I too grew up on irc and now working on an alternative that has no gaming association, totally open so you can view w/o being logged in, topical, no gifs, and low friction, and planning to keep it clean and simple. https://sqwok.im
Just gonna go ahead and call it, itβs dead. Gifs are required. Even in the Slack I manage for work for a large team the primary request is we add giphy.
this tends to not be an issue for work slacks, as the fear of being fired for what could be considered abusive chat or procrastination would stop most of the spam.
