If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a gif is worth millions. The image file format has been a defining element of internet culture for decades, with glass-raising DiCaprios and mic-dropping Obamas facilitating self-expression in a faceless digital world. And we have one man to thank for all the jokes, snark and praise: Stephen Wilhite, inventor of the gif, who died last week, aged 74.
Wilhite, who lived in Milford, Ohio, contracted Covid two weeks before his death, his wife, Kathaleen Wilhite, told NPR.
A lifelong coder, Stephen Wilhite created the gif in 1987 while working at CompuServe. The compressed image files were useful at a time when internet connections dragged. “If you want lossless, compressed graphics, there is nothing better than gif,” said Sandy Trevor, who managed Wilhite’s team, to the Daily Dot in 2012.
