So you want to join the GIFCrew? Just a few easy steps to join!

The “GIF” or “Graphics Interchange Format” (thanks, Wikipedia) has become all the rage in baseball circles, so much so that the organization that owns the rights to the videos even makes GIFs. GIFs come in all shapes and sizes, and they can even be photoshopped, and superimposed on one another by the best of ’em. Recreational GIFfers like myself just make sure that their GIFs are less than two megabytes large so they may share baseball highlights with the world.

Over time, it has become apparent that there are several Giants fans that frequently post up GIFs of things that happen during a Giants game. This is great because it spreads the joy of baseball, and even the greatest GIFs done by these Giants fans don’t get retweeted 50,000 times, even if I feel like half the GIFs I make are that awesome (because of the highlight, not because of my under-2MB GIF-making-madness). This is to say that the more people making GIFs we have, the more people baseball is going to hit, and that’s a beautiful thing.

“GIFCrew” or “GIFClub” or “GIFfers” are all terms people might use to describe people that make GIFs. By the way, it’s pronounced like the peanut butter “JIF,” if you have opposing opinions, you are wrong. Good day — I SAID GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR. Whether you yearn for GIF-acceptance or “GIFceptance” from your GIFfing peers or you enjoy making GIFs on your own for your own happiness, maybe you would like to qualify to be in the GIFCrew or GIFClub. It sounds like something you would only hear about in high school, but hear me out. There are some requirements to be able to join GIFCrew or GIFClub.

1. Make GIFs

Can you make a GIF? If yes, congratulations! If no and you’d like to learn, hit me up on twitter (@HeHitsItDeeeeep) and I’d be happy to share my learning with you.

"“Give a human a GIF, and they are temporarily satisfied. Teach a human to GIF, and they will probably gain twitter followers” –Ancient Proverb"

If you are a GIFollower, I don’t think I can definitely rule one way or another on your admittance to the GIFCrew.

2. Don’t undermine other GIFers

Being nice to your fellow baseball enthusiasts should be a golden rule for everything. Friendly trash talk is cool sometimes, but I like my baseball with intelligent discussion while not making others feel empty inside.

Let’s say you do undermine another GIFer, what can you do? You should 1) publicly apologize in a sincere manner and 2) buy the person whose GIFfing you undermined dinner.

You might ask, “Stuart, what brings up this post of yours?” Well, an incident occurred last night that troubled me. I will lay this out as best I can.

Jun. 9, 2013; Phoenix, AZ, USA: San Francisco Giants outfielder Juan Perez makes a leaping catch at the wall in the first inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Chase Headley singled up the middle off of Sergio Romo in the top of the 9th inning on Monday night, and Juan Perez threw a strike to Joaquin Arias to get Logan Forsythe for the second out of the inning. Carmen from Bay Area Sports Guy shared her GIF:

Then this came out:

It’s a solid GIF, it really is. Even has his stamp on the bottom right to let you know he made it. Cool. I still don’t know how to do that, and I actually think his stamp is more visually pleasing. If you don’t like clicking links, I made the GIF for you below:

How this became a problem was that certain people that responded to his comment of a “REAL” GIF were blocked by him almost immediately. I’m not going to investigate the intent, but I believe the actions speak for themselves.

In times where all we are doing is sharing our love for baseball, and especially Giants baseball, I see no need to be going at each other by criticizing the quality of one’s work unless you have some evidence of their lack of being real. So remember friends, to join the GIFClub or GIFCrew, make GIFs, and be nice to other people. A lot of us want to be popular, but we don’t have to step on each other’s toes to get there.