Facebook Launches GIF Reactions For Comments, Giphy And Tenor Supported

Facebook has finally rolled out a much-requested feature — users can now react to comments on a thread using GIFs. The company had been testing a GIF comment button for the past three months and rolled out the feature Wednesday to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the GIF format.

“We know people love communicating with GIFs on Messenger, and we’re also making it easier to use GIFs on Facebook. Today we’re introducing the ability to add GIFs in comments for all people on Facebook globally,” the company said in a press release.

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To add GIFs, you can just click the GIF button in the comment box, type in the kind of GIFs you need and click on the one you want. Facebook has also partnered with GIF-service Giphy to create GIFs with YouTube stars such as DNCE, Logan Paul, Amanda Cerny, DREEZY, Patrick Starr, Violet Benson, Wuz Good, Brandi Marie, and Landon Moss.

The company also stated nearly 13 billion GIFs were sent in the last year — a rate of around 25,000 GIFs being sent every minute. The company then said GIF usage on Messenger tripled in the last year with New Year’s Day being the most popular when 400 million GIFs were sent on Messenger.

The new feature might make people's Facebook feeds more interactive, which means that in addition to auto play videos, you will now see GIFs on your timeline. That however, might not appeal to some users, since it will lead to more data usage, if they are surfing Facebook while using mobile data.

Facebook has been late in adopting GIFs in comments, since Twitter, Slack and WhatsApp, which it owns, already support GIFs. As mentioned before, GIFs have been a part of Messenger for long.

At the same time, Facebook’s GIFs are sourced from its partners such as Giphy, Tenor and Disney, but if you do not want to use the built-in features and instead upload your own GIFs or post them via URL — the way you can do on a regular Facebook post — that option is not available for replies on a thread. According to the Next Web, the feature is only available within individual profiles.

GIFs are alternatives to typing comments as they are not just plain text, instead their short and precise format and easy upload makes it a much more expressive tool.

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Facebook has been trying to market itself as a Live video platform with 360-degree videos. Unlike a video, which consumes attention and time and a high amount of data, a GIF in comments will not. According to Wired, there is a chance that in the future, we might see the GIF feature on Facebook statuses too.