Elon Musk asks if we should bring back Vine and it got more than 6 seconds of reactions
Is it time to revive Vine? Current Twitter owner, CEO, and the man who cannot ponder anything unless it’s in public, Elon Musk, casually posed the question in a Twitter poll on Monday.
Proposing raising a platform from the dead. Could there be a more perfect Halloween tweet?
Before there were TikTok, Reels, Snapchat stories, and YouTube Shorts, there was Vine, a six-second video platform that improbably spawned countless broader media stars including Zach King, King Back, Lele Pons, and Shawn Mendes (opens in new tab).
It took skill to be good at Vine and work within its six-second limitations to create something compelling and shareable. I used to enjoy creating animated unboxings and brief comedy bits with my friend, Canadian comedian Brittlestar (opens in new tab).
Unfortunately, the tools were so specific and inscrutable to the average social media human that Vine struggled mightily to grow. Eventually, parent company Twitter gave up and shuttered the platform in 2016.
Perhaps Vine’s failure presaged TikTok’s rise. The latter almost tripled the video length (initially 15 seconds, and now up to 10 minutes for some creators), threw out the confining square template, and offered a collection of tools that any internet persona of any age could grasp.
