We knew this day would come. But we’ve only known for, like, a couple of months. So it’s still pretty sad.
Twitter announced last October that they’re shutting down Vine, which came as a complete shock to anyone who hasn’t been paying attention to Twitter’s financial state lately. The weird part is that Twitter didn’t sell Vine, but instead decided to shutter the service. From the outside, Vine may look successful, but from the inside, it wasn’t much of a money-maker for Twitter—and, by the way, Twitter has never successfully managed to turn a profit in the entire decade in which it has existed, so the fact that Vine didn’t make any money was probably a big sticking point for them.
It’s still really sad, though, because Vine had become a place where very unusual art—especially comedic art—had been coming to light. Some of the most famous Vine stars are people of color, with many black comedians and actors using their Vine jokes to get famous and… sometimes… get actual paying jobs in Hollywood. Getting famous on social media doesn’t always work that way, though, which is why I’m so appreciative that so many people put great jokes on Vine anyway, even though there was very little reward for doing so beyond page-views and shares.
Back when Twitter unceremoniously announced that Vine would be shutting down, Jazmine Hughes detailed several of the app’s funniest users in “Vine Dries Up. Black Humor Loses a Home” for the NY Times. She links to a lot of greats in that piece, but I’d also like to give a shout-out to Demi Adejuyigbe, who makes some delightfully bizarre Vines—and who also now works in Hollywood. He’s not an A-list star yet, or anything, but if you ask me, he should be.
Today is the last day for you to go and download all of your favorite Vines! The website has today’s date, January 17th, pinned to the top of the page as a reminder that you really need to snag those files before they disappear forever. Tomorrow, who knows what will be located at Vine.co?
Well, actually, we do know what will be there: the Vine Camera. Basically, Vine has been relegated to a mere video editing feature that’s tied into Twitter. Since you can already post videos on Twitter and edit them using your phone’s video software (or whatever other editing software you please), I’m not sure if the “Vine Camera” will provide much use for anyone… except maybe the people who are already used to editing videos in Vine, as opposed to other software. If you really like the editing UI for Vine, then, I guess you can keep using it. For now. But it won’t be connected to a Vine account or profile anymore; you’ll need to upload the finished videos to Twitter instead. I’m also personally skeptical about how long the “Vine Camera” will stick around; it might be time to learn how to use some other video editing programs at this point, given the tenuous state of Twitter.
I still think it’s so weird that all of these Vines are going to disappear rather than remain online in a Vine memorial of sorts. But I guess Twitter wants to save as much money as they can, these days, and hosting all of those 6-second slices of life must be costing them a bundle. That means you need to make sure you save the ones you want, before they’re gone.
Feel free to share your own favorite Vines in the comments, of course, once you’ve safely saved them!
(via Engadget)
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