Ask HN: Why do software tutorials use meaningless GIFs?

I'm building a few hobby projects in what is a new language for me, so the first step was to search for tutorials online. But it seems to be a trend to use gifs from movies and elsewhere to populate whitespace in most tutorials and videos. As someone who is an outsider, what is the reason for this? Well if it is to add a touch of humor to the video or blog post, it certainly doesn't work - on the contrary, it's irritating and distracting.