RIP Vine: your six seconds in the spotlight changed the internet generation

We are gathered here today to pay tribute to the life and times of Vine, following its untimely demise during Twitter’s existential crisis.

Vine was gifted to this world just a short three years ago, and brought with it an astounding array of GIF-come-videos which forever changed the way mobile-natives engage with the internet. No longer did the mass market fancy chunky, immaculately produced 2-minute videos sapping their data allowance. Instead, consumers flocked towards micro video-based social media in their droves, which gave birth to a wealth of millennial-generation stars.

Twitter, which owns Vine, hasn’t exactly been having an easy time of it after announcing a 9% cull of its work in line with a monstrous management reorg. The trouble with Vine is that it just couldn’t make money.

It was popular as hell, with the most looped (played) Vines getting hundreds of millions of views. But advertisers never succeeded in generating revenue, and the most popular and dedicated users quickly moved to other platforms (like YouTube) when their efforts failed to yield a financial return.

Vine confirmed via its blog that its website and library of six-second videos will remain open while they figure out “the right way” of discontinuing the mobile app.

This is one of last year’s most viewed Vines – viewed nearly 200 million times. It’s a quacker – get it?

Here’s a whole bunch of other vines, well worth viewing.

And this absolute genius, Zach King…