I used to hate them, so I understand where you’re coming from, but then I got a job at a company that uses Slack as its primary communications app, and memes and gifs became a genuinely joyful part of my day.
Some managers at my company communicate almost exclusively with gifs, which sometimes still annoys the hell out of me, but I have to keep reminding myself “Bertram, you have a good job, working with fun people who sometimes use too many gifs. It could be so so much worse.” And then I go back to laughing at the most absurdly ridiculous reaction gif my manager just sent as a response to a critical project delivery.