Twitter Is Killing Vine

In the wake of announcing that it is cutting 9% of its workforce, Twitter also announced that it is killing Vine’s mobile app, meaning users won’t be able to upload new video clips.

The people behind the short-lived video app wrote to Medium that it will go away “in the coming months,” but reassured users that, for the time being, their Vines will not be deleted. Vine also promised to notify users before making any changes to the app or website.

“We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way,” the company said in the post. “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.”

Vine was acquired by Twitter and launched in January 2013, becoming an instant hit for its 6-second video loops, featuring singers, comedians, sports highlights, and other viral shenanigans that were on fleek.

However, Vine’s popularity withered dramatically over the past 36 months. Its brand of short-form comedy quickly became stale as thousands of variations of essentially the same joke proliferated and played on loop, over and over and over again.

Its brand of short-form comedy quickly became stale.

Vine’s creators started being accused of being annoying, self-obsessed, and just plain uncreative purveyors of clickbait. Allegations of sexual harassment and other inappropriate content being depicted in Vines only worsened its reputation as a toxic community infested with overplayed jokes and vapid teenagers.

Users eventually got bored or repelled by it all and stopped watching and sharing. As they moved to Snapchat and other video sharing alternatives like Facebook and Instagram, Vine’s high profile stars followed suit, taking their millions of followers and ad revenues with them. Earlier this year, nearly all of Vine’s top executives jumped ship.

As Twitter’s stock continues to plummet and the microblogging platform moves to focus on its core product, it’s only somewhat surprising that it decided to axe Vine.

Featured Image: GongTo / Shutterstock.com

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