Vine Camera made a comeback with weird, sad videos in 2017

VineCreators/Twitter FuPoo/Twitter JayceWeil/Twitter Remix by Samantha Grasso

People actually used Vine Camera in 2017—here’s what they posted

Nearly a year after Vine's departure, Vine Camera lives.

Photo of Samantha Grasso 

Samantha Grasso

Internet Culture

Posted on Dec 30, 2017   Updated on May 22, 2021, 6:33 am CDT

We lost Vine in January, and boy did the world miss those 6-second videos in 2017.

Lady Gaga falling from the sky during the Super Bowl halftime show; Melania Trump swatting away her husband’s hand; the president throwing paper towels into crowds of Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Maria survivors—2017 was full of vine-able moments, and yet, the application that once mashed video and audio of sports games, inappropriate speeches, and everyday life was available as but a shell of its former self.

With the end of Vine came Vine Camera, a phone application that allowed users to create and share longer versions of these videos. But the app’s limited functions left former viners and fans scratching their heads, and flocking to YouTube and Musical.ly instead.

The app’s low favorability (a measly 1.5 stars on the Apple App Store) didn’t detract all users: The Vine Camera videos posted by earnest folks were no match for the old days, but believers in Vine Camera ended up creating something perhaps more genuine, or even ethereal.

These Vine Camera videos are reminiscent of the early days of Vine, when jerky, jump-cut videos showcasing everyday life, creativity, and even unfunny people trying their best to impress the internet hit the popular pages. Scrolling through these videos made with Vine Camera feels like when you could open the app in 2013 and watch content spun from the mind of nobodies—people who weren’t monetized personalities. Before Jessi Vazquez, Logan Paul, and Liza Koshy were famous on Vine, they were just people who made other people laugh.

If this platform is any indication of what we might be able to expect for V2, the upcoming Vine reboot announced by co-creator Dom Hofmann earlier this month, then we might have something to look forward to in 2018, after all.

The best Vine Camera videos of 2017:

Of course, we had a huge early resurgence of people “trying out” the app for the first time, as if it was any more complicated than using the original Vine itself.

https://twitter.com/AaronJenkinsAK/status/853509120044826624

What really brought Vine Camera back to its roots were the random posts people made—short moments of life, strange interactions, and truly disturbing facial expressions. Yes, the golden days of Vine, anew.

https://twitter.com/jongoddamn/status/857022884945903617

https://twitter.com/freckledoe/status/903838678375579649

https://twitter.com/b_rad55/status/943194575459536896

https://twitter.com/joe_rays/status/913499214629531648

https://twitter.com/ps_Asfia/status/842614041872814081

https://twitter.com/JayceWeil/status/937870119732170752

https://twitter.com/_Laneykrebs/status/855286504029003776

https://twitter.com/FuPoo/status/936907300056342528

And no Vine iteration would be Vine without people attempting to launch their comedy careers off the platform—as detrimental as that might have been for the app in the first place.

https://twitter.com/nick_colletti/status/857820386880217088

With Twitter enabling 6-second Camera Vine videos to automatically loop, camera tricks, guitar riffs, and other pieces of art have continued to find their place on the app.

https://twitter.com/dylen_marin/status/898714618549288960

https://twitter.com/letsfvckcalum/status/876880280556011520

Undoubtedly, much of Vine Camera’s videos were used to, well, complain about Vine’s absence and the seeming pointlessness of Vine Camera itself.

https://twitter.com/itswilliam45/status/919245385943699456

https://twitter.com/nonehitwonder/status/935917064719687680

https://twitter.com/XwasteXawayX/status/823587273925083137

Thank you for the sad, awkward, middle school phase of Vine, Vine Camera. We will cherish these memories forever—or just long enough for V2 to get off the ground.

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*First Published: Dec 30, 2017, 5:00 am CST

Samantha Grasso

Samantha Grasso is a former IRL staff writer for the Daily Dot with a reporting emphasis on immigration. Her work has appeared on AJ+, Vox, Splinter, Los Angeles Magazine, and Austin Monthly.

Samantha Grasso