Unless I have something special to share, we'll go back to regular emails after this.
Questions For You
Nearly 40% of horses were explicitly listed as someone's favourite which I thought was very flattering, I guess that means I'm doing a good job
: )
These are all the horses that got mentioned multiple times:
Four mentions
Three mentions
Two mentions
As for your opinions on horses in general, you resoundingly love them! Waow
Questions For Me
when did you first learn about horses
When I was like 1 year old I think
How did you horse era begin?
how did you come up with the idea of making horse gifs?
In 2023 the original horse gif was a recurring gif my friend group would use. My friend Tomas was experimenting in FL Studio and created some absolute dogshit so I made an album cover in Blender using it, and asked him to release it because I thought it was really funny. During this process I discovered that the horse gif only had 4 frames so I could very feasibly make an edit with it, so I made the sad horse but it was happy instead, and then mad, and then oh instead of rain it's snow, etc. Eventually they become more and more elaborate. Around 2024 I started to become a genuine and sincere horse girl because the horse media exposure really made me realise just how amazing those animals are. They are so silly and adorable and they act like they're stupid but they're actually very smart. It's also worth noting that my transition lines up with this time period very closely, which is maybe not a coincidence... I think the horse girl identity helped make both the horse part and the girl part stronger
What motivated you to create the horse website?
I was doing a web design course and I wanted to do the opposite of everything they taught me as a funny bit. It ended up becoming a serious platform of mine though which is funny. I did my research by looking at the worst websites of 2003
Did you grow up on a farm? If not, why not? (You should've.) Do you own a horse(s?) Do you like riding horses?
Like many a horse girl I grew up in the suburbs, only in dreams was I able to have my very own horse... this is still true. Someday I will be in a financial position where I could have a horsey and it WILL happen. I got a beginner riding lesson for myself for my birthday last year, it was a lot of fun
: )
What’s your creative process when thinking of new horse gifs?
I like to write down interesting ideas that I get, and if I can vividly picture what that horse should look like in my head, then I do my best to make it a reality. I don't always have the assets available to pull that off, though, and the framing of the gif can make certain ideas hard (for example, around the time I played Subnautica I wanted to make a Submarine Horse, but the horse is so close to the camera that if I had him through the little cirle window then you'd barely be able to see the rest of the submarine or any of the underwater, which I felt was not satisfactory.)
Since around Wave 6 I have particular criteria I try to fulfill with each horse.
Each horse should feel like a unique character.
Each horse should have multiple animated elements.
New horses shouldn't overlap too much with the themes of previous horses.
Some older horses won't fit all of these criteria. I also have additional restrictions to make sure that I have variety in my designs:
No more than one horse per wave that references another property (e.g. Rapidash, Terraria Unicorn, Horsune Miku to name a few.) This only came into effect around Wave 4 so you'll see a few more before then, but I feel like other IPs are an infinite bucket of ideas so it kind of feels like cheating lol. I also think it's much more interesting for viewers and people stumbling across the gifs if they are 95% original content because it increases the bizarreness of the whole project.
Similarly, no more than 3 or 4 horses per wave who "do something" rather than "are something". Like, horses that have a particular job such as Construction Horse or Aviator Horse.
In other ways I may also hold off on ideas to keep variety, like not making a whole bunch of horses based on some other category of thing very quickly, such as animals (like Ant Horse.)
I make all of the frames individually in paint.NET and then combine them into a .gif using the website ezgif. I think this ensures they have a certain level of 'jank' to them, too much smoothness creates a different vibe that I want to avoid. I think that gif compression also helps with creating the intended vibe. Specifically Seraphim Horse was made and rendered in Sony Vegas, because it's the most canonically powerful horse it has the highest framerate (obviously)
In general, I like to maintain a particular aura with the project which is why I don't really let other people directly make horse gifs anymore, whenever a similar meme to this shows up on the internet you mostly just see edits related to various fandoms (or nowadays, various stereotypes :[ Very disappointing) and I intentionally want it to be different to that. I think the project would be less interesting if it resembled existing internet trends too closely.
will there ever be a horse request ability. request a horse gif
You can shoot me an email if you want... but don't get your hopes up too much. It takes a good bit of work creatively to make an idea work so there's a lot of ideas that I don't make, or that I end up making half a year later, etc.
what is your favorite breed of horse?
Andalusian! She's so me... I love their dapples, I love their mane
Absolutely gorgeous ponies, I based my fursona off this species. Hehe
Should we start subtly theming meme and shitpost trends after the Chinese zodiac animal of that year? Do you think there is a trend towards this already?
I think it would be funny.. I think the main reason horses are showing up this year is because people already really like horses. I didn't really see many snakes last year, for example
what would you do if one day you woke up as a horse
I do this every single day!
What aren't you telling us?
No i do not
Okie dokie!
Is zebras horses?
The horse gif is simply titled Zebra instead of Zebra Horse. Take this how you will... one could argue the Horse is missing because the Zebra implies it, as opposed to a horse that is zebralike. But alternatively, it could be missing the Horse because it isn't a horse.
How would you feel about someone doing a similar project but with a different animal? If the feeling is positive, how would you like to be credited? I am autistic about sharks and you've inspired me. No pressure though.
I didn't invent silly creatures :P Do whatever you want but please show me
why are you so beautiful and goated?
How are you so sexy and handsome
Probably because I'm a horse girl
Horse
Yeah!
That should be all of the questions answered, there were some duplicates that I trimmed. Adios!
Other honourable mentions: Eepy Horse, Oppenheimer Horse, Doctor Horse, Gaming Horse, Mafia Horse, Corn Horse, Prehistoric Horse, Gambling Horse, Fruity Hooves, Jade Idol Horse, and Axe Murderer Horse.
