Vine is dead. Last week Twitter announced that it’s discontinuing the video-sharing app, which it purchased only four years ago. The developers tried to soften the blow in a valedictory Medium post—the Vine website will stay up, and you can still download the Vines you’ve made—but the damage is done. Close your eyes, and you can almost hear that Damn Daniel kid letting off one last sad, resigned daaaaaaamn.
Las Vegas is well-represented in Vine. A simple search for “Vegas” brings up hundreds of six-second hotel-room tours and poolside twerkings. But a deeper dive brings up a number of local treasures that will be lost when the service finally disappears, like singer-songwriter Sabriel Hobart rocking a pogo stick; Imagine Dragons belting out “Sweet Caroline”; Shamir guzzling down “chicken juice”; and rapper Dizzy Wright smoking one joint after another.
The organizers of the Electric Daisy Carnival have posted dozens of slickly produced, incredibly loud Vines. Cirque du Soliel boasts compelling episodes of flipping, falling and contortion. First Friday's account shows us shadows of Fridays past (they haven’t updated since 2013). And the City of Las Vegas posts Vines of ribbon-cuttings and—why not?—people smashing alarm clocks with hammers, egged on by Ronald McDonald.
But that’s not why we Vine, is it? At last, I give you Elton Castee, who cannonballs into the chemical-rich waterways of the Bellagio and Venetian; Dave Baca, who shows a Fremont Street “come at me, bro” moment gone sideways; and Mackenzie Stith, who planks on several filthy escalators and moving walkways. Maybe it’s good that Vine is ending, you know? It’s gotta be jacking our insurance premiums all to hell.
