Our gifs suck now
If you are - like me - communicating with loved ones on messenger apps mostly through gifs, you might have felt some irritation today. The gifs are gone bad. Thanks, Google.
Anyone searching for GIFs in apps like Whatsapp, Discord, Bluesky, or X might see different results than before, depending on the platform, or may no longer find familiar Tenor GIFs. Google shut down the API of its GIF service Tenor on June 30, 2026. This means external apps can no longer integrate the search library as they did before. However, Tenor will remain available for Google's own products, including Gboard, Google Messages, and Google Chat, as well as the GIF keyboard apps for Android and iOS.
Source: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Google-cuts-off-Tenor-access-Apps-must-replace-GIF-search-11350334.html
My most used messenger is Telegram and I have certain go-to search requests when it comes to illustrating gifs (e.g. "good morning cat" or "cat bicycle"), so I have an expected output of cute gifs to choose from. And let me just tell you, the "good morning cat" results were seriously lacking in cats! Lots of nonsense there! But even worse: there are no results for "cat bicycle"! How am I supposed to communicate that I am in my way riding my bicycle?!
So whatever gif-company replaced the Google owned Tenor API - it sucks.
I guess I'll have to learn to use these old-fashioned emoji-precusors now.
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#internet #enshittification
