It seems like just yesterday we watched the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square and tomorrow will already be February 2nd when Americans celebrate Groundhog Day, a day where we wake up to see what a large rodent forecasts for our meteorological future. Most of us across the country cling to the hopeful anticipation that we won’t have to live through another six more weeks of winter muck and frigid temps. We hope that the famous groundhog hero Punxsutawney Phil won’t see his shadow and the spring weather will arrive early.
Groundhog Day was first celebrated in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania in 1886. According to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, German settlers in Pennsylvania brought the tradition with them. It was based on the celebration of Candlemas Day when the Germans watched for the European hedgehog to see his shadow or not to indicate whether a “second winter” was coming.
Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog that seemingly lives forever, is watched by thousands of onlookers when he comes out of his “hole” at dawn on February 2 at Gobbler’s Knob just outside of Punxsutawney. The ritual is so popular that people can join Phil’s Club, make shadow predictions, and watch the whole event via live stream at the Visit PA website.
While Punxsutawney Phil and Groundhog Day was already pretty popular, Bill Murray’s and Andie MacDowell’s 1993 movie Groundhog Day catapulted the town of Punxsutawney and the event into super-stardom. The movie replays Groundhog Day over and over again for Murray, a disgruntled weatherman, until he changes his selfish ways. Now, the idea of Groundhog Day is synonymous with repetition of events, good or bad.
As Murray learned, a little repetition can be fun and allow a person to let loose. We are more likely to want to relive our best moments, replaying them in our minds when we need a pick me up. There are just some things in life we enjoy watching over and over again, especially when it’s it something enjoyable or funny. For example, we just can’t get enough of Michelle Obama’s infamous eye roll at Speaker of House John Boehner at the luncheon following the Presidential Inauguration.
Granted, these actions only happened once for a few seconds, but genius video makers turned these brief moments into .gif file videos (called GIFs) that play the same snippet over and over again. No need to hit repeat because the .gif does it for you.
Repeat videos or .gifs are wildly popular on the micro-blogging and social networking site, Tumblr. Most folks on this network create a customized page to share their words and videos with the world. YouTube also has a variety of .gifs and there are a plethora of sites that are dedicated to the art of gifs. Just do a video search for gifs and your favorite topic to see funny images on an endless loop.
In the meantime, we’ve rounded up a few .gifs for your viewing pleasure. What better way to start off then one from the movie Groundhog Day?
From movie clips to animation features to real life videos, it’s simple to create a time loop repetition video that is guaranteed to get laughs or those sought after pick me up heckles. You can watch a video on how to make a .gif on YouTube using applications like Photoshop. If you want to get started right away visit a gif generator site like Imgflip where you can drag and drop photos or videos into an easy to use tool and it does the work for you.
How do you celebrate Groundhog’s Day? Will you watch the great unveiling of Phil via live stream this year? Got any of your own .gifs to share? What site do you use to make your .gifs? Share your thoughts on both topics in the comments section below.
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Have you seen the cool gifs from the Grammy’s? Here is my favorite. http://causticitylady.tumblr.com/post/42844213660/first-thing-i-thought-of-when-i-saw-underwoods
What is yours?
That’s pretty funny, there are a ton that crack me up on Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/cool%20gifs