Stephen Wilhite, inventor of the meme-favorite GIF, has died

By TALI ARBEL
AP Technology Writer

Stephen Wilhite, the inventor of the internet-popular short-video format, the GIF, has died. He was 74. His wife, Kathaleen, said Thursday in a phone interview that he died of COVID on March 14. Wilhite, who lived in Milford, Ohio, won a Webby lifetime achievement award in 2013 for inventing the GIF, which decades after its creation became omnipresent in memes and on social media, often used as a cheeky representation of a cultural moment. Wilhite was working at CompuServe in 1987 when he invented the GIF. He retired in 2001 and loved trains and camping. His wife says, “He never stopped programming.”