(di)Vine is back: Is there space for another short-form video app?

Long before we had TikTok, Reels, or Shorts, we had Vine. An app arguably well before its time, the original short-form platform for 6-second video clips was a huge moment for millennial culture. Compilations of archived content still rack up millions of views on YouTube, indicating its longevity, perhaps accentuated by its brevity.

In 2012, Jack Dorsey’s Twitter bought Vine, then little more than a promising idea. The app took off in 2013, rapidly climbing up the app store ranks. However, three short years later, the app was shuttered in stages, ultimately closing down in 2017. As a result, its legacy sits nostalgically in a moment in time: short-form video long before it became the staple of platforms that it is today, characterised by chaotic early social video antics and 2010s haircuts.

Nostalgia no more, though. Dorsey’s non-profit “and Other Stuff” has announced the app’s revival (back-catalogue included), under the new name diVine.

A bold choice to (re)enter a saturated market

Users are drowning in social video, spending an average of 7.3 hours per week on it (11.7 for 20-24-year-olds), according to MIDiA’s consumer survey. Social video is on pretty much every social app on the market, with TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram – three of the biggest platforms by weekly active use penetration – putting it front-and-centre. So how does diVine compete? And why now?

At the heart of the diVine revival is the AI dilemma. User-generated content brought social video to the fore, but platforms are now flooded with AI-generated ‘slop’, the production of which outpaces the human-made stuff exponentially. OpenAI’s Sora platform leans into the AI flood, allowing users to engage on the back of their AI creations. Meanwhile, Instagram asks users to flag AI-generated content (although to limited efficacy). TikTok and Snap have long offered AI-esque filters, blurring the lines altogether.

diVine is offering the “certified organic” alternative: a platform where AI content is flagged and taken down. All authentic human content, all the time.

The hope is that this, combined with the nostalgia factor, will make diVine a compelling alternative (or at least addition to) the other social video platforms. However, this isn’t the first time Dorsey has tried to compete in the saturated social market. The launch of Bluesky, intended to capture users dissatisfied with Elon Musk’s handling of X, initially seemed promising with high user growth. However, long-term it seems to have been hit heavily by the social fragmentation effect, with only 3% weekly active user penetration as of Q3 2025.

Moreover, it seems that while creators may complain, users don’t mind AI that much, with the prevailing sentiment towards AI being apathy. After all, social media is now mostly about entertainment anyway, with that being the biggest reason users turn to platforms*.

The real USP

AI has a problem: it constantly needs new data for models to update and improve. As UGC platforms flood with AI content, making them risky to train from, and more professional platforms close their gates to protect their IP, new data needs to come from somewhere. Synthetic data isn’t really ‘there’ yet. The really valuable thing about a platform full of all-human-made content, sourced by millions of users every day, is a clean dataset.

In the words of Evan Henshaw-Plath (AKA Rabble), who is heading up the project, diVine is his “attempt to fight back against the enshittification [of social]" (via Business Insider). But this wouldn’t rule out benefitting AI on the flip side, especially given that “and Other Stuff” reportedly has an AI division. At present, diVine is a non-profit, but there’s money on the table there to be made, which makes it more likely than not someone will start making it sooner or later. If nothing else, AI companies have shown few qualms about scraping content to use for training, with or without permission.

As a ‘zillennial’, I was just old enough to know about Vine, but not old enough to be on it. To be clear, I am fully in the camp of nostalgically wanting that second chance for our piece of culture that, at the time, felt like it was prematurely culled for financial gain.

But the bigger the hype, the less likely good results become. From Woodstock ’99 to Fyre Festival, banking too much on marketing clout and vague nostalgia is as likely to backfire as anything else. With luck, diVine will take on new life, and become its own niche thing (kind of like Bluesky). However, it’s entering a fully saturated social market with a novelty USP that mainstream users likely won’t find much more compelling than any other app available to them. Initial use will likely surge as users download it for the hype, but it’s the long-term return ‘stickiness’ of the platform after the catalogue has been exhausted and the new content culture establishes itself that matters.

*To learn more about how and why users choose different social platforms, keep a lookout for our next report, Cross-platform success: Using social platforms to build audience and fandom.