You may have already heard this but there’s a debate going on about how the term GIF should be pronounced. Should the “g” sound like “guh” or “juh”? Or perhaps a more apt question, if a bit rude, why does anyone care about how a term is pronounced? And why has this been a topic debated for years?

Yes, you read that right, the debate about how “GIF” is pronounced  has been going on for years. Even the creator of “GIF’s” trying to end the debate by stating that it’s “Jif. End of story,” has not ended this discussion. But really the creator should’ve just told each side of the debate that it really does not matter in the slightest. In fact, it seems so surreal that an argument about how about to properly pronounce a term would have such controversy and heat on each side.

Especially when there are a lot more worthy topics to be debated such as gay rights, women’s rights, how to deal with corruption in the government, the effectiveness of the prison system of America, the way to go about educational reform in America, whether or not to get involved in international issues such as North Korea, how to deal with sexism against both women and men in America, the list goes on. And yet it’s the debate about a pronunciation of an acronym that holds priority over everything else?

It’s understandable that people may not wish to talk about the previously mentioned topics since they can be grim and gloomy, but ignoring them completly seems incredibly irresponsible. And while they are debated on the internet, they’re not debated to the popularity of the “GIF” debate.

This debate shows that people are willing to argue over the most minuscule, minor, unimportant detail. From almost anything in our society: movies, sports, video games, comic books, etc. Which sports team is better, who would win in a fight, who will win the super bowl, and the like.

There’s nothing wrong with taking something seriously, or having discussions about these things, or even a small argument. But to take something so unimportant and treat it as though it’s literally the only thing on this planet that has any right to be talked about for years is just going massively overboard.

It’s like an argument about whether peanut butter should be renamed to peanut cream because it’s nothing like butter. Pointless and overall a waste of valuable breath, impactful intellect, and precious time.