i was asked the question: are animated GIFs the stuff of junior high-school hijinks or, are they the political cartoons of the new millenium? What do you think?

i think this angel shooting an arrow into a pink butt might be significant in helping us come up with an answer to this one…

if you have to ask me my professional opinion [and by “professional opinion” i mean my opinion] i would have to go with the latter – in the same vein as “cute animal videos” and “animal quotes or message posters” i have not been overly impressed with the animated gif phase of the interwebnet [and then all the people left? why? i kinda implied something bad about animals or pictures of animals – that never goes down well. oh. don’t you want to save the orangutangs? look, i am NOT going there again… and i love World of Birds just for the record!]

at their most, they can be slightly amusing and raise a smile, but they’re not going to be making me snort liquids through my mouth any time soon [the benchmark sign of appreciative humour] and so i would have to categorise them way more heavily as junior high-school hijinks.

or weird… some of them are just plain weird – bring in the exhibits:

and if that does not convince you, then there is ‘chasing rose’ which to me is a little bit freaky and reminds me of some kind of horror movie where the protagonist is this thorny love rose who is coming in for the hug…

i’m not quite sure we’re at “the political cartoons of the new millenium” just yet… [give me a break!]

so perhaps, if we are all very, very quiet then they will get bored and fade quietly into the distance and we can pretend they never happened… think this is likely? as likely as a stoppage to “cute” cat and other animal pictures, as likely as Aragorn ‘one does not simply think animated gifs are the political hijinks of the future’ posts and as likely as Gangnam style pop star Psy not appearing on any awards show stage in the next twelve months…

let’s face it, they are here to stay, but just because that is true does not mean we should look a gif horse in the mouth…