Giphy's New Feature Shows You Exactly How Popular a GIF Really Is

It's impossible to deny that Giphy has become an essential part of the internet. The GIF search engine takes the Google Image search model one step further, allowing anyone with a keyboard and a feeling to find the perfect graphical depiction of their mental state and share it with the world. It's also the only way to share those reaction GIFs on Twitter — the built-in GIF function is run out of the Giphy platform — so it's something that's heavily connected into the world of trending content and viral images. So it makes total sense that on Aug. 28, the company the company announced that it was taking GIFs one step further and adding view counts to every image an official Giphy partner or artist posts.

But what does that mean, exactly? According to Giphy, the addition of these numbers will enable users to find the most viral images on the site in a clear, unified way. "It tells us which GIFs are the most popular memes today or what was the most epic moment from last week's Game of Thrones. It shows how strong the force is in the old chapters and the new," the company wrote in a Medium post, adding cheekily that "view counts show how often we like to be a bit roguish, as well!" In other words, it'll be easier than ever to find exactly what you're looking for at a given time — and to see if other people are feeling the same way you are, right then and there.

From a more practical perspective, Giphy explained via an emailed press release that "a GIF view count is a metric to measure popularity, relevancy, and reach," a set of tools which will enable partners to measure how well their GIF has done in the same way they would measure a video or article. Ultimately, the decision to add a view counter to these images is just the latest step in a move toward making GIFs a more mainstream type of content — and we couldn't be happier about it.