“Vine Energy” Lives On
Vine paved the way for the creation of video content across many social media platforms in today’s digital world. If you’re on TikTok or Instagram you may have recently come across the term “Vine Energy” and you, along with many others probably know exactly what that means.
This catch phrase has quickly turned into a way to compare the qualities of videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, to that of the late Vine videos. An article from Paper Magazine states, “Users across generational bounds, though, are pointing out perceived “Vine energy” in the comments of some of their favorite TikToks. BVE’s meaning is obvious: the video in question gives off the same vibe as some of the public’s favorite six-second Vines” (Wetmore, 2020).
In 2012, Vine was created by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll. Vine gave users six seconds to create an entertaining loop video. Six seconds seems like such a short amount of time, but it proved to be a creative challenge and spark new ideas amongst many. App creator, Hofmann said, “And yet even before the app launched, users had taken the 6-second constraint as a creative challenge. Something about that loop — the way a Vine endlessly rewound itself after completing, like a GIF with audio — encouraged people to put the app to strange uses. It was surprising”(Newton,2016). Many Vine videos quickly rose to popularity and for many of us we are still quoting those videos today.
Unfortunately, Vine’s reign came to an end in 2017. These videos were merely intended to be a way for people to capture everyday life moments, but it quickly took the world by storm and has made an impact on digital history as we know it today. There are many reasons why people believe Vine didn’t make it. One of those reasons being that many marketers did not find Vine to be beneficial for their advertising efforts. In an article from RepublicWorld.Com, “Marketers moving away from Vine can be considered another enormous part of the decision why Twitter decided to discontinue the platform. Vine was not able to find a sustainable business model as it was viewed by many advertisers and promotors as a platform that did not suite well for promoting their products”(Ansari, 2020).
Vine created a platform for people to be creative, which led to the evolution of Vine stars. These Vine stars quickly became household names because of their trending videos. When Vine died, these stars took their creative initiatives and moved them to YouTube, Instagram and now TikTok. One of the most notable Vine stars is David Dobrik. Business Insider explains that “he got launched into the spotlight on the video-sharing app Vine, and has since turned to YouTube, where he has more than 15 million subscribers” (Leskin, 2020).
Vine will continue to leave its mark on the world of social media, and for many of us current videos with “vine energy” remind us of why we fell in love with the platform in the first place. We loved the humor, creativeness and accessibility the app gave us. Today, we have TikTok, Instagram Reels, Byte and many other video platforms all because of the influence of Vine.
The closest thing we have to Vine today is TikTok, another creatively driven app that has proved to be just as addicting as Vine. Without the influence of Vine, it’s a mystery whether or not these new video platforms would have been created, but Vine will always be remembered as the platform that began a creative revolution with nothing more than six seconds. Although the future for apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels is unknown, one thing is for sure, “vine energy” will continue to live on.
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