In re: to the discussion of regiffing (since there is some discussion on my feed!):
The 'regif' a video that someone else has already made gifs from is completely harmless, and tends to have positive effects from my perspective.
One thing creators of anything have to acknowledge is that you can't control who interacts with your creations when they have been put upon the internet, especially a public website like Tumblr. In a general sense, the sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you can focus your energy on continuing to create the things you want. This applies to anything posted.
Can you provide boundaries? Yes! Can you block people you are uncomfortable with? Yes! You can do these things, have the right to do these things, and should do these things if you find it necessary. Curating your space is an important skill to learn and employ.
Hell, if it is something you really care about that can potentially fall under things such as copyright laws, you do have the right to pursue those legal matters.
But, in this scenario, we are talking about gifs created from other people's videos; sources found across the web. And, just like you have the right to make gifs from said videos, so does everyone else! The reasons why don't really matter in the end, but here is a list of some of them anyways:
- Someone already had the video saved to make gifs from, and you making gifs from the same video didn't have any influence on them deciding to make their own.
- Someone wanted gifs from a different section from the video.
- Someone wanted the gifs to be grabbed/edited differently.
- Someone wanted to respect your boundaries as an individual you don't want interacting.
- Someone wanted to use the gif for something you express discomfort in your gifs being used in.
- Someone wanted to make sure the original video was sourced correctly.
- Someone was being petty and wanted to piss you off.
This is not the entire list of possible reasons, just ones that either I personally experience or have seen brought up by others. Most, as you can see, are for positive or respectful reasons! One of the ones on the list isn't.
Regardless of the 'why', this situation only holds as much weight as you give it. These things, at the end of the day, are things we do for fun and/or as a creative or other sort of outlet. You have every right to be annoyed, or frustrated, or whatever else you feel about these sorts of things. You are a person with the right to feel.
But, in my personal opinion? You will be far more emotionally and mentally better off once you stop caring about (or, st least, focusing on) why others make gifs from certain sources, and putting that attention back to why YOU decided to start doing this.
