And so I’ve attempted to name a certain .gif. At the least, this .gif could be the end of some internet arguments, if not the end of the internet. Whether it ends a conversation or the world, it is interesting the manner in which this .gif specifically, and, perhaps .gifs in general, participate in a kind of historical closure. Clive Thompson talks about the similarities between Eadweard Muybridge’s 1879 zoopraxiscope loop of a running horse and today’s .gif. Both serve similar functions, he argues, because “the animated GIF lets us stop and ponder a single moment in the stream, to resee something that would otherwise zip by unnoticed.” In some ways, that’s true – for some .gifs. But this one does something new. Derrida remarks that “by carrying us beyond paper, the adventures of technology grant us a sort of future anterior.” [9] The temporal slippage is freeing. These technological changes and advances “liberate our reading for a retrospective exploration of the past resources of paper, for its previously multimedia vectors.” [10] And so what I like about this .gif is the fact that it opens a new space, playfully subverting the viewer in an almost interactive way. It evokes both nostalgia and nothingness, carrying us beyond bureaucratic metaphors and towards an uncertain future.