Stephen Wilhite, Creator of the GIF, Dies of COVID at 74

Stephen Wilhite, the creator of the GIF, or the moving image file format that transformed the way people communicate on the web, has died of complications from COVID-19. He was 74.

Wilhite died on March 14 at a hospital in his home town of Milford, Ohio, according to an obituary and to his wife Kathleen who spoke to The Verge.

Wilhite was an American computer programmer who worked at CompuServe and in 1987 led the development team that created the Graphic Interchange Format, or GIF. The file became the standard for 8-bit color images on the Internet until the creation of the PNG file format.

But GIFs soon became ubiquitous for creating memes and in other internet parlance, even though Wilhite never intended for it to flood the internet with images of Homer Simpson dissolving into a shrub, Denzel Washington gasping in relief or Robert Redford solemnly nodding in quiet affirmation.

In fact, Wilhite drew a line in the sand that the image is actually pronounced “jif” like the peanut butter. He told The New York Times in 2013, “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.” He would even double down on that assertion when he accepted the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award also in 2013, sharing this brief video along with his acceptance speech.

Wilhite retired in 2001 and spent his time traveling on RV trips with his wife. He also told the Times in 2013 that his favorite GIF was one created in 1996 of a dancing baby.