I have NoScript running in default deny mode, I saw blank white boxes where these animated gifs should have been. The rest of the article was fully readable, with no animation distractions.

Why would noscript block a gif...? I'm going to have to take a closer look at how this website places the gifs there.

There's quite a lot of news sites whose in-line static JPGs all vanish with NoScript. I really have no idea what people think they're doing these days.

They use a static thumbnail image that is changed to a gif/webm when it loads.

Because the gif's are not included using basic <img> tags, but instead they are inserted by javascript code. As to why, I don't know why.

Totally agree. Cannot express how much I hate them, it annoys me so much I basically cannot read otherwise interesting text while being hungry or irritated for some reason. Probably should consider this a chance to practice staying calm... But God, I hate it.

I stopped reading part way in because of them; it's juvenile and unnecessary.

Me as well. Made it nearly unreadable. So distracting from an otherwise interesting story.

Thank you for that link!

Sounds like I'm the minority, but if done tactfully I don't mind articles that have gifs.

It kind of provides another dimension to the article as you get to see the author's emotions as they wrote it.

With that said, there is definitely a point where there are too many...

I must agree. I was teetering on the brink of closing the tab with every new gif. I enjoy memes, but not in this context.