Tumblr Just Launched a YouTube for GIFs… And it’s Worryingly Addictive

Tumblr, which was once sold for $1.1 billion and is now little more than a repository for GIFs, has finally accepted its fate as such.

The microblogging platform recently announced the launch of Tumblr TV, an online platform that loops full screen GIFs until the end of time. It’s the perfect complement to Tumblr’s GIF search engine, which debuted earlier this month.

Upon visiting Tumblr TV’s homepage, you’ll be blessed with a cycle of hilarious GIFs that are currently trending across the service. The real fun starts when you start to search for GIFs on specific topics, which are catalogued by their tags as uploaded on Tumblr.

GIFs automatically loop a few times before moving onto the next, but you can also skip forward and back. There’s even a pause button should you find a particular GIF that requires extensive viewing.

Tumblr TV’s content consists of GIFs already hosted on Tumblr – a pretty impressive database considering the site today includes over 239 million blogs, with more than 80 million new posts daily (112 billion posts total, many of which are embedded with GIFs).

One drawback: Tumblr TV doesn’t allow for users to easily spread GIFs through social sharing (though standard ‘favourite’ and ‘reblog’ functions are somewhat useful if you’re already a Tumblr user). It’s a shame, really, because what’s a great GIF without a friend’s engagement status on Facebook to unleash it on?

Limitations aside, this post took about five times as long as it should have as Tumblr TV teased my concentration in the tab over.

Well, see you Monday. Or never.