Gone but Not Forgotten: The Lasting Impact of Vine in Digital History

In the colorful and ever-changing landscape of social media, platforms come and go. But there has never been one so short-lived and yet incredibly impactful as Vine. Vine was a short-form video hosting platform originally founded in June 2012 by Rus Yusupov, Dom Hofmann, and Colin Kroll. Its gimmick was 6-second-long looping video clips shared by users of the platform, and it was arguably one of the first social media apps to popularize the short-form video (Wong, 2022). Vine’s success skyrocketed so fast that it was quickly acquired by Twitter in 2012 for $30 million (Rowell, 2020). But after four years of creative gold, due to its lack of evolution in a highly competitive social media world, Vine met its unfortunate end in January 2016.

It is important to understand what Vine did right. The platform may not exist anymore, but what it did share with the world we still see in the social media apps of today. Vine’s short-form video sharing was truly the first of its kind. Though Instagram (2010) and Snapchat (2011) existed, they focused on other features such as photos and impermanent content. Therefore, the model Vine presented to the world was fresh and a challenge in creativity. Indeed, creators responded to it so well that in the following years, other apps followed suit. In 2013, Instagram added 15-second clips to their platform (Wong, 2022), and Snapchat added 60-second Stories (Vaynerchuck, 2016). In 2016, Instagram also added Stories to compete with Snapchat (Brooks, 2020), and in more recent years, Instagram and Facebook have added Reels to their repertoire to compete with TikTok. And that brings us to TikTok, popularly argued as the direct successor of Vine. TikTok offers a very similar space to Vine — a dedicated platform to share short-form video content containing humor, music, education, and storytelling. So, while Vine may not have lasted very long, its innovative model of sharing content within 6 seconds resonated so well amongst users that other social media apps — several of which are the most popular apps today — adopted the model for themselves. Then, able to evolve the model to remain competitive, those apps saw and continue to see success. Unfortunately, Vine couldn’t keep up with this cycle themselves.

Vine’s downfall came from their lack of innovation in a constantly changing online landscape, where apps are always trying to one-up each other and draw the crowd. While Vine finally broke away from its 6-second limitation in 2016, it came several years too late (Wong, 2022), as that was also the year of its death. However, Vine’s contribution to the world of social media still resonates. Even outside of other platforms adopting its model, if Vine were still alive, the app would be among the powerhouse social media platforms of the current age. Why? Because as everything amalgamates online — audiences, products, brands, and therefore, marketing campaigns — short-form video has consistently become one of the top methods for inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing is about attracting customers through helpful and relevant content, to make their buying journey meaningful (Leach, n.d.) and foster engaging relationships and brand loyalty. What better place to do this than through social media apps, where users click, share, and interact at the speed of light. And in a generation of fast-paced attention spans, marketers have learned that conveying messages in short-form videos can be more effective than in long-form videos; in fact, 90% of marketers using short-form video tactics in previous years will continue to do so in 2023 (Bump, 2022). This is why platforms with integrated short-form video features, like TikTok and Instagram, are not only doing so well as personal social hubs, but also provide a great space for native advertising and inbound marketing campaigns. This phenomenon of leveraging the short-form video to advertise and educate would not have been introduced as fervently if not for Vine making it mainstream and accessible.

Not only did Vine’s platform inspire adoption by other social media and paved the way for the success of short-form video in inbound marketing strategy, but Vine also made a huge cultural impact. It shaped a generation’s humor, as Vine references are still shared amongst friends today and my coworkers regularly crack one-liners from popular Vines. The nostalgia is kept alive by Vine compilations on YouTube and threads hosted on Twitter. The generational debate of Vine versus TikTok is always heated. And it was one of the first social media platforms to legitimize internet creatives (Born, 2018), as it turned people like Liza Koshy, David Dobrik, Logan Paul, Gabbie Hanna, Lele Pons, and more, into overnight celebrities. These people then moved onto YouTube and greater opportunities, and even inspired following comedic personalities like Emma Chamberlain. Some may have considered the 6-second time limit a constraint, but Vine creators rose to the occasion. With this at-the-time innovative approach to storytelling, Vine and its users inspired a slew of social media apps to follow suit, the short-form video became a successful tool to communicate effectively, and their lasting cultural impact made sure Vine will not be forgotten anytime soon.

References

Born, R. (2018, October 30). Internet Cultured: Vine’s community is alive and well despite the platform’s death. Daily Trojan. https://dailytrojan.com/2018/10/30/internet-cultured-vines-community-is-alive-and-well-despite-the-platforms-death/

Brooks, A. (2020, February 28). The Evolution of social media [Infographic]. Vamp. https://vamp.com/blog/2020/02/28/evolution-of-social-media/

Bump, P. (2022, November 11). The Top Marketing Trends of 2023 & How They’ve Changed Since 2022 [Data from 1000+ Global Marketers. HubSpot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/marketing-trends

Leach, C. (n.d.). What is Inbound Marketing? 2023 Guide to Inbound Marketing. 310 Creative. https://www.310creative.com/blog/what-is-inbound-marketing

Rowell, C. (2020, May 19). The rise and fall of Vine: A brief timeline. Business Chief. https://businesschief.com/technology-and-ai/rise-and-fall-vine-brief-timeline-1

Vaynerchuck, G. (2016, January 28). The Snap Generation: A Guide to Snapchat’s History. https://garyvaynerchuk.com/the-snap-generation-a-guide-to-snapchats-history/#:~:text=Just%20a%20year%20after%20launching,update%20to%20the%20platform%3A%20Stories

Wong, W. (2022, January 17). ­A Look back at Vine — the six-second video app that made us scream, laugh and cry. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/look-back-vine-six-second-video-app-made-us-scream-laugh-cry-rcna10910