The Baby Yoda GIF war is over, and fans won

There are so few truly pure things in the world, just leave us this.

Gael Cooper

CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.

Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials

Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.

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Gael Cooper

Nov. 25, 2019 1:06 p.m. PT

babyyoda2 — The character dubbed Baby Yoda is the cutest GIF ever.
Video screenshot by Bonnie Burton/CNET

The little critter from The Mandalorian fans have dubbed Baby Yoda makes for an awfully cute GIF. But for a brief time, there was a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of outraged GIF users suddenly cried out in terror, and were silenced.

As first reported by Vulture, Baby Yoda GIFs briefly disappeared from social media sites over the weekend. Did ... did The Mandalorian finally cash in on the baby bounty? According to the BBC, GIF-making platform Giphy took them down due to confusion about their legal status. But now they're baaaaack!

"Last week, there was some confusion around certain content uploaded to Giphy and we temporarily removed these GIFs while we reviewed the situation," the company said in a statement obtained by the BBC. Giphy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The GIFs aren't exactly spoilers, because the baby creature's existence has made headlines ever since it appeared in the final moments of The Mandalorian premiere, which was released to US customers when Disney Plus made its debut on Nov. 12. And fans seemed happy to see the GIFs back after the temporary disappearance, with many celebrating by sharing the unbelievable cuteness.

"You shall not take Baby Yoda from us!" wrote one. And another Twitter user turned that into Yoda-speak, writing, "From us Baby Yoda shall not take you."