Grr was the most popular GIF of 2019.
We’ve come a long way since the salad days of internet communications, when we used abbreviations such as LOL or keyboard emoji to help put a happy spin on our messages. As with all things internet, the way we express ourselves to others online has become more sophisticated, with animated GIFs replacing keyboard shorthand.
Thanks to GIF generators, anyone and everyone is making their own animated art, flooding the internet with billions of GIFs and making it almost impossible to stay on top of the most popular GIFs to share. To pinpoint the most popular GIFs of the year and try to get a better picture of the year in GIFs, Google used its GIF search engine to identify the top trending GIFs and search terms of 2019.
As Google notes, GIFs are a great way to gage not just what people are saying, but how they’re saying it.
Google said it’s been working on this since its acquisition of GIF-sharing service Tenor last year. While Tenor powers GIF search in Google products such as Google Images and other apps such as WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook, among others, this list was created using data from Tenor’s GIF Keyboard iOS app.
Here are the most popular GIFs shared in 2019 based on aggregate, anonymized data culled from Google’s GIF search engine. Be sure to scroll down for a list of the top “slang” GIFs and a holiday GIF gift from Google.
Most popular GIFs shared in 2019
1. Grr
2. So frustrated
3. Sad Stitch
4. Minion spitting out popcorn laugh
5. No Elf
6. Wow
7. Oh snap
8. Confused Castle
9. Smh
10. Creepy smile
Most popular ‘slang’ GIFs of 2019
This list showcases the top 10 most popular GIF search expressions, or “slang,” in the US in 2019:
1. Psh
2. Oop
3. Hustle
4. Oh man
5. Peasants
6. Dad joke
7. No regrets
8. Everything
9. Beast
10. Not happy
Top trending holiday GIFs
Google says these are the holiday GIFs people have shared the most in the past year as compared with their average share rate.
1. Buddy Elf excited
2. Merry Christmas happy Xmas
3. Yay!
4. It’s Christmas!
5. The day after Thanksgiving
6. Santa!
7. Christmas excited
8. Christmas lights
9. Christmas lights
10. Christmas cheer Christmas is coming