The minute I saw a tweet about the Ebroji app, I ran to the App Store and downloaded it. I did not know anything about it, but I did know that Activist Bae Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy) was one of the people behind it. Say no more! I knew I had to tinker with it and do a review.
If you follow me on Twitter or are one of the people that I text regularly, then you know I love GIFs. I live for GIFs! Part of it is because they help drive a point home humorously and they are super convenient. I’ve tried only one other GIF keyboard and I didn’t like it. It was kind of clunky and I had to leave the text message in order to be able to add the GIF to the text. That’s already too much work. I’ll stick to my emojis. I didn’t have such problems with the Ebroji app.
Now, the name is a little bit misleading in the sense that one would assume that you are downloading an actual emoji keyboard. You are not. You’re downloading a GIF keyboard that is as accessible as going to your phone’s settings and adding it as another keyboard. As an added bonus, or perhaps it is the focal point (depending on the user), you are also downloading a standalone app where you can find a wealth of GIFs right at your fingertips, like its competitor GIPHY. As for as adding GIFs to your text messages, it’s really just a matter of toggling from your usual keyboard to the Ebroji keyboard, tapping an image (which copies it), then pasting into your message. This also works when composing a tweet. You also don’t need to toggle between the Ebroji keyboard and your keyboard because it features a QWERTY keyboard of its own. Still not convinced? You can also create your own GIFs and upload them too.
So what makes Ebroji stand out? Well, the focus on GIFs that are borne out of the pop culture zeitgeist that is Black Twitter or Black Tumblr, as opposed to say Cheezburger’s Señor Gif or Reaction GIFs. And the last time I downloaded the GIPHY app for use in text messages or on Twitter, it was frustrating enough to warrant deletion from my phone. Normally, I’m quick to get rid of apps because I get bored easily, but I can’t imagine deleting this app. It’s too much fun and it’s too easy.
I only have two problems with the Ebroji keyboard and the GIF app itself. When it came to the GIF keyboard, I came across a few GIFs that were warped, pixelated, or wouldn’t load. There were very few of these in any given category, but it’s definitely an area that needs refinement. The actual QWERTY keyboard within the app has smaller letters which make typing just a bit too tedious for people like me with larger hands. With the app itself, there’s no back button from a selected category back to the main screen with all the categories listed. However, it didn’t take more than a few seconds to realize all I had to do was tap the Ebroji icon to go back to the main screen. A search bar for users to search specific GIFs would also be a good addition. I wanted to find a grizzly bear GIF (don’t judge me, man!) but couldn’t specify that in a search, so I couldn’t include it in the message I was sending.
Overall, Ebroji is definitely an app that I’ll be keeping around for a while. I believe once those issues are ironed out, Ebroji will be one of the best GIF apps on the market. Ebroji is available for iOS and Android devices.