EMMA PATTERSON
Staff Lampoonist
On Oct. 27, 2016, Twitter announced that its short-form video sharing app, Vine, had suddenly and unexpectedly passed. After fighting valiantly against competing video-sharing apps such as Snapchat, Vine finally laid down its vast supply of viral memes and admitted defeat in the face of the flower-crown Snapchat filter. Cherished by young adults and, alarmingly, children alike, Vine’s emergence in 2013 created a whole new platform for young people to express themselves, mainly through Vine staples such as “The LeBron James Kid” and “Damn Daniel.”
“When I first heard the song ‘Why You Always Lying,’ I felt like someone out there finally understood me,” said a Fredonia student at one of the support groups the college put together for grieving students. “It really made me wonder, like, ‘Am I always lying?’ And what’s with the toilet seat in the Vine? It made me question everything I thought I knew.”
This student isn’t the only person mourning the loss of Vine. All across social media, Vine-lovers are posting tribute videos to the app in which they celebrate the best and weirdest Vine had to offer, with viral gems such as “the avocado kid” and “Ryan Gosling won’t eat his cereal” once again circulating the internet. What will the world do without 6-second videos of facially expressive people mouthing the words to Beyoncé’s “Love on Top?” in a moving vehicle, or without tear-jerking portrayals of famous movies by dogs in sweaters? In its 3 years of existence, Vine has changed lives by proving that, yes, white Vans are overrated, and, also yes, sassy children are always funny. Vine was a cultural masterpiece, and its ridiculous-yet-relatable videos spoke to the child/comedian/creeper in all of us. Vine is survived by hoverboard fails, hordes of impressionable middle schoolers, the phrase “What are thooooooose?” and literally thousands of unemployed aspiring YouTubers.