On Oct. 27, the founders of the smartphone app, Vine, announced they would discontinue it within the next few months. This came in a Twitter announcement with no prior warning.
Vine is an app that debuted in 2012 after Twitter bought it for $30 million. Its premise was simple: to make a six-second video that played on an endless loop. Not many people had heard of it when it started, but it quickly gathered millions of users and viewers- according to an article by tech company The Verge.
Like many other social media apps today, Vine appealed to young people more than any other age group. From infamous videos like “Damn Daniel… back at it again with the white Vans” to “It is Wednesday, my dudes (insert terrible laugh),” teenagers fueled the Vine frenzy.
One avid Vine user was APU freshman computer science major Jonathan Davis. Although Davis only ever created and shared three vines on the app, he spent countless hours on it for fun.
“I think it’s very dumb. Vine is one of the single greatest things that was created,” Davis said. “It’s not a smart move on them. It’s very sad.”
Freshman psychology major Hailey Frey also lamented the change.
“I love Vine and I’m very sad Twitter decided to get rid of it,” said Frey. “I will really miss posting my daily vines. Vine made my life better.”
No longer will kids get to turn something embarrassing their friends said or did into an infinite six-second loop of humor. No longer will society be able to sit and watch Channing Tatum say “My name Jeff” over and over without having to rewind the clip at all. No longer will anyone be able to share a simple six-second video that brightened the day with a friend who’s also had a hard week.
“I’ll be missing everything. Vine is like half of Twitter, and the other half of Twitter is basically irrelevant. Without Vine, there’s nothing really to look forward to,” Davis said.
Others, however, believe Twitter made the correct choice in letting go of an app that can no longer keep up.
“I think Twitter is right in dissolving Vine. It can’t compete with Snapchat and Instagram,” said Deborah Revenaugh, a freshman psychology major. “The concept was good, but it didn’t have anything to make it essential.”
Vine is being discontinued for a variety of reasons, though mainly because of the fact that it never really profited Twitter. Vine never advertised and the founders were against monetization. Unlike Twitter, it didn’t offer paid accounts or videos. The company also lost its original founders, creative director and another CEO in the past two years, according to The Verge.
For now, users of Vine will still be able to view and upload videos in the next couple of months.
In the Twitter announcement released on the website Medium, Twitter revealed “nothing is happening to the apps, website or your Vines today. We value you, your Vines and are going to do this the right way. You’ll be able to access and download your Vines. We’ll be keeping the website online because we think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website.”
Twitter did not share in the announcement a hard date for when Vine would be officially shut down.
So for people who spent hours on Vine instead of doing homework or stayed up a few extra minutes to watch “Damn Daniel” a couple more times, don’t worry too much; it’s not over just yet.