It's the end of an era --- one that lasted much longer than just six seconds. Twitter announced on Thursday that it will begin the process of discontinuing its short-form video app Vine.
In a post on Medium, Twitter made the announcement that Vine will be no more in the coming months. Though the app will be disappearing, Twitter did guarantee that it will keep the Vine website active for as long as possible and not touch the Vines that have already been created. A source told The Verge that the announcement accompanied several layoffs at Vine on Thursday.
Twitter acquired Vine back in 2012, before it even launched, and then launched the app at the beginning of 2013. The short-form video app allowed users to create videos that were six seconds long and would continuously loop, kind of like a gif with sound. The app's three founders, Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll, each shared their thoughts on Vine's demise via Twitter today. Kroll chose to keep things light with a funny Vine.
Dom Hofman felt nostalgic, sharing a Vine that he recorded on the second day of the app's existence, making it the oldest Vine around.
The saddest response came from Rus Yusupov, who simply tweeted his regret at selling Vine to Twitter back in 2012. Reportedly, Twitter paid $30 million for the app.
Vine came to be popular for in various circles --- particularly, sports fans, music lovers, and comedians took to the app. The content creation site created a new generation of celebrities, known as Vine stars, who gained fame among the app users. Some of these Vine stars even achieved crossover success into mainstream celebrity, such as singer Shawn Mendes, model Cameron Dallas, and actor Andrew Bachelor (better known by his Vine persona King Bach).
In honor of Vine's ending, let's reflect back on some of our favorite Vines. I'll start with this one, which coincidentally also perfectly encapsulates the feelings of Vine users everywhere.
