1. Who Killed Vine?
Launched in 2013 after an early buyout by Twitter, Vine quickly grew into one of the fastest growing platforms on the internet. The app created an entirely new category of online content: short, user-generated videos. It became the home of online creativity, birthed beloved memes and viral trends, and introduced a whole new generation of celebrity: the influencer. So, how did an app that was ten steps ahead die only three years after launch?
Credits:
Benedict Townsend - Host & Creator
Mary Goodhart - Producer & Creator
Kevyah Cardoso - Narrative & Creative Producer
Patrick Lee - Sound Design & Score
Chris Janes - Mix
Lucy Chisholm Batten - Legal
Sophie Snelling - Executive Producer
Al Riddel - Head of Factual Podcasts
Vicky Etchells - Director of Podcasts
Archive acknowledgments:
CBS Sunday Morning/'From 2005: Four young internet entrepreneurs'/CBS News
Jawed Karim/‘Me at the zoo’/YouTube
Channel 4 News Theme/‘Best Endeavours’/Alan Hawkshaw
Channel 4 News/’A year of Vine: the six second videos rivalling Twitter and Instagram’
The Fox News Channel Theme/‘The Five’
FOX 5/’CEO Chris Dessi Discusses Vine on Fox 5’/Brayden Shanks/The Fox News Channel
PacificRimVideoPress/’Vine Famous Jake Paul Interview about Getting Girls, High School, Fave Shoes & More!’
Pop Trigger/’Breaking: Twitter Officially Shutting Down Vine’
FOX 4 Now/’Twitter Kills Vine App’/The Fox News Channel
Sky News/’TikTok to be banned in the US from Sunday, Supreme Court rules’
BBC News/’Donald Trump’s inauguration set to take place’
NBC News/’TikTok is back up again in the U.S. following a shutdown overnight’
Mark Zuckerberg/’Mark Zuckerberg announces the end of Meta's fact-checking program in the United States’/Facebook
Artwork acknowledgments:
Cathleen Dovolis
Brandon Moore
B Bowen
Nicholas Fraser
James Morosky
Ava Ryan
Vine: Six Seconds That Changed The World
This is the story of the social media app that changed the face of the internet before it crashed and burned in just three short years. Vine was the future - until it wasn’t. How did a platform so popular and beloved just disappear? Like any self-respecting chronically-online person, Benedict Townsend needed answers. In this 8-part series he tracks down Vine’s founders, social media power players and some of the most famous Vine creators to find out what really happened. What he found? A bizarre story of genius, chaos, and betrayal—and the blueprint for everything that came next. If you want to understand TikTok, or the modern internet itself, you need to understand Vine.
Contact us: [email protected]
- No. of episodes: 9
- Latest episode: 2025-05-06
- Society & Culture History
Where can you listen?
