Meet The Woman Responsible For The Greatest GIFs On The Internet
Cat, who works by day as an instructional designer for California’s Pacific Gas and Electric Company, says that the point of Animated Text is not so much the retro-’90s aesthetic itself, but rather her “relationship with the followers.” Every gif was specifically requested by one of her fans, so she sees each post as a collaborative process, rather than one where she’s the “keeper of the keys” or whatever.
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By injecting more and more of herself into the Animated Text project, she became more and more comfortable with being vulnerable on the internet, something she did not expect when she was designing ostentatiously disaffected gif mantras like “lol nothing matters” or “blog the pain away.” That newfound comfort with being vulnerable online also inspired Frazier’s latest venture: Ask Cat, an “advice column for the smartphone age” that you can submit to by texting 510-962-9372.
“I’m really affecting people’s lives,” she said earnestly—a far cry from the person you’d expect to have made that (iconic, zeitgeist-capturing, etc., etc., etc.) “lol nothing matters” gif. “It makes me feel like I can be a better person. I may still be the asshole that I am, but it makes me feel good and that I should treat everyone better and that maybe the internet isn’t so bad after all.”
YES.