oh my god I just thought of something. Somewhere out there in academia some scholar is doing their thesis on TUMBLR CULTURE. Writing shit like:

when we consider the relationship between the reinscription of linguistic transparency and the illogic of digital linguistic construction and its inherent indeterminacy as regards to articulation, it becomes clear that tumblr culture is gif culture.

As prosodic features such as tone and facial expression are to verbal speech, so the gif is to written text, a paralanguage that gives context to otherwise sterile and isolated text.

The reaction gif is a form of digital body language.

I fucking GUARANTEE there is someone out there studying us and writing insightful garbage like this.

I really REALLY want to meet that person.