Inventor of GIF, Steve Wilhite, passes away aged 74 due to COVID-19 complications

Stephen Wilhite, one of the lead inventors of the GIF, died last week from COVID at the age of 74, according to his wife, Kathaleen, who spoke to The Verge. He was surrounded by family when he passed. His obituary page notes that “even with all his accomplishments, he remained a very humble, kind, and good man.”

Once GIF's exploded all over the internet, being used in meme's as well as regular text and WhatsApp conversations, a huge debate unfurled online over the correct pronunciation of the word. The main point of contention was whether it was pronounced with a “soft” G similar to words like giant or with a “hard” G like the word grape.

Wilhite himself however was extremely clear how he pronounced it, and expected it to be pronounced. In an interview in 2013 with The New York Times he said “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,' pronounced ‘jif.' End of story.”

Wilhite began his career at Compuserve, the first major commercial online service provider. In 1987, while at Compuserve, he created the Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, to compress images to make them accessible for early modem speeds.

In 2012, on the 25th anniversary of the GIF, Wilhite received a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for the "immeasurable impact on the way users interface with the Web".