Creator Of The GIF Dies Of COVID At Age 74

The Independent reports:

The man who created the GIF has died from Covid-19 at the age of 74, his family has confirmed. Stephen Wilhite came up with Graphics Interchange Format, which are now used for animated internet memes and jokes, when he worked for CompuServe in the 1980s.

“Even with all his accomplishments, he remained a very humble, kind, and good man,” his obituary reads. In 2013, before he received a a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award, he told The New York Times that for years people had not been properly pronouncing the name of his creation.

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story,” he clarified.

Read the full article.

Stephen Wilhite, creator of the ‘GIF,’ dies at 74 https://t.co/mv7TZ8NbVZ via @nbcnews

— Tim Perone (@timperone) March 23, 2022

rip Stephen Wilhite #gif pic.twitter.com/u5oLqu22UB

— ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@pixelastronaut) March 23, 2022