The /giphy Slash Command

AUG 12 2013 · 12:00

Animated Slack wordmark. The /giphy slash command, introduced 2014, made the reaction GIF a fixture of workplace messaging. Place: Slack Technologies, San Francisco Figures: Stewart Butterfield, CEO · the Slack integrations team · Alex Chung at Giphy as the integration partner Shortly after Slack launches in August 2013, the Giphy integration ships as one of the first third-party apps in the Slack directory. Typing /giphy [keyword] in any channel returns a random GIF matching the keyword from Giphy's index (see [[giphy-founded-2013]]), with the option to shuffle until something funnier appears. Discord ships the equivalent shortly after launch in 2015. The slash command is a Trojan horse. The GIF, previously confined to social media and personal messaging, now lives in the channel where engineers, marketers, lawyers, and executives coordinate work. By 2016 most tech-company Slacks have a dedicated #gifs or #random channel; many have a #celebrations channel where every shipped PR is marked with a Leonardo DiCaprio toast.