I really don’t like GIFs.
Nobody even seems to know how to pronounce the word.
Or rather, I don’t like the way they’re used most of the time. They’re incredibly lazy, and just seem to take out of context “hilarious” emotions or actions.
I think my real problem is they scream “look at me!” When I read an email that has a GIF in it (and Gmail will play GIFs), then the gurning face in the GIF detracts from the words around it. I find myself scrolling to get rid of the animations.
In that regard, they’re like auto-playing videos. And nobody likes them apart from advertisers – even though everyone who sees an auto-playing advert instantly curses it.
I realise that I’m probably on my own a bit with this. But I’d just ask that the makers of Gmail, Tweetdeck and so-on include switches to turn the animations off.