Category pills — where and how?

These appear on the idle/featured GIF screen, before the user starts typing

A

Horizontal scrollable row of text pills

A single row of pill buttons below the search input. Scrolls horizontally. Compact, leaves maximum space for the GIF grid. Like how Threads does it.

Text pills — horizontal scroll
🔍 Search GIFs
🔥 Trending
❤️ Love
😄 Happy
😢 Sad
🎉 Party
👍 Yes
😭 LOL
B

Grid of GIF thumbnail tiles with labels

A 2-3 column grid of category tiles, each showing the category's preview GIF with a text label overlay. More visual, but takes up more space and replaces the featured GIFs initially.

GIF thumbnail grid
🔍 Search GIFs
🔥 Trending
❤️ Love
😄 Happy
😢 Sad
🎉 Party
👍 Yes
C

Horizontal pills + featured GIFs below (Threads-style)

Exactly like Threads: category pills as a scrollable row, with featured/trending GIFs filling the grid below. Tapping a pill replaces the grid with results for that category. Best of both worlds.

Pills + featured grid (Threads)
🔍 Search GIFs
🔥 Trending
❤️ Love
😄 Happy
😢 Sad
🎉 Party
👍 Yes
Featured / Trending GIFs

My recommendation: Option C

Matches the Threads pattern exactly. Pills provide quick category access, the featured GIF grid fills the space below. "Trending" is the default selected pill, tapping another pill swaps the grid to that category's results. When the user starts typing, the pills hide and the search takes over.