What is Vine and can it come back? Elon Musk is ‘looking’ to make a comeback after TikTok’s shutdown

With the fate of TikTok hanging in the balance, Elon Musk (briefly linked to a strange app purchase) has floated the return of the once-popular video-sharing platform as a potential successor.

We’re talking about Vine, the long-shuttered wonderland of memes and viral challenges that spawned a host of weird and wonderful stars like Logan Paul, Lele Pons and Shawn Mendes.

Vine was like TikTok before TikTok, which itself was known as Musical.ly, but we’re digressing.

So, is Mr. Musk serious about resurrecting the app? Can he find time to manage it between his roles at Tesla, SpaceX and X/Twitter? And, what exactly is Vine, anyway? Here’s what you need to know.

What is Vine and when did it stop?

In short, Vine was the only mobile app owned by Twitter that let you record and share six-second videos that play on a loop.

Users often post pranks, dances, and memes that are endlessly reused and remixed. The app’s tight six-second limit drew in a savvy crowd, always mobile, quick-thinking and sharp editing skills turned brevity into an art form.

Their production was full of comedy, fun and irreverence: a teenager playing flutes in his nose, a sweet clip of rapper Drake and his mother at an NBA stadium, Squidward dabbing on a parade float, and a chorus of talented dancers. .

As such, Vine epitomizes the generational divide we often see on social media: younger users flock to the fast-paced, old-fashioned frenzy, while older audiences are left scratching their heads at the slew of jokes and GIF-like clips.

But, even if you’ve been around the circus, you’ve probably seen Vine’s work firsthand, with endless compilation videos on YouTube, retweets, or the occasional clip on Facebook.

A relic of the Obama era, Vine shot to 200 million users in 2015, but its rise came to an abrupt end in 2017 after just four whirlwind years.

The platform is dead because it couldn’t provide creators with a reliable way to monetize their content. This has made many of them migrate to competing platforms like YouTube and Instagram in search of better opportunities.

What does Elon Musk say about Vine?

Mr Musk, who acquired Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it to X, has repeatedly talked about resurrecting Vine.

In April 2024, he conducted a poll asking X users whether the platform should “bring back Vine”, which received more than 450,000 responses, with 69.6 percent voting in favor of the app’s return.

Recently, in response to a post by user X suggesting “it’s time to bring back Vine”, Mr Musk said: “We’re looking into it.”

While nothing official yet, it’s clear to see how Vine could make a resurgence (although its success is another question). Shortly after shutting it down in 2017, Twitter was launched Vine Camera, a temporary app that allows users to post loping clips to Twitter or save them to their phones.

Combining it with X makes sense, especially since the platform already supports live streaming of video and audio. That said, Mr. Musk and his team have promised to turn X into a great app with features like payments, calling, dating, and more — but so far, much of that hasn’t materialized.

To make matters worse, Mr. Musk is about to add another job to his plate as President Donald Trump’s head of government spending cuts at the newly created Department of Government Operations (or DOGE).

It may only take a few seconds to view a Vine, but refreshing it and restoring it to its former glory can take much longer. By then, we’ll probably know if TikTok is sticking or going the way of the dodo (or should we say Byte).