-Admittedly, it's only a shot or two that illustrates
what I'm going on about here.
It's this really bizarre, vaguely hostile,
fingers-in-the- mouth embrace that happens
at the top of the video and then again towards the bridge-ish.
I don't know.
FKA twigs songs have really strange forms.
But because it's only that moment,
it almost strengthens its connection to the animated .gif
because it's about this moment-- this one moment.
Like this one-- the guy flipping over the bouncy ball
or the crazy near-miss or whatever very specific moment
we want to view over and over again.
This use of the animated .gif has become a common
in our conception of it.
Amongst all of the surrounding instance,
we want to loop this instant.
For "Papi Pacify," it was this moment--
this tangle of limbs and contrasting skin tones,
kind of angular and knotty-- both with a "K" and an "N"--
made more and weirdly graceful by this easing in and out loop.
To me, this screams .gif.
Not .gif-able.
Not even, "It seems like the director expressly wanted this
section to appear as though it was an animated .gif"
as was the case with "Round Round"
song or "I Don't Need a Reason."
But rather, as if the placement, sense, comfort,
and familiarity in using looped moments has been impacted
by the presence of the .gif in the distributed visual culture
ether.
That's where we've worked ourselves
to with this playlist.
We started out with "Round Round"
song and "I Don't Need a Reason"-- both of which make,
more or less, explicit use of .gif tropes.
But we've ended with "Say It," "Woah, Woah, Woah,"
and "Papi Pacify"-- music videos that have elements of those
.gif tropes but which might not intend to call them out
explicitly.
And there are still other .gif tropes that we didn't even
cover.
What about the image compression characteristics of the animated
.gif or the context in which we tend to find animated .gifs?
There are music videos out there that deal with these things,
too.
If you know about music videos or other stuff that seems
inspired either directly or indirectly by the visual style
of the animated .gif or its common uses,
let us know about it in the comments.
If you're on YouTube, maybe we can make a playlist
of your recommendations.
But until then, may you be the one
to progress linearly if the rest of the world around you
is stuck in a loop.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[DING]