Stephen Wilhite, the mastermind who invented the widely used GIFs, passed away at the age of 74 due to COVID-19, reported tech website Endgadget.
Wilhite invented the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), which he pronounced "JIFs," on his own while working at CompuServe.
It allowed photos to transfer over slow modem connections at 256 colours per animation.
However, since the way Wilhite designed it allowed the format to store multiple frames, it allows the animations to share without converting them into a video format.
The GIFs were made popular when artists and Tumblr users started using them frequently.