Vine is back, and if you’re already feeling nostalgic, you’re not alone. Divine, a Vine reboot backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is now available on the App Store and Google Play. The app brings back roughly 500,000 archived Vine videos and lets creators post new six-second looping videos once again.
As reported by TechCrunch, Dorsey’s nonprofit, “and Other Stuff,” financed the project. He’s not looking for a return on his investment here. His goal is simpler: to undo the mistake he made when he shut down Vine back in 2017.
So, how did they bring Vine back?
Early Twitter employee Evan Henshaw-Plath, better known online as “Rabble,” led the effort. He discovered that much of Vine’s original content was backed up by a community archiving project called the Archive Team.
The files were stored as massive 40-50 GB binary files, requiring Rabble to write big-data scripts just to figure out how to reconstruct the videos along with their original views, likes, and comments.
The app first launched to testers last November with 100,000 videos, grew to 300,000 just before today’s launch, and now hosts videos from nearly 100,000 original Vine creators.
Is this just a nostalgia trip?
Not exactly. Original Viners actually pushed the team to slow down and get it right. “It was actually the Viners who were like ‘no, no, this is way more important than just nostalgia,’” Rabble explained.
One big selling point is Divine’s stance on AI-generated content. It simply doesn’t allow it. “I don’t like feeling tricked,” Rabble said. The app requires users to either record videos directly in the app or verify how the uploaded videos were created.
Several OG Viners are already on board, including Lele Pons, who said, “Many of us came from Vine, and it was the beginning of everything.”
Divine is free to download and is currently rolling out via invite codes. I just hope that it lasts longer than Digg did.