual Webby Awards - Backstage Wilhite after winning a
Webby Lifetime Achievement award. Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty
Images for The Webby Awards

Stephen Wilhite, one of the lead inventors of the GIF, died last week
from COVID at the age of 74, according to his wife, Kathaleen, who
spoke to The Verge. He was surrounded by family when he passed. His
obituary page notes that "even with all his accomplishments, he
remained a very humble, kind, and good man."

Stephen Wilhite worked on GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, which
is now used for reactions, messages, and jokes, while employed at
CompuServe in the 1980s. He retired around the early 2000s and spent
his time traveling, camping, and building model trains in his
basement.

`"It's pronounced 'jif,' not 'gif'"'

Although GIFs are synonymous with animated internet memes these days,
that wasn't the reason Wilhite created the format. CompuServe
introduced them in the late 1980s as a way to distribute
"high-quality, high-resolution graphics" in color at a time when
internet speeds were glacial compared to what they are today. "He
invented GIF all by himself -- he actually did that at home and
brought it into work after he perfected it," Kathaleen said. "He
would figure out everything privately in his head and then go to town
programming it on the computer."

If you want to go more in-depth into the history of the GIF, the
Daily Dot has a good explainer of how the format became an internet
phenomenon.

While there have been long-standing debates about the correct
pronunciation of the image format, Wilhite was very clear on how he
intended for it to be said. In 2013, he told The New York Times, "The
Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are
wrong. It is a soft 'G,' pronounced 'jif.' End of story."

He reiterated that stance while accepting a Webby Lifetime
Achievement Award for the invention of the GIF later that month,
using an animation to give his acceptance speech. (You can watch the
whole clip of him receiving the award here.) "After 25 years, they
finally honored that achievement that he did," Kathaleen said, adding
that creating the GIF was the thing he was most proud of.

Several messages from former colleagues on his obituary page said
that Stephen also made other important contributions during his time
at CompuServe, describing a hard worker who had a major influence on
the company's success.

After Stephen retired, the couple traveled together. Kathaleen said
that one of the most memorable trips was their honeymoon when they
visited the Grand Canyon. "I had never seen it before, and he wanted
to show it to me," she said fondly. The couple also went camping "all
the time," she said.

While at home, he liked to work on his model train set. "When we had
the house built, we actually had a whole section in the basement for
his train room. He always did the designs and electric work for the
layout," said Kathaleen.

In the Times interview, Wilhite said that one of his favorite GIFs is
the dancing baby meme, which went viral before "memes" and "going
viral" were widely used terms. So here's to you, Mr. Wilhite. Thanks
for creating the image format that made downloading color images over
dial-up bearable before it turned into one of the internet's own
languages.

[gif] [21_baby_cu] One of Wilhite's favorite gifs, according to a
2013 interview. Gif via The New York Times

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