Do GIFs Count as a Language?

Arts and Humanities

Do GIFs Count as a Language?

Mar 17, 2014

NO JOKE: If a picture is a thousand words, then how much is a GIF worth? Quartz spotlights two MIT graduate students who want to turn GIFs into a language. Visitors to the website, comically named GIFGIF, are shown two images and asked to choose which one best shows expresses a particular emotion. The goal, according to the creators, "is to create a visual database of emotions." The creators say an ESL teacher is using GIFGIF to teach students about emotions; another uses GIFs to get around her school's YouTube filter.

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