In memoriam
Vine
Born 24 January 2013. Died 17 January 2017.
Vine passed on 17 January 2017, having lived four years as the first home of short-form video. Born on 24 January 2013 in Twitter’s laboratories, it gave the world six seconds and a loop. At its peak it claimed more than two hundred million monthly viewers. Creators learned to compress comedy into a single breath; audiences learned that the smallest format could hold the most. Twitter announced its discontinuation in October 2016. The parent company cited cost-cutting and a shift in strategy. No one said it had lost to rivals who had learned its lessons. The app went quiet in January. The website lingered. He is survived by every platform that copied his constraints, and by the loops that still play, though no one makes them anymore.
Since 2013, millions of people have turned to Vine to laugh at loops and see creativity unfold. Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we'll be discontinuing the mobile app.
Discontinued by parent company
Mourned by Creators who learned to make comedy in six seconds, teenagers who built followings in loops, and everyone who discovered that the shortest format could hold the most.
TikTok, which learned what Vine taught; the Vine Camera, which outlived the app by months; and an archive of loops that still play, though no one makes them anymore.