 Hi, I'm Paul Thaverge. I'm at the Museum of the Moving Image with Jason, an assistant curator here. And you do a lot of the digital media stuff, right? Exactly, yes. And you've got gifts. I've got gifts. I've got a wall of gifts for you. Are these the first gifts that you've placed in this museum? They're the first ones that have been here since I've been here. I was just watching upstairs a little Charlie Chaplin flip book. Sure. And it was a lot of sight gags, a lot of pratfall. A little similar, right? Which is a lot of what gifts are. Yeah. I mean, you know, gifts are maybe even sort of like a new kind of flip book, you know, like a very short five second story or something. So these are part of a Photoshop thread on something awful that was called What Tripped El Haji D'Youf. El Haji D'Youf is a soccer player who played for the Rangers. And so he was clobbered by an opponent. Right. Actually, so you have the original here, right? Yeah, the original is over here. Because it was posted by Tiffen, who actually lives in Brooklyn, who sort of mysteriously said I'm not allowed, I'm legally not allowed to actually touch photo manipulation software. When he posted this, and he said, but here's the thing I found, and I would love to see this one and this one together. And then said, I would love to see what everyone at Something Awful could do. Over 100 entries came in, inserting pop culture, video games, site gags. What's crazy to me is that I've seen almost all of these. I used to go to Fark.com a lot, these Photoshop threads, similarly, where somebody erases everything for you. Somebody cuts just the guy out so that he can be in any setting, like in Solitaire. There's one where it's just the ball, right? Yeah, over here. I love these meta. This almost starts to seem really artistic. Exactly. How esoteric do you get with this is a new medium or anything like that? What I'm interested in is how people are using these tools to communicate on a daily basis. Because these tools are so cheap and so readily available, we're finding that people are just using this as another tool to tell jokes or have a conversation. And that's what I think is really interesting about this thread, is it tells a story of a bunch of people who don't claim to be artists. They don't have titles, they're not aspiring to any lofty goals. I think also one of the other interesting things about GIFs for me is how they're used, especially on Reddit, to respond to a post instead of writing, I like this, or this is going to get good. They're these sort of canonized GIFs. It's like a new emoticon. Yes, exactly.
 Hi, I'm Paul Thaverge.
 I'm at the Museum of the Moving Image with Jason, an assistant curator here.
 And you do a lot of the digital media stuff, right?
 Exactly, yes.
 And you've got gifts.
 I've got gifts.
 I've got a wall of gifts for you.
 Are these the first gifts that you've placed in this museum?
 They're the first ones that have been here since I've been here.
 I was just watching upstairs a little Charlie Chaplin flip book.
 Sure.
 And it was a lot of sight gags, a lot of pratfall.
 A little similar, right?
 Which is a lot of what gifts are.
 Yeah.
 I mean, you know, gifts are maybe even sort of like a new kind of flip book, you know,
 like a very short five second story or something.
 So these are part of a Photoshop thread on something awful that was called What Tripped
 El Haji D'Youf.
 El Haji D'Youf is a soccer player who played for the Rangers.
 And so he was clobbered by an opponent.
 Right.
 Actually, so you have the original here, right?
 Yeah, the original is over here.
 Because it was posted by Tiffen, who actually lives in Brooklyn, who sort of mysteriously
 said I'm not allowed, I'm legally not allowed to actually touch photo manipulation software.
 When he posted this, and he said, but here's the thing I found, and I would love to see
 this one and this one together.
 And then said, I would love to see what everyone at Something Awful could do.
 Over 100 entries came in, inserting pop culture, video games, site gags.
 What's crazy to me is that I've seen almost all of these.
 I used to go to Fark.com a lot, these Photoshop threads, similarly, where somebody erases
 everything for you.
 Somebody cuts just the guy out so that he can be in any setting, like in Solitaire.
 There's one where it's just the ball, right?
 Yeah, over here.
 I love these meta.
 This almost starts to seem really artistic.
 Exactly.
 How esoteric do you get with this is a new medium or anything like that?
 What I'm interested in is how people are using these tools to communicate on a daily basis.
 Because these tools are so cheap and so readily available, we're finding that people are just
 using this as another tool to tell jokes or have a conversation.
 And that's what I think is really interesting about this thread, is it tells a story of
 a bunch of people who don't claim to be artists.
 They don't have titles, they're not aspiring to any lofty goals.
 I think also one of the other interesting things about GIFs for me is how they're used,
 especially on Reddit, to respond to a post instead of writing, I like this, or this is
 going to get good.
 They're these sort of canonized GIFs.
 It's like a new emoticon.
 Yes, exactly.