The fact that this conversation exists is proof that the word is intuitively pronounced with a hard G.
The only reason to pronounce it like a J if because the creator liked it - and the reason he liked it was literally because of the (copyright-infringing) similarity to the peanut butter.
He made a huge contribution to the Internet by creating the format, and he deserves it gratitude. Mispronouncing gif is not the best approach to that.
I had literally never heard a single person pronounce it with a hard G, through middle school and high school graphic design classes, through an entire web development degree, until 2015 when HelloGeneric made that stupid video.
I hate this argument so I'm going tip start pronouncing it like the Dutch G or the Spanish J and you won't be able to tell which it is because I speak neither language.
Ess Queue Ell. I didn't hear the sequel pronunciation until I was well in my thirties and even then only by people older than me. Then I started working with it myself and heard people younger than me pronouncing it sequel, so now I have no idea. I still hear Ess Queue Ell from the vast majority though.
The creator of the Gradual Interface Forget wanted people to pronounce it with a J literally because he wanted it to use the name recognition of the peanut butter - and I don't exactly care about their profits or about copyright, but it's a bad reason.
So wealthy people exploit vulnerable people and coordinate to fill the airwaves with anti-human propaganda because some people mistakenly use a J sound?
In Swedish we don't really say Jay-pegg, because it doesn't flow with the rest of the language. Due to it coming at a time when file extensions were limited to three characters on Windows, most people I know pronounce it JPG (Yee-pear-gear).
Those who say it with a hard G must also say JFEG using the same logic. I'm fine with someone saying it either way, it's been around so long that I think the choices tend to be regional (aka BBS era).
The file format is JPEG (or JPG). Its commonly pronounced "jay-peg", but if we demand that GIF is a hard-G because of "Graphics", then we must abide JPEG being pronounced "jay-feg" or "jay-pheg" because of "Photographic".
Considering gif is just an acronym there isn’t a right or wrong way to pronounce it as technically it isn’t a word, and therefore there is no “official” way to say it.