Background
During 2019 and 2020 I had the priviledge to work in the aviation industry, specifically with helicopters. Inspired by my work, I created a set of helicopter gifs in my free time, to express some creativity and have fun.
GIFs
One of the reasons I really wanted to make helicopter GIFs, was because in 2019 when I got my job, I posted about it on social media, being really excited to get started. However I was slightly disappointed by the selection of gifs available on Twitter and Discord.
At the time, I considered myself pretty proficient at speaking in GIFs. Similarly to emojis, GIFs, and other memes, are ways to communicate a lot with very little. It’s also a way to connect with people, when they’re familiar with whats being communicated in the GIF.
Serious and Silly
Making these GIFs I selected two very different events to turn into memes. The first is of what is called a “Vortex Ring State”. It’s a manouver to regain control over a helicopter. The original video in particular by AERIALSTAGE on Youtube, shows this extremely well. A serious GIF, but also communicating our ability as humans to bounce back.
My second GIF is very silly. The original video, accurately titled “Stupid man attempts to fly a helicopter with no experience”, uploaded by Sam Sharpe on Youtube, shows what can happen when someone with no experience attempts to fly a helicopter.
The man survived, however I think this video so beautifully captures Dunning Kruger effect, that sometimes we think we are very capable of doing something, when the professionals around us know how very unlike it is that we are correct.
Reflections
One of the reasons I fell in love with GIFs, and tend to use them too frequently, is because they’re able to communicate so much, with such ease. I had so much fun creating these GIFs. It requires a very niche crowd to understand what they’re able to communicate, but I think to that target group, they understand it pretty well.
