by Lucy Kuchma ‘18

It’s been almost a year since Vine was officially shut down, but the true Vine-lovers out there have not failed to keep its legacy alive. When Vine first announced it would be ending, it was stated that the company would keep the website around so that, although new Vines wouldn’t be created, people could continue to refer to previously uploaded material for a good laugh. However, the company secretly knew they’d be boosting their total popularity by millions of views and shares by “killing” Vine.

Although it did eventually become quite popular, it wasn’t always smooth sailing for the video site. The Twitter-owned application went through a tumultuous period before its rise to prominence. Just weeks after the website went live, and Vine hit the app store, clips starting popping up left and right that featured pornographic material, prompting Gawker to label the source “America’s Hottest New Porn Search Engine.” In fact, the “Editor’s Picks” category, which features videos chosen by Vine representatives for their humor or relatability, once donned a sexually explicit video, and the Twitter spokesperson had to release a public apology for the “human error.”

Once that little blunder was dealt with, Vine rocketed to popularity.

In the 332 days since the app was destroyed, Vine has arguably become even more iconic. All of the current Vine press can be almost completely attributed to Twitter and YouTube compilations that serve to keep the hilarity alive. As hard as it may be, there’s no sense in hating on the people who only started watching vines once it ended. For instance, the works of Van Gogh only became famous after he died; the same has happened with countless examples of artistic expression over the years. In a sense, one might say that Vine dying is the best thing that could have happened to Vine. And what a surprise, Vine 2.0 is set to launch sometime soon, according to a tweet from the creator. It’s a smart little marketing scheme on the part of the Vine staff, and it’ll pay off when the new app comes out. As much as people think they’re being ironic in memorializing an iconic platform, we all just fell into the company’s marketing trap.