I vividly recall my early days exploring the internet in the mid-90s. It felt like a vast, uncharted territory, a place of exhilarating discovery. Clicking on a link was an act of faith, a leap into the unknown, unsure of where you’d land or what you’d encounter. The internet back then was far from the serious entity it is today; it was a digital playground, brimming with delightful surprises and unexpected twists.
For the past three years, I’ve been dedicated to recreating that sense of online wonder through interactive experiences centered around a simple yet powerful concept: smiles. My projects intentionally sidestep the usual web metrics – no clients, no social media integration, no analytics tracking, no SEO considerations, no logins, no user accounts, no branding, and certainly no monetization goals. Smiles, pure and simple, have become my driving force, my digital currency. In the quiet of late nights, I immerse myself in the glow of my screen, coding away, fueled by the vision of transforming the often-stoic faces of seasoned web users into expressions of genuine joy.
Among the various projects on my website, Fuzzy Wobble Dot Com, that embody this “smiles-as-currency” philosophy, GIF DANCE PARTY holds a special place. As the name suggests, it’s an invitation to a digital celebration centered around the infectious energy of Dance Gifs.
The animated GIF, a format that dates back to the late 1980s, was, surprisingly, still somewhat relegated to the fringes when GIF DANCE PARTY first emerged in 2012. Beyond Tumblr, which had embraced dance gifs and GIFs in general as a core part of its visual language, they were largely associated with outdated, garish web banners for less-than-reputable online advertising.
My own fascination with both Tumblr and animated GIFs was reaching its peak at that time. I sensed a unique opportunity to liberate animated GIFs, particularly dance gifs, from the niche corners of Tumblr and introduce them into a more mainstream, universally relatable context. This spark of an idea ignited an eight-hour coding marathon, culminating in the initial launch of the GIF DANCE PARTY website. The core concept was simple: empower visitors to curate and share their personalized digital dance parties, all powered by the charm of dance gifs.
Despite my admittedly rudimentary coding skills back then, the site functioned remarkably well. In the world of web development, reinvention is rarely necessary. The building blocks were all readily available, time-tested components. With a bit of strategic Googling and some digital elbow grease, the concept materialized. The underlying code proved surprisingly robust. However, a significant hurdle remained: transparent GIFs, essential for seamlessly layering dance gifs in a dance party context, were incredibly scarce. Transparent dance gifs? Even rarer. Extensive web searches yielded a mere handful – four to be exact. Pathetically inadequate for any self-respecting online dance party.
Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. I enlisted the help of friends to embark on the painstaking task of manually removing backgrounds from GIF dancers, pixel by painstaking pixel, frame by laborious frame. This collaborative effort gave birth to the initial collection of transparent dancers that populated the first iteration of GIF DANCE PARTY. Fast forward three years, and the GIF DANCE PARTY website now boasts an impressive roster of over 120 iconic dancers, a testament to the enduring appeal of dance gifs.
Over the years, GIF DANCE PARTY has gone on to receive millions of hits from every corner of the globe. The inherent captivation of the animated GIF, especially when infused into the familiar and joyous setting of a party, resonated deeply with internet users. And yes, for good measure, I even included a cohort of dancing cats in the mix, further amplifying the dance gif delight. Even today, GIF DANCE PARTY continues to circulate online, popping up in unexpected places. On November 2, 2015, it unexpectedly graced the front page of Reddit once again, prompting one user to aptly comment:
The project garnered enthusiastic support from my colleagues at IDEO. Inspired by its playful spirit, we decided to set up a green screen at IDEO Boston (now IDEO Cambridge) and create our very own IDEO-themed GIF Dance Party, a testament to the infectious nature of dance gifs in fostering team spirit and fun.
It was incredibly satisfying to witness such a high “smile-to-effort” ratio with a project that, on the surface, might have been easily dismissed as frivolous. This success was largely thanks to the creative and supportive environment I was fortunate to be a part of.
However, a somewhat ironic outcome of this project, born from a desire to generate smiles, was that I remained largely oblivious to the smiles it actually created. I briefly entertained the idea of enabling user webcams and employing facial recognition to quantify smiles, perhaps even replacing the ubiquitous Facebook “like” button with a “smile counter” (although I suspect this might have had the unintended consequence of scaring off visitors!). The only way to truly witness these smiles, I realized, was to translate the digital experience into a tangible, real-world event – a GIF DANCE PARTY installation.
Envisioning this installation, we imagined projectors casting dynamic visuals, 3D cameras capturing partygoers’ movements, and lines upon lines of code orchestrating the digital magic. The concept was to digitize party attendees into their own dance gifs, transforming them into integral components of a vibrant, ever-changing visual spectacle projected for all to see. In this collaborative dance, the GIF DANCE PARTY VJ and the partygoers themselves would co-create an otherworldly dance gif digital dance floor.
It quickly became apparent that my “Googling-and-digital-glue” approach was woefully inadequate for a project of this magnitude. I put out a call for creative coders, and I was incredibly fortunate to have an exceptional team answer the call: Matt F., Wes T., Joe S., and Matt G. For countless Saturdays, often in less-than-optimal physical states, we huddled together, tackling the immense challenge of bringing GIF DANCE PARTY to life as an interactive installation using C++ and OpenFrameworks. Six months of dedicated effort later:
We had a bonafide hit installation on our hands. Gigs started rolling in with surprising frequency. Jaws were dropping. What began as a “cool art installation” organically evolved into a project that had a profoundly positive impact on partygoers. Our observations led us to a realization: This is the evolution of the photo booth. We’ve tapped into the selfie-driven culture of the modern partygoer. However, unlike the isolating experience of a conventional photo booth, we went hyper-dynamic, hyper-visual, and, for the first time in photo booth history, introduced an element of selflessness to the selfie. It’s an experience for you, yes, but equally, an experience for everyone present.
@ the GIF DANCE PARTY capture booth. Partygoers discovered a new way to engage with the party environment in a way that felt truly unprecedented. While traditional photo booths tend to isolate individuals from the surrounding party, our installation propelled them directly into the heart of it, akin to setting up a Slip’N Slide right in the middle of the dance floor. The dance gif became the ultimate connector.
As a collective of artists, coders, and designers, we remain committed to experimenting and refining the GIF DANCE PARTY experience. From its humble beginnings as a website to its current iteration as an immersive installation, GIF DANCE PARTY has been an incredibly rewarding journey, not only for the users and participants who embrace the dance gif joy, but also for us, the creators. Smiles all around, and many more dance gifs and smiles to come.
