Today marks the 30th anniversary of the GIF image format, which has given rise to countless funny and inappropriate moving responses to messages.

Short for Graphics Interchange Format, the GIF was created by Steve Wilhite on this day in 1987. Wilhite was working at CompuServe, the first major internet service provider in the US, as a software developer and was tasked with making a colour image format for downloadable files.

In 1995, GIFs gained the ability to loop, laying the foundations for the popularity of the format.

GIFs are typically used for short animations and low-resolution looping video clips with no sound to convey reaction. They are also used for logos with limited colours.