Here at the Daily Dot, we swap GIF images with each other every morning. Now we’re looping you in. In the Morning GIF, we feature a popular—or just plain cool—GIF we found on Reddit, Canvas, or elsewhere on the Internet.
Game changers don’t come along very often in journalism, even less so in photojournalism. Daily Dot favorite and Tumblr user Mr. GIF may have just not only changed the game, but won it.
We’re big fans of the way stereoscopic GIFs can bring celebrity portraits to three-dimensional life, while also adding a level of poignancy. Perhaps it has something to do with the dignity and the disempowerment of silence. Stereoscopic GIF portraits seem more personal, more human, than standard paparazzi or studio shots.
Design collective Mr. GIF has taken advantage of this and gone backstage at Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, capturing the dapper host with his guard down, snapping house band The Roots rehearsing, and picking out telling details, like the utilitarian plumbing tricked out to look like a tiki god.
Mr. GIF has captured 40 GIFs, all backstage or pre-show shots, and added some artsy modifications (i.e. screen interference and old-timey floaters), cumulatively giving the impression you’re spying on something from the past—something with a venerable history. A vulnerable one, too: Mr. GIF’s eye is especially drawn to shots that show the fragility of the performers.
That’s why we’ve chosen this image to feature as the Morning GIF: It’s an iconic image of show business that could have been snapped in any decade from the ‘20s to today. Jimmy Fallon was never so transcendent! The 948 notes on this set show we’re not alone in thinking so.
