I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This
September 28, 2023 7:56 AM Subscribe
I miss Vine. There was some brilliant stuff on there.
posted by jquinby at 8:24 AM on September 28, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by jquinby at 8:24 AM on September 28, 2023 [10 favorites]
Wow, almost everyone involved sounds incredibly distasteful. I am an Old and more of a twitter person, so I really didn't have any idea about Vine except that it was popular and people were sad when it died. Finding out that it died because the company was both unwilling and unable to meet the pay demands of its labor, a group of racist, homophobic misogynists who worked together to keep a lock on the top spots and because the company had not forward-planned about social media at all makes me, if anything, a lot less sad. Finding out that everyone was lamenting the death of Vine because of the end of their access to top-spot racist, misogynist, homophobic content makes me even less sad.
I'm sure that many people used Vine for good, but it sounds like the grossness and human crumminess outweighed that.
posted by Frowner at 8:26 AM on September 28, 2023 [28 favorites]
I'm sure that many people used Vine for good, but it sounds like the grossness and human crumminess outweighed that.
posted by Frowner at 8:26 AM on September 28, 2023 [28 favorites]
Wait, was I supposed to feel sympathy for the company because man those creators sound like an entitled bunch of twats.
I kind of know what Vine is/was but I’m totally the wrong demo for it. Or TikTok. But still, Vine had a vision for what they wanted the company to be, I don’t see why it’s horrible for them to not stick to that vision.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:54 AM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
I kind of know what Vine is/was but I’m totally the wrong demo for it. Or TikTok. But still, Vine had a vision for what they wanted the company to be, I don’t see why it’s horrible for them to not stick to that vision.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:54 AM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
On the one hand, when you release a tool into the world, it is a fool's errand to try and control how that tool is used. You may have a vision, but that doesn't mean trying to enforce it is a good idea.
On the other hand, boy howdy, were those Vine stars just the very worst kind of people.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:58 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
On the other hand, boy howdy, were those Vine stars just the very worst kind of people.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:58 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
tldr (and thanks, Frowner):
it died because the company was both unwilling and unable to meet the pay demands of its labor, a group of racist, homophobic misogynists who worked together to keep a lock on the top spots and because the company had not forward-planned about social media at all
I do enjoy a good disaster movie.
posted by philip-random at 9:06 AM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
it died because the company was both unwilling and unable to meet the pay demands of its labor, a group of racist, homophobic misogynists who worked together to keep a lock on the top spots and because the company had not forward-planned about social media at all
I do enjoy a good disaster movie.
posted by philip-random at 9:06 AM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
But still, Vine had a vision for what they wanted the company to be, I don’t see why it’s horrible for them to not stick to that vision.
Beyond the point already made about plans surviving first contact with the enemy, their "vision" has been the same one that has plagued the internet from day 1 - trying to build an ecosystem on "amateur content" supplied by users, which has never worked.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:11 AM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Beyond the point already made about plans surviving first contact with the enemy, their "vision" has been the same one that has plagued the internet from day 1 - trying to build an ecosystem on "amateur content" supplied by users, which has never worked.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:11 AM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
I wish we would tell kids how many things are decide in secret, exclusive meetings. I had some terrible work experiences at work that generally started when I realized I was left out of meetings I should have attended.
This is especially true in entertainment. I know there were secret meetings for
Harvey Weinstein's behavior
Grover Norquist tells conservative journalist what to say for the week
Please tell your kids about the power of these meetings. It could save them a lot of stress.
posted by Freecola at 9:14 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is especially true in entertainment. I know there were secret meetings for
Harvey Weinstein's behavior
Grover Norquist tells conservative journalist what to say for the week
Please tell your kids about the power of these meetings. It could save them a lot of stress.
posted by Freecola at 9:14 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
Chris, is that a weed? I'm calling the police!
posted by neuron at 9:18 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by neuron at 9:18 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
I love the fact that discouraging trolling is an afterthought.
"the Viners felt that Vine and its parent company were not doing enough to curb the brutal and overwhelming abuse and harassment directed at top creators, especially women. They demanded that Vine institute comment filtering, blocking, and muting features, and more robust analytics."
If these dudes acted that way to people at the office, they'd be dead or sued into the ground, of course.
posted by Freecola at 9:25 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
"the Viners felt that Vine and its parent company were not doing enough to curb the brutal and overwhelming abuse and harassment directed at top creators, especially women. They demanded that Vine institute comment filtering, blocking, and muting features, and more robust analytics."
If these dudes acted that way to people at the office, they'd be dead or sued into the ground, of course.
posted by Freecola at 9:25 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
In short, Vine had no gameplan for dealing with professional creators, tried to force users to fit into their vision instead of being flexible and working with users, and ultimately refused to pay the people fueling the system.
My take-away from the article was that Vine failed because it didn't notice until too late that its platform's top 'professional creators' were a bunch of racist, homophobic, misogynistic douche-bros who were so entitled that they believed a loss-making company should pay each of them $1 million a year for 18 seconds of output a week.
posted by senor biggles at 9:52 AM on September 28, 2023 [14 favorites]
My take-away from the article was that Vine failed because it didn't notice until too late that its platform's top 'professional creators' were a bunch of racist, homophobic, misogynistic douche-bros who were so entitled that they believed a loss-making company should pay each of them $1 million a year for 18 seconds of output a week.
posted by senor biggles at 9:52 AM on September 28, 2023 [14 favorites]
oh this is where Logan Paul came from
posted by away for regrooving at 10:14 AM on September 28, 2023 [37 favorites]
posted by away for regrooving at 10:14 AM on September 28, 2023 [37 favorites]
“Stop, I could have dropped my croissant!”
posted by Fizz at 10:15 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 10:15 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
Fizz, I can hear that comment.
posted by gc at 10:19 AM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by gc at 10:19 AM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
It feels like there is something missing from this story, for example if this was a Forbes piece focused solely on the twitter/ tbusiness side of things, you would get a completely different picture. I'm highly suspicious of the claim that the death of Vine came about solely because it's top creators wanted a huge pay out and rather then giving into their demands, Twitter just shut the whole thing down. It's too simplistic and rings false.
posted by hoodrich at 10:38 AM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by hoodrich at 10:38 AM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
When you watch a compilations of “classic vines” on YouTube, very little of it is from the “top creators” this article mentions. The vast majority of what they produced was very low brow, hacky and ultimately forgettable.
posted by I_Zimbra at 10:42 AM on September 28, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by I_Zimbra at 10:42 AM on September 28, 2023 [13 favorites]
I'm highly suspicious of the claim that the death of Vine came about solely because it's top creators wanted a huge pay out and rather then giving into their demands, Twitter just shut the whole thing down. It's too simplistic and rings false.
Well, this is really more a story about how YouTube, Instagram, etc. managed to eat Vine's lunch by doing this sort of thing better, and thus luring away Vine's user base. It just happens to be told largely from the perspective of the creators (and I use the term loosely) who were making the content that user base was following and had little clue what was going on behind the scenes to drive the system they were exploiting.
posted by Naberius at 10:44 AM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well, this is really more a story about how YouTube, Instagram, etc. managed to eat Vine's lunch by doing this sort of thing better, and thus luring away Vine's user base. It just happens to be told largely from the perspective of the creators (and I use the term loosely) who were making the content that user base was following and had little clue what was going on behind the scenes to drive the system they were exploiting.
posted by Naberius at 10:44 AM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
The article also mentioned Youtube and Instagram were circling Vine.
Also short sided on Vine's part was allowing these folks to "re-vine" each other's work to game the algorithm which likely hurt organic growth and organic discovery of new people/content. Seems vary akin to the Daily Wire and Facebook.
posted by mmascolino at 10:45 AM on September 28, 2023
Also short sided on Vine's part was allowing these folks to "re-vine" each other's work to game the algorithm which likely hurt organic growth and organic discovery of new people/content. Seems vary akin to the Daily Wire and Facebook.
posted by mmascolino at 10:45 AM on September 28, 2023
flashbacks to the BatDad presence on Vine
amused at the time, not so sure about the consent of family in hindsight
posted by elkevelvet at 10:51 AM on September 28, 2023
amused at the time, not so sure about the consent of family in hindsight
posted by elkevelvet at 10:51 AM on September 28, 2023
This may be the only case in social media where the influencers and content creators had any real power. Every other platform like Youtube needs them, sure, but is also careful to make sure there are too many of them to have individual power. And to set the terms of engagement very strongly in the company's favor from the start.
posted by Nelson at 10:57 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 10:57 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
What jumped out at me in the article is the photo of the viners at the Billboard Music Awards and how they look vaguely like five copies of the same guy with small adjustments. Was that hair big in the mid 10s? I don't remember that.
It's like we learn bit by it from each damaging social media platform that is popular and sometimes nothing at all. TikTok mostly just deals with with the dilemma the Vine executive was having with these guys gaming the system through their algorithm, just not serving up that racist, misogynist, hateful content to those who would object to it, rather than removing it. It's always creepy using the app because you know there are other "sides" of TikTok out there that are horrible that are just allowed to persist in being horrible.
posted by urbanlenny at 11:14 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
It's like we learn bit by it from each damaging social media platform that is popular and sometimes nothing at all. TikTok mostly just deals with with the dilemma the Vine executive was having with these guys gaming the system through their algorithm, just not serving up that racist, misogynist, hateful content to those who would object to it, rather than removing it. It's always creepy using the app because you know there are other "sides" of TikTok out there that are horrible that are just allowed to persist in being horrible.
posted by urbanlenny at 11:14 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
Look at all those chickens!
posted by wellifyouinsist at 11:22 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by wellifyouinsist at 11:22 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
Isn't this more or less the story of Twitter itself (or maybe the internet itself)? Platform which claims to believe in free speech absolutism as an excuse to dodge the thorny moderation problem becomes dominated by a handful of narcissists who spew hateful shit?
posted by treepour at 11:25 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by treepour at 11:25 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
A lot of Vines were a particular product of black culture, it seems sadly predictable that the platform would implode thanks to a bunch of entitled white influencers and an incompetent management unable to see past the most instantly profitable channels.
posted by Lanark at 12:15 PM on September 28, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by Lanark at 12:15 PM on September 28, 2023 [12 favorites]
Was that hair big in the mid 10s? I don't remember that.
Maybe they all combed it up to draw attention away from their cretinous slack jawed facial expressions. Well, at least none of them were actually drooling.
posted by y2karl at 12:37 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Maybe they all combed it up to draw attention away from their cretinous slack jawed facial expressions. Well, at least none of them were actually drooling.
posted by y2karl at 12:37 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Of course, something is missing from this story. It’s written by Taylor Lorenz.
posted by Ideefixe at 12:49 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Ideefixe at 12:49 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ah yes, Taylor Lorenz, who blocked me on Twitter for mentioning that saying vaccines worked was in fact not COVID denialism.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:04 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:04 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
A lot of Vines were a particular product of black culture, it seems sadly predictable that the platform would implode thanks to a bunch of entitled white influencers and an incompetent management unable to see past the most instantly profitable channels.
FWIW, Andrew Bachelor, one of the most toxic and entitled Vine creators described in the article, was black.
Many of the others seem to have been white.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:02 PM on September 28, 2023
FWIW, Andrew Bachelor, one of the most toxic and entitled Vine creators described in the article, was black.
Many of the others seem to have been white.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:02 PM on September 28, 2023
Of course, something is missing from this story. It’s written by Taylor Lorenz.
A lot to unpack here. What, apart from the generic, inchoate right-wing hatred I see on Twitter for Taylor Lorenz, is the problem? In my experience, I've found her writing well-researched and compelling.
posted by yellowcandy at 2:02 PM on September 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
A lot to unpack here. What, apart from the generic, inchoate right-wing hatred I see on Twitter for Taylor Lorenz, is the problem? In my experience, I've found her writing well-researched and compelling.
posted by yellowcandy at 2:02 PM on September 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
What, apart from the generic, inchoate right-wing hatred I see on Twitter for Taylor Lorenz, is the problem?
Well, there’s also the generic, inchoate crypto-right-wing hate from ostensible leftists like Greenwald and Dore.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 2:05 PM on September 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
Well, there’s also the generic, inchoate crypto-right-wing hate from ostensible leftists like Greenwald and Dore.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 2:05 PM on September 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
A lot of people don't like her because she's a girl. But then really they're mad because her journalism is so good at skewering something they like.
posted by Nelson at 2:45 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 2:45 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
PWee28's video of the title predates Vine by about five years, though
posted by scruss at 2:58 PM on September 28, 2023
posted by scruss at 2:58 PM on September 28, 2023
Why is the guy at the White House Correspondents dinner holding a yam?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:12 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:12 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
The absolute worst thing about the collapse of Vine is that it caused the rise of Instagram, TikTok, and then followed rapidly by YouTube shorts.
The older I get the more I sincerely and earnestly regret ever being an unwittingly technocratic booster and water-carrier for the early internet and assuring everyone and anyone around me that wasn't a nerd that it was all going to be ok and it was going to be good and healthy because of *waves hands* netiquette or the benefits of the commons or something.
I still keep getting sucked into YT shorts even though I keep trying to turn it off and block it from my home page.
The YT shorts algorithm keeps dangling science, tech and informative shorts in front of me and then half a dozen shorts later they're shoving shit like Andrew Tate, manosphere, rage bait, anti-trans and LGBTQ and incel content down my stupid fat piehole and the next thing I know I'm gritting my teeth and flagging and reporting horrible, toxic bullshit as hate speech even though I've curated my main YT feed as nothing to do with any of that fucking relentless bullshit.
It's absolutely traumatic and makes me want to vomit so hard, and it's obviously fucking intentional to increase "engagement" at any cost, and I really wish Google and YT would take a fucking hint and put me in some kind of a box labeled "user uses custom uBlock origin, ads are useless, stop trying to use toxic algorithms to increase clicks for fractions of a single penny of ad views" or even just block me from ever seeing YT ever again because I'm weak and I mainly use YT for vaguely interesting, boring content so I can fall asleep.
YouTube knows exactly what they're doing and it fucking stinks like a bloated whale carcass left on a smoking hot sunny beach just waiting for someone to poke it with a stick and explode.
And I dare you to ask me what I think about the content coming out of TikTok's algorithms. Oh, man, let me get my whacking stick. Every time I mention how toxic TikTok is on MeFi someone says "Oh, there's good content!" and I'm just like "Yeah, there's "good" content on 4chan, too, but that's not what TikTok is selling or pushing."
This whole situation is a big fat mess. The only reason why I'm not clamoring for very intense and strict regulation of social media, influencers and content producers is because I have absolutely zero trust that government regulation of social media won't make things even worse by encouraging even more hate speech and divisiveness.
Kill yourtelevision algorithm!
posted by loquacious at 6:10 PM on September 28, 2023 [14 favorites]
The older I get the more I sincerely and earnestly regret ever being an unwittingly technocratic booster and water-carrier for the early internet and assuring everyone and anyone around me that wasn't a nerd that it was all going to be ok and it was going to be good and healthy because of *waves hands* netiquette or the benefits of the commons or something.
I still keep getting sucked into YT shorts even though I keep trying to turn it off and block it from my home page.
The YT shorts algorithm keeps dangling science, tech and informative shorts in front of me and then half a dozen shorts later they're shoving shit like Andrew Tate, manosphere, rage bait, anti-trans and LGBTQ and incel content down my stupid fat piehole and the next thing I know I'm gritting my teeth and flagging and reporting horrible, toxic bullshit as hate speech even though I've curated my main YT feed as nothing to do with any of that fucking relentless bullshit.
It's absolutely traumatic and makes me want to vomit so hard, and it's obviously fucking intentional to increase "engagement" at any cost, and I really wish Google and YT would take a fucking hint and put me in some kind of a box labeled "user uses custom uBlock origin, ads are useless, stop trying to use toxic algorithms to increase clicks for fractions of a single penny of ad views" or even just block me from ever seeing YT ever again because I'm weak and I mainly use YT for vaguely interesting, boring content so I can fall asleep.
YouTube knows exactly what they're doing and it fucking stinks like a bloated whale carcass left on a smoking hot sunny beach just waiting for someone to poke it with a stick and explode.
And I dare you to ask me what I think about the content coming out of TikTok's algorithms. Oh, man, let me get my whacking stick. Every time I mention how toxic TikTok is on MeFi someone says "Oh, there's good content!" and I'm just like "Yeah, there's "good" content on 4chan, too, but that's not what TikTok is selling or pushing."
This whole situation is a big fat mess. The only reason why I'm not clamoring for very intense and strict regulation of social media, influencers and content producers is because I have absolutely zero trust that government regulation of social media won't make things even worse by encouraging even more hate speech and divisiveness.
Kill your
posted by loquacious at 6:10 PM on September 28, 2023 [14 favorites]
My favorite is how youtube patronizingly tells me that it's willing to entertain my flight of fancy that I don't want to look at youtube shorts. Of course, it's just a phase I'm bound to outgrow soon so it's only willing to keep my preference in mind for one month.
It brings to mind so many of my other "preferences" that I've had to fight for in my life. So many that I'm now all used up and just wanna watch some hobby machining and science videos.
posted by tigrrrlily at 6:50 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
It brings to mind so many of my other "preferences" that I've had to fight for in my life. So many that I'm now all used up and just wanna watch some hobby machining and science videos.
posted by tigrrrlily at 6:50 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
By just scrolling past, not watching anything else, YouTube has figured out that it is pointless to try and show me any shorts that don't have a banger skateboard trick in the first three seconds. This despite the fact that my "main" YouTube viewing is much, much more varied.
posted by Dysk at 12:32 AM on September 29, 2023
posted by Dysk at 12:32 AM on September 29, 2023
If you are on Firefox youtube-shorts block does a nice job of making shorts go away for good.
posted by the_dreamwriter at 8:32 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by the_dreamwriter at 8:32 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
When you watch a compilations of “classic vines” on YouTube, very little of it is from the “top creators” this article mentions. The vast majority of what they produced was very low brow, hacky and ultimately forgettable.
Perhaps some selection bias at play.
For the content to be on youtube that content needs to meet various standards and can get removed for serving up that racist, misogynist, hateful content along with various copyright claims.
The 'creator content' world has cases of having content removed which was taken from a publicly downloadable music video claiming it is unauthorized sexual pictures.
So if Logan Paul was being an ass and now feels that it could hurt his present brand of course as he's an ass would copyright claim/strike a video of him in it where he's otherwise not getting paid. Or a different set of asses - the music copyright holders* wanting to claim the cash because for this great Vine compilation has a few seconds of music they control. An example of concern over background music is when Hanna Reloaded is playing things for her audience she'll mute the audio or on occasion drop the topic and move on to avoid the strike
* an example is where a narcissist who was called baby Hitler by others (link to video not an option as he deleted it) did a video about him singing a Joan Jett song. This gets struck as the song Beer by fatbunny. And for the 143 views over 3 years it isn't worth Joan time to address the issue on a non monetized channel. It is one thing the proper rights holders can get paid, another when one can't find the song being claimed and an actual copyright holder isn't getting on the list. The automated system might find his band and version so sucktacular they don't understand that his caterwauling is a Joan Jett song but that failure shows how bad the system of music copyright claims is.
posted by rough ashlar at 5:42 AM on September 30, 2023
Perhaps some selection bias at play.
For the content to be on youtube that content needs to meet various standards and can get removed for serving up that racist, misogynist, hateful content along with various copyright claims.
The 'creator content' world has cases of having content removed which was taken from a publicly downloadable music video claiming it is unauthorized sexual pictures.
So if Logan Paul was being an ass and now feels that it could hurt his present brand of course as he's an ass would copyright claim/strike a video of him in it where he's otherwise not getting paid. Or a different set of asses - the music copyright holders* wanting to claim the cash because for this great Vine compilation has a few seconds of music they control. An example of concern over background music is when Hanna Reloaded is playing things for her audience she'll mute the audio or on occasion drop the topic and move on to avoid the strike
* an example is where a narcissist who was called baby Hitler by others (link to video not an option as he deleted it) did a video about him singing a Joan Jett song. This gets struck as the song Beer by fatbunny. And for the 143 views over 3 years it isn't worth Joan time to address the issue on a non monetized channel. It is one thing the proper rights holders can get paid, another when one can't find the song being claimed and an actual copyright holder isn't getting on the list. The automated system might find his band and version so sucktacular they don't understand that his caterwauling is a Joan Jett song but that failure shows how bad the system of music copyright claims is.
posted by rough ashlar at 5:42 AM on September 30, 2023
It kind of seems like Vine's real problem was not tweaking the algorithm to defang the collusion as soon as it started happening. It could have gone very differently for them if they'd kept a handle on the people gaming their system. The late, manual intervention against individual users was not an effective solution.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:32 PM on October 10, 2023
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:32 PM on October 10, 2023
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And as I've said before, a good part of this can be traced back to part time leadership at Twitter, which in turn helped exacerbate the rift.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:08 AM on September 28, 2023 [6 favorites]