GIF-ted and Talent: TV in the Age of the GIF
Since launching in 2013, Giphy has amassed a library of over 7 billion GIFs and hundreds of millions of users. GIFs are an essential part of online conversation and within group chats and on Twitter they are a veritable lingua franca enabling boundless discussion. A GIF can both perfectly turn a point into a point well made or entirely remove the need for text at all, instead capturing emotion in a single, looping clip.
And where is a large part of this library sourced? Whilst cute animals and funny kids seem to make up a large part of the GIF-osphere (a 21st century replacement to You’ve Been Framed), TV has provided its fair share of material. Amongst Giphy’s most viewed GIFs of 2018 are Cardi B being Cardi B on Jimmy Fallon and Tyra Banks on America’s Next Top Model being Tyra Banks. Though organic moments from unscripted shows, they demonstrate the connection between GIFs and TV and what a valuable roleTV plays in modern communication. Whilst TV moments were once discussed on work and school breaks, now they are transmitted directly to you.
Aside from these recent examples, TV has been a heavy player in the GIF game since the start. Dawson off of Dawson’s Creek crying is perhaps one of the more memorable GIFs for its sheer ability to convey such an ugly (and hilarious) sadness. Meanwhile Friends, as well as being on of Netflix’s most watched programmes, is also one of the most GIF-able with 10 seasons of one liners for every occasion. Importantly for these two 90s staples, the rise in GIFs has helped them to find longevity online and has potentially helped to maintain their place in contemporary culture.
But how does this impact contemporary TV production, if at all? And importantly, how does this interact with the behaviour of younger audiences. Though the impact may be minimal, online behaviour is certainly something TV producers and traditional broadcasters are and should be paying attention to. According to the recent IPA touchpoints survey, a fifth of 16–34 year olds chosen “media day” is taken up by TV. However, this is surpassed slightly by time chosen to be spent on social media which makes up a quarter of young people’s day. Combine this with the 18% of their time that they are spending on messaging sites and apps and you have a larger proportion of the day being chosen to be spent away from TV and on those sites where GIFs feature heavily.
Last year, Tony Hall of the BBC said that iPlayer and the BBC had lost out to streaming giants in capturing the attention of younger audiences, with streaming services being vastly preferred. But as well as this, there has perhaps been an underestimation of the power of social media. It is undeniable that younger audiences are more likely to be spending time on these channels. According to Ipsos MORI’s Tech Tracker, 3 in 5 15–24 year olds are have used Snapchat in the past 3 months compared to just one in five of all GB adults. Similarly and unsurprisingly, this group has higher usage of Twitter and Instagram. Contemporary culture for younger people is being actively engaged with via these channels as opposed to just passively consumed on TV. But GIFs potentially offer an in for traditional TV to play a role in younger people’s media day and insert themselves into this dialogue.
We have seen this with recent standout TV successes and how GIFs not only insert TV programmes into online conversation but also enhance the broader experiences of the programme. Love Island ammasses huge viewing figures, whilst the following day sees key moments captured and disseminated online. Similarly, Game of Thrones has produced its fair share off GIF-worthy moments, aside from the anachronistic drinking vessels that featured so heavily on its final season. However, for unscripted programmes such as Love Island those moments which are considered GIF-worthy can be considered pure accident. And Game of Thrones already held such a strong place in contemporary culture that the moments that made it to GIF were just supporting assets. For new programmes then, is there a way of engineering content for the GIF generation in order to attain online relevancy?
Arguably, yes. Whilst we are apparently in the midst of a “golden age” of television, good TV does not necessarily mean GIF-able. For this, you need specific moments within programmes that distil an emotion into a single moment of television. Big Little Lies has perhaps been one of the best recent examples of this. Though undeniably aided by a stellar cast of well-established actors, Big Little Lies has also delivered pithy one liners in its most recent season that are ripe for duplication online. Even before the season aired, images of Reese Witherspoon’s character launching an ice cream at Meryl Streep’s were causing a buzz. Meanwhile, Laura Dern’s character — neurotic and driven mother Renatta — has been a gold mine in season two. Her frustration over her daughters anxiety attack leads to the exaggerated exclamation “Make sure they know my daughter is in a coma”. There is a certain engineering in these moments that enable them to have resonance and be disseminated in only the way GIFs can.
American programmes have perhaps best capitalised on contemporary culture in this way. Broad City and Insecure are both examples of shows that have both reflected contemporary culture but then have also been duplicated online and found themselves in GIFs. Similarly Fleabag in the UK has been able to capture and garner online attention based on Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s accurate and pointed social observations.
And this is perhaps the key for TV producers who are looking to attract a younger audience who are becoming more elusive and whose tastes and viewing behaviours are changing. By creating shows that are not only culturally relevant but can also be duplicated or reborn online, television programmes can attain a relevancy in an environment that is fractured and where cut through is difficult. Though manufacturing these moments may be difficult, it is impossible for those creating programmes to ignore where and how younger audiences are spending their time. You may be have gifted script writers and actors, but relevancy comes from being GIF-ted today.
