Some graphic language: a new app that lets you communicate in GIFs

Lost for words? A new app allows you to send video loops that sum up your state of mind. Phoebe Luckhurst joins the Relay race
GIF talk: Relay is free for download on IoS and Android

Once upon a time, there was “talking” and “not talking”. But those were simpler days; now missives can be sent across a dizzying number of mediums. You have Whatsapp for group plans, Twitter for your “professional persona”, Facebook for people you don’t much care for and texting for everything else. If you don’t have a way with words, you can communicate through Instagram or send Snapchats scrawled with wobbly captions in primary colours. We’re better connected — and we continue apace to invent new ways to say exactly what we mean.

The latest way to touch base is using GIFs (short for graphics interchange format). Granted, commentators have been wary of publicising the trend due to the recent controversy about the word’s pronunciation, but while they were dithering, developers and punters were getting on with the important business of GIFfing each other (technical term).

Relay — which launched this summer — is a chat app that enables you to communicate in GIFs. Download it (free for IoS and Android) and then search its extensive library for a key word relating to your state of mind (eg, hungover, grumpy, bored); pick from a selection of GIFs (admittedly the more mainstream the feeling, the more options available) and then send your mini-movie to your contacts who have also downloaded the app.

You can favourite GIFs and add them to your own collection to expedite your messaging process. Granted, this essentially reduces all human emotion to a limited number of easily digestible moving images, but no one promised that progress would be without its casualties; the rich, nuanced variety of human experience is, apparently, one such casualty.

On the upside, boy is it fun.

Another, less sleek, option is GIF Chat — available for IoS — which allows you to film your own looping videos and send them to your friends. You can select the speed of the loop and write over the moving image, then send it to the others who have also downloaded the app.

Of course, it doesn’t have to move — memes are also a mega-medium. A meme generator of Ryan Gosling’s movies (mysofabeds/co.uk/thegos) magics cheesy chat-up lines straight to your smartphone. Examples include, “Hey girl, you’re so beautiful you made me forget my pick-up line” (stop it, I’m swooning); “Hey girl, was your dad a boxer? Because you’re a knockout” (oh, you’re too much!); and “Hey girl, are you a compass? Because I’d be lost without you” (TOO MUCH).

The medium is the message — make yours fun.

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