Before the advent of projected films screened for large audiences, the motion picture was more of a private novelty. The zoetrope, the phenakistoscope, Edison Laboratory's kinetoscope (see below)- all devices built for the personal viewing of short looping clips of still images to simulate the illusion of continuous motion.

Fast-forward to now, and there's something undeniably reassuring about the thousands, if not millions of often hilarious, sometimes artful homemade GIF's that are surfacing from virtually every corner of the internet. It's as if in spite of all the advancements and surrounding hype with HD, 3D, pixel density technologies, we will never outgrow the sense of wonder and magic that arises from even the grainiest of bite-sized motion pictures.

So to this new generation of meme-obsessed GIF-makers, know that when you are getting down in Photoshop with your creations, you are communing with the origins of motion picture history.