Media Project Draft
Good Viners
Vine is an app that Is owned by Twitter and allows users to post six-second videos that can be viewed on a loop. Though originally intended to be a place to share daily activities, similar to what Snapchat is used for, Vine today is mostly used for comedic purposes. Many people create witty and humorous content in their vines. The app is full of creative humor, stupid humor, and anything that can catch people’s attention and make them chuckle. Sometimes vines can go viral, and when they do, their creators can gain quite a bit of notoriety.
Both the youth culture of today and the aesthetic of the app contribute to the possibility of “Vine Stars” who are working their way into the public eye, six seconds at a time.
It is difficult to understand how someone could gain enough recognition to be considered for movie roles by being featured in only six-seconds clips, but it is actually a fairly common occurrence. Once a person’s vine becomes popular, it can get millions of views, and that’s millions of people who have seen their face. Also, if you like what you see and get a good laugh out of it, you’ll probably go to their page to watch more, and eventually you’ve seen their face enough times to remember it. The point is that vines are easy to watch, and “nobody’s going to complain that you wasted six seconds of their time”(Friend,1).
Currently, Two popular Vine stars: 20 year old Cameron Dallas, and 18 year old Nash Grier have over 9 million followers each, and are both prime examples of the fame and wealth that can come from Vine. In one of his Vines, captioned “People who sneeze way too many times”, Cameron films himself and a friend walking, as the friend violently sneezes three times in a row. He replies “bless you” after the first two times, and then after the third, shouts “I’m not blessing you no more!” and then the video ends and loops over again. This particular vine has over 800,000 likes and has been viewed 24,127,804 times or loops. It’s simple, mildly funny, and does not seem difficult to create, and yet this type of content has launched Cameron’s career.
Nash has similar content, one of his vines is captioned “when you forget to clean out your locker” and features a shot of a teenage boy walking towards his locker and opening it. As he is about to reach inside, the next shot cuts to Nash jumping out of the locker and grabbing him, and then its over. Once again, simple, funny, and easy to watch.
Today, Cameron’s net worth is an estimated 1.2million, while Nash’s is 3 million. They have both been offered roles in movies recently; Nash stars in film released on iTunes, “The Outfield”(2015) and Cameron stars in a Netflix original, “Expelled”. They have been on tour to meet their fans with a group of other young Viners who call themselves the “Magcon boys”, and both have moved to Los Angeles. As far as career options, it seems they have endless possibilities. And that is what most Viners hope for.
So what goes into making these Vines, and what makes them successful?
One of the main aspects of the app is its “aesthetic”. The quick clips are easy to watch and pretty to look at, and Vines background color is an eye-catching lime green. Also After watching a well-made Vine, recognizing the star, and getting the joke, you feel satisfied. And if you didn’t get that feeling the first time, it only takes six seconds to try it again. Although it looks simple and easy to make content, it takes a lot of effort to get the shots just right. A lot of brainstorming and shooting and reshooting scenes is necessary to create a good Vine. It needs to first, catch your attention, then make you laugh. In Tad Friend’s New Yorker article, he calls a vine a “complex and satisfying experience” (Friend,1). Also contributing to the aesthetic, most Vine stares are relatively attractive people, so watching videos of their face is enjoyable. Nash is famous for his striking bright blue eyes, and Cameron fits the look of the typical high school jock, so when it comes to their millions of female, teenage fans, the adoration is not surprising.
The ability for these people to rise to stardom like this is largely due to the state of today’s youth culture. With reality shows, Youtube, and other similar types of media, there is one thing in common. People are able to reveal their personalities (no matter how authentic they are) to the entire world in an instant. The youth of today want to see someone they know and relate to. If you watch enough of someone’s Vines, you will feel like you know them. Either from getting to understand their sense of humor, or hearing the sound of their voice over and over again, you will eventually feel connected to them. And that is how they gain fans. When popular Viners make jokes about school life and being late to class, etc.. younger fans surface. The fans want someone who is “relatable”, even if that image is not entirely true. Nash Grier has a Vine titled “Going to school on a Friday vs. going to school on a Monday. The Vine begins with Nash and his friend dancing down the street to an upbeat pop song, tossing their book bags in the air, and then cuts to shot of Nash being literally dragged by his friend with a rope tied around him down the same street. The exaggerated joke plays on the feelings of teenagers who likely feel overwhelmed by school and take refuge in laughing about it. Seeing jokes like this can serve as a validation of their feelings. Another aspect of the culture that makes this possible is the unlimited access to things like vines. There are so many social media platforms and ways to share content, that if even if you don’t have the app Vine, you will probably end up seeing it anyway. Vine is owned by twitter, so it is not uncommon to see tweets of Vines, but they are also on plenty of other sites too. There are Vines on Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, and more. People upload vines to Youtube, often in “compilations” or collections of one star’s entire set of Vines. You can quite literally see them everywhere you look. In that case, a Vine star is not that different from a Youtuber or an Instagram model. The more places their face is posted, the more successful they become. The ubiquitous internet access plays a large role in these peoples’ success as well. Most people have smartphones, and can easily take six seconds to glance down at them throughout the day. The culture is able to give immediate attention to Vine stars and has allowed them to get where they are.
Although Vine is all in good fun, a big motivation for posting is the money. Viners get paid for doing advertisements in their content. For example, they can make references to products or just be seen using them. Popular Viner Andrew Bachelor, who goes by the name “KingBach” has over 16 million followers and makes “between” $10,000 to 15,000 a month from making sponsored vines. Once you get famous on Vine you can make money from it, but most Viners hope that their fame will lead them to get jobs acting or modeling. Vine is like a “gateway drug” that can lead to better things down the road (Friend,10).
Vine is something that seems simple, but has many complex aspects to it as well. There are many hidden skills that go into creating popular Vines, and they aren’t as easy to make as they look. The concept of “Vine Stars “ sounds ridiculous because in today’s culture, people who get famous and have no “talent” are judged harshly for it. People like the Kardashians who are often referred to as “famous for being famous” are as disliked as they are recognized. When it comes to Vine stars, they might not have traditional “talent”, but they do have a skill, no matter how trivial it seems. And if you can use your skills to get places, then good for you.
