The 11 Best GIFs of 2015, Ranked
2015 has come and (nearly) gone. And though we still haven’t settled on the correct way to pronounce the word GIF – hard “G” or soft? – we can all agree that the year brought a lot of good ones our way. Here are some of our favorite GIFs from 2015, ranked in order of favoriteness.
11. The Miss Universe fail
(Fox)
The Internet exploded when Miss Universe host Steve Harvey mistakenly crowned Miss Colombia this year’s winner. The re-crowning sequence — following Harvey’s retraction and announcement that Miss Philippines was 2015′s rightful Miss Universe title-holder — made for one of this year’s greatest (and most GIFable) television moments.
10. Owl wearing a hat
(あーや / Vine, GIF by Giphy)
So chill. So elegant. So wise (we’re guessing). See more of this owl over at its Vine account.
9. All the “yas”
(Giphy)
Love it or hate it, “yas” really took off in 2015. So did “yas” GIFs. The colloquial for “yes!” dates back as early as 2013, but you can thank Comedy Central show Broad City for bringing the term to its current resting place in mainstream Internet culture.
(withmybyemyself.tumblr.com)
8. This hoverboarding dinosaur
(abl55 / Reddit)
This fantastic GIF could have been co-sponsored by the creators of Jurassic World and IO HAWK, the non-exploding brand of hoverboards. It doesn’t get any more 2015 than this, folks.
7. The Santa-hat cat
(Cheezburger.com)
It’s hard to pick one favorite cat GIF from a whole year of great cat GIFs. But, since this holiday-themed gem is fresh in our minds (and it does not feature a cat being viciously terrorized by a cucumber), we went with it. Watch the long version of the Santa hat cat GIF here.
6. Trump on an escalator
(Mashable)
It was the unlikeliest entrance for a presidential campaign announcement we’ve probably ever seen, made by the unlikeliest big-party presidential candidate we’ve probably ever seen. Nevertheless, six months after he escalatored himself into the race, Donald Trump is leading all Republicans in national polls. This GIF started it all.
5. Confused Travolta
The original Confused Travolta! (ILikeToWonkaMyWilly / Imgur)
How did a well-known scene from a 1994 cult-classic movie spark a viral GIF trend in 2015? It all began at the start of this year’s holiday shopping season when one digital artist decided to edit a confused Vincent Vega (John Travolta) from Pulp Fiction into the doll aisle of a toy store: “MRW I ask my daughter what she wants for Christmas and she says, ‘A doll.’”
That post spawned many copycat GIFs, with Confused Travoltas superimposed into a variety of unlikely places. Here are some of our favorites:
“MRW I unintentionally burst through someones chest.” (ColdFeetWarmHeart / Reddit)
(theclearlydope.tumblr.com)
“MRW my bus doesn’t stop.” (arbili / Reddit)
4. The office monkey
(Getty, GIF by Giphy)
As the story goes, the recently Internet-famous stock footage of baboons in a boardroom was actually shot way back in 2003. It wasn’t until the middle of 2015, however, that snackable, GIFified versions of their technologically frustrated antics hit the viral sector of the Internet. We feel their pain, and so we share their GIFs.
(Getty, GIF by Giphy)
3. “No, thanks!” girl
(America’s Funniest Home Videos / YouTube, GIF by Giphy)
We are all this sassy, put-off trick-or-treater, are we not? Thanks, 2015, for finally delivering us a GIF with which we may express ourselves accurately over the Webosphere.
2. Hotline Bling parody
(Vogue)
Drake’s song “Hotline Bling” was definitely one of 2015′s top hits. The music video for the pop tune wound up becoming popular all in its own right — for possibly unintended reasons.
The hip hop star’s “dance moves” in the video became instant fodder for parody. Fortunately, many of those parodies came in looping GIF form. So here are some of our favorites:
(Giphy)
(Giphy)
(emotionallpizzaa.tumblr.com)
1. Donald Trump making every face
(CNN)
The best GIF of the year: This reaction shot of presidential candidate Donald Trump during a September GOP debate. In it, our presumed future POTUS quickly puts on, by our count, at least five different disgusted facial expressions as primary opponent Jeb Bush explains why Trump shouldn’t be trusted with the country’s nuclear missile codes. (We think the former Apprentice star makes a good-mannered case for himself in this response alone. What do you say?)
The only 2015 GIF that we’d concede might top “Trump Makes Faces” is “Trump Makes Faces Without a Nose”:
(Jeremiah Warren)
But we think it’s pretty hard to argue with the original.
Email me at danbean@yahoo-inc.com. Follow me on Twitter at danielwbean.
