OMG! Giphy Is Breaking Into The Entertainment Business

On a mild Sunday evening in September, a handful of staffers from Giphy gathered in the reception area of the company’s Los Angeles studios to watch the Emmy Awards.

- Nicole LaPorte

Sitting opposite a wall of flat-screen TVs with laptops perched on knees and La Croix cans nearby, the staffers gave off a convivial collegiate vibe. But this was only incidentally a social event. The Giphy folks had been tasked by the Emmys producers to “live GIF” the show, creating shareable, seconds-long video loops that could be used to comment on the broadcast itself—and punctuate digital conversations long after the Emmys were over.

By the time host Stephen Colbert was high-kicking through the opening number with a group of white-hooded dancers—a nod to The Handmaid’s Tale—Giphy’s team had already filled its home page with red-carpet banter. Then came the night’s biggest, and most controversial, moment: Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer rolled a faux White House podium onto the stage to deliver a send-up of his infamous “largest audience” claim about the inauguration. Immediately, the Giphy crew began to splice the scene into GIF form. Part of Giphy’s genius lies in not posting the obvious clip, so Spicer himself wasn’t of much interest. Rather, the editors surveyed the shocked and bewildered faces of the audience, looking for gold. They found it in Veep’s Anna Chlumsky, eyes bulging, neck veins popping, as she craned out of her seat. Within minutes, a three-second clip was on Giphy (filed under #omg #shocked #no way #emmys 2017 #jaw drop). It quickly began trending. A week later, it had been viewed more than 13 million times.