Hacker News Reader

One particularly interesting thing about the origin of this effect is that it spawned from the file size limit on .gif files on tumblr. If users wanted to exceed the balance of gif length, frame rate, and detail that they wanted, they would upload multiple sections of the same scene side by side. Tumblr's formatting would then add in the white bars automatically. This presumably gave the inspiration to use this for a 3-D effect.

View on HN

Uhh... But in the scenario that two gifs are side by side, how would the part that goes above the white bar appear, if the white bar is not part of any image?

SpeakMouthWords was describing the origin of the white bars shown here (i.e. originally separating gifs).

These style gifs came later (i.e. gifs with 3d effect from the addition of the bars), integrating the white bars that had come to be expected from Tumblr posts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com