Just days after Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter, he began teasing the long-awaited return of the company’s short-form video app Vine. But, is it actually coming back? If so, when?
Created in 2013, Vine was one of the first short-form video platforms to gain extreme popularity on the internet before eventually being shut down by Twitter in 2016.
Just like TikTok has helped Charli & Dixie D’Amelio’s rise to fame, Vine helped popular influencers Logan and Jake Paul get their start nearly a decade ago.
Elon Musk became the official owner of Twitter on October 27, 2022, after months of deliberation and an attempt to back out of the deal. Now, he’s sparked rumors about potentially bringing the iconic platform back to life.
MrBeast gives Elon Musk advice to beat TikTok with Vine
At the time of writing, Elon Musk’s Twitter poll asking if he should bring back Vine has received over four-million votes — with 69.4% of them calling for its return
YouTuber Jimmy ‘MrBeast’ Donaldson was quick to respond to the idea of bringing Vine back. He said: “If you did that and actually competed with tik tok that’d be hilarious.”
After Elon asked the YouTuber what he could do to make it better than TikTok, MrBeast gave the newfound social media owner some advice.
“No one is original anymore, whatever you do will be on every other platform the next month unless it has a deep moat,” he said. “YouTube has shorts, Insta has reels, Reddit, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. all copied TT. Whatever you do make it hard to copy or it’s a waste of time IMO.”
No one is original anymore, whatever you do will be on every other platform the next month unless it has a deep moat.YouTube has shorts, insta has reels, Reddit, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. all copied TT. Whatever u do make it hard to copy or it’s a waste of time imo
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) October 31, 2022
Musk didn’t respond to Donaldson’s advice, but we can safely assume he has at least seen the tweet.
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Twitter Engineers reportedly working on Vine code
In a report from Axios on October 31, Elon Musk has reportedly instructed Twitter Engineers to begin work on a Vine reboot.
Multiple sources allegedly told the publication that the platform could come back to life by the end of 2022, which is only two months away.
The source code, which hasn’t been changed or updated since Vine was shut down in 2016, apparently “needs a lot of work,” according to Axios’ sources.
Twitter/X employee posts link to Logan Paul’s page
On April 17, 2024, a Twitter/X employee by the name of Christopher Stanley made a cryptic post on the platform that linked to Logan Paul’s archived Vine page.
He posted a shifty eyes emoji beside the link, making people wonder if the platform is set to return sooner rather than later.
When will Vine relaunch?
At the time of writing, it’s unknown when — or if — Vine will be brought back to life by the Tesla co-founder.
It’s among the plethora of things that Musk is in the process of working on, which includes potentially charging $20 a month for users to be verified on the platform.
The potential revival of Vine is still very much a rumor, so we’ll be sure to update this article as more information is released.