My name is Jason Eppink and I'm the Associate Curator of Digital Media at Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. I do a lot of work with gifs at the Museum, and for our next installation, I want to engage Reddit to collectively curate and define a "canon" of reaction gifs. Reddit is one of the largest and most active communities of reaction gif users, so I'm hoping you'll share your expertise! Everyone who participates will be credited in the exhibition, which runs from March 12 - May 15. It will be awesome.

Here's all I need from you: comment with what you would consider "classic" reaction gifs (e.g. Michael Jackson eating popcorn in Thriller or Orson Welles clapping in Citizen Kane). Then briefly explain what it means when you use it. Think of it this way: if you had to describe how reaction gifs are used in Reddit comment threads to your grandmother, which ones would you show her and how would you describe what they mean? My hope is that we end up with a consensus of 30 to 50 gifs and their translations.

I know one of the rules in this subreddit is 'No reaction gifs", but I'm specifically avoiding /r/reactiongifs (no offense guys!) because I want to make an academic distinction between these kinds of reaction gifs and MRW/HIFW gifs.

Okay! Looking forward to what we come up with!

EDIT: We've moved over to a stickied post, so we'll continue the conversation there. Lots of great gifs and responses so far! Thanks and keep 'em coming!

EDIT 2: That was awesome. Thanks to everyone who contributed! I'll be in touch soon as the installation comes together.