I found this GIF on Tumblr one day and after staring at it for awhile, I realized it was a Super GIF – the kind that epitomizes everything GIFs represent. It’s singular, simple, repetitious, circular and thought-starting. The girl in this picture is trapped, forever, naked and tied to a bed, shouting “Motherfucker!” while people stare at her from a bird’s-eye view. In a movie, this ends. In a GIF, it’s eternal.

Sometimes I’ll just sit and stare at a GIF, trying to figure out where it starts and where it ends. The best GIFs feel totally circular, like a complete loop that keeps going without any bookends. Not that many types of art are both so immersive and so complete.

GIFs take things out of context. Sometimes they zero in on a certain pop culture moment, making it feel instantly iconic, like the GIF of Malia Obama looking like she’s whispering “Jonas Brothers.” Other times they’re full of unlikely combinations, like a coffin and rainbows. It’s that absurdity that makes me love them so much. They feel like thoughts that never quite come to the surface.

There’s also something technologically creepy about GIFs. The first time I ever saw one, I kept coming back and staring at it, unsure how animation had broken free of the video player that I figured was necessary to make them work. They’re more than images, but are also inherently limited, meaning that people who create them have to make something both concise and never-ending.

Now they’re everywhere, including on one of my favorite local blogs. The fact that they hang out on blogs makes them somewhat low-brow, but I think they’re just like any other type of art – they can suck, they can startle you, they can change your mind. The only real difference is they’re free.

–Becky Lang