Technical jargon: What does Giphy mean?

If you're wondering what's constantly flickering wildly on the smartphones of the young and young at heart, here's the answer: GIFs. The biggest distributor of these GIFs is Giphy - one of those companies that is not yet 5 years old and is already used millions of times and valued in the billions. One of those companies that is experiencing a rocket rise, first with users, then with investors. And one of these companies that will sooner or later be bought by the Big 5 (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebock, Microsoft). If there weren't suddenly a problem.

Beyond Political Correctness

What does Giphy do exactly? It's an online database and search engine that allows users to search for and share animated GIF files. GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a bitmap image format, effectively the bedrock of the moving image on the Internet, and was developed by the provider CompuServe (who remembers?). It is currently experiencing a revival, or rather an uncontrolled global spread, with the instant messaging services Instagram (founded in 2010), Snapchat (2011) and Slack (2013).First it was the kids who used Snapchat to play wild animations to each other on the playgrounds. Then, via Instagram and Slack, these also found their way into the adult world and advertising agencies. The humor and aesthetics of these short clips are on the level of 5- to 8-year-olds. And anyone who knows children of that age knows that their humor is often free of political correctness.But in the chat world - much like body language in the physical blabber world - GIFs provide a way to express one's emotions nonverbally. For a few days now, however, it's been no fun for now. Instagram and Snapchat have eliminated the service because sexist and racist content has been uploaded. This act of caesura is probably less morally driven than monetarily: Because what's bad for business is eliminated. Even 5-year-olds (companies) understand that.*Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He created the section "Vom Fach" in the NZZ FOLIO and was in charge of it for years. He presents and decodes words and terms that can be used either for small talk, being important, getting excited, playing Scrabble or simply for fun.