"It's pronounced JIF, not GIF."
Of course, in the grand tradition of heated debate, a flat statement of fact by the creator wasn't enough to sway some partisans. On Twitter, "GIF" became a trending topic as some folks pushed back.
"Graphics Interchange Format. Graphics. Not Jraphics. #GIF #hardg," wrote Web designer Dan Cederholm.
"So instead of GIF, we've got to say JIF? YEAH RIGHT," chimed in October Jones, creator of the "Texts From Dog" Tumblr and book. "And I suppose those animals with long necks are called 'JIRAFFES.'"
And, of course, the peanut butter brand was getting lots of free publicity along the way. The always amusing HAL 9000 account (yes, somebody tweets as the robot from "2001") posted an "animated JIF" -- which is to say, a swirling, animated jar of the tasty, high-protein spread.
So, it's perhaps no surprise that the company got into the act itself. Wednesday afternoon, the company took to Twitter with a post reading, "It's pronounced Jif® ." The tweet linked to, what else, a multi-colored GIF flashing the same phrase.
Animated GIFs were a staple of the early Internet. Remember The Dancing Baby? That's a GIF.
They fell out of favor as more advanced graphics technology emerged. But in the past couple of years, the Web has remembered how much fun it is to watch ridiculous things happen over and over again." - Doug Gross, CNN
Thoughts?
