Steve Wilhite Dies

MAR 14 2022 · 12:00

Animated Jif jar from the 2020 Jif x Giphy #JifVsGif campaign. Wilhite died at home in Milford, Ohio on 14 March 2022 at age 74, still insisting on the soft G. Place: Milford, Ohio Figures: Steve Wilhite, 74 · complications from COVID-19 Steve Wilhite, the lead developer of the GIF format (see [[compuserve-ships-gif87a-1987]]), dies at his home in Milford, Ohio at age 74 of complications from COVID-19. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and most major tech outlets carry obituaries. He had retired from CompuServe in 2001 and had spent his retirement, by his wife's account, doing model trains. He had given exactly one significant public interview about the format in his lifetime: the five-word Webby acceptance speech in 2013 (see [[wilhite-jif-2013]]). He left a wife, Kathaleen, eleven grandchildren, and an animated image format that, on the day of his death, was being served by Giphy and Tenor approximately 10 billion times.