Vine has now been officially de-activated, but video capture app is still standing as an archive of the six-second clips it spawned. Twitter has set up the homepage of Vine as an interactive time capture through which users can recall all the trends, memes, and noteworthy uploads that made the app a major part of the youth zeitgeist during its four-year run.
Anyone who ventures over to the Vine homepage will find the site’s content divided across a number of filters. By clicking around on the site, users can remind themselves of the popular Vines within specific years or genres. Playlists that recall some of the platform’s top trends (such as “on fleek” and the Shmoney Dance) are also available, as is a hall of fame of sorts that remembers some superlative content from Vine’s run. The most re-Vined clip in the platform’s history, for example, featured a classic staple of popular Internet videos: A funny baby.
Through the Vine archive, Twitter is extracting a little extra mileage out of a platform that — due to its lack of advertising infrastructure and the shifting priorities of online video viewers — has otherwise outlived its usefulness. While I can understand the reasoning behind Twitter’s decision to ditch its six-second subsidiary, I can live in peace knowing I can revisit this clip whenever I want.
