Baby Yoda Saturates the Feed

NOV 12 2019 · 12:00

Baby Yoda sipping. The Mandalorian's November 2019 debut produced the year's dominant reaction-GIF subject before Disney's lawyers asked Giphy and Tenor to pull the clips. Place: Disney+, simultaneously global launch; The Mandalorian Episode 1 Figures: Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, showrunners · Disney's legal department, briefly · Werner Herzog, who reportedly told Disney not to CGI the puppet · the entire English-speaking internet, briefly The Mandalorian premieres on Disney+ on the platform's launch day, 12 November 2019. Within 24 hours the character internet-named Baby Yoda (canonical name Grogu, not revealed until December 2020) saturates Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, and Instagram in GIF form. Cup-sip, ear-twitch, head-tilt. Every reaction is covered. By the end of week one, Baby Yoda is the most-served subject on Giphy and Tenor combined. It is one of the fastest character-to-GIF-vocabulary conversions in the format's history. The puppet has more reaction-shot variety than most live actors; the GIF infrastructure (see [[giphy-founded-2013]]) is mature enough to absorb and distribute the entire vocabulary within hours.