HOME / NEWS / CELEBRITY NEWS

Is Elon Musk reviving Vine? New Twitter boss's poll receives a resounding yes from users

Vine app contributed to the rise of several celebs, including Shawn Mendez and Logan Paul, before it was discontinued in 2016

New Twitter owner Elon Musk conducted a poll on whether he should relaunch Vine, a six-second video platform that was discontinued five years after its launch due to intense competition. Elon Musk conducted a yes or no poll captioned "Bring back Vine?" on Sunday, October 30, which showed that 70% were in favor.

Vine, a social media platform that allowed users to share six-second videos, became an instant hit in 2012 and was bought by Twitter just five months after it launched. However, the social media giant shut it down in 2016 in the face of increased market competition. Some of Vine's stars, like Logan Paul and Shawn Mendez, went on to become huge celebrities. Later, Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO of Twitter, called Vine's demise "his biggest regret."

READ MORE

'He owns Twitter': Internet in splits as Elon Musk pokes fun at 'autogenerated' welcome e-mail

'RIP Twitter': Elon Musk slammed for charging $20 a month for blue checkmark

More than three million people have voted in the poll, with more than 69 percent saying yes. However, it is unclear whether Musk actually intends to bring Vine back or is merely enjoying a Twitter prank.

In response to the poll, @Mr Beast commented, "If you did that and actually competed with tik tok that’d be hilarious." Musk replied," What could we do to make it better than TikTok?"

After months of conflict with Twitter executives over concerns that the majority of its accounts are actually spam bots, Musk finally reached a $44 billion agreement to purchase the social media platform last Thursday. Since then, he has dismissed CEO Parag Agrawal and other executives, and plans to let go of "25 percent of the workers." Musk's reforms have received a lot of media attention as he apparently wants to refocus on Twitter's platform development and solicit feedback from its users.

Vine app contributed to the rise of several celebs, including musician Shawn Mendez and Andrew ‘King Bach’ Bachelor, who was one of its most-followed creators and is now an actor on ‘The Mindy Project.’ Then there is Logan Paul, who started out creating comedy clips for Vine and then moved to YouTube when the app was shut down.

Paul, however, became a controversial figure when he filmed the dead body of a man who killed himself in Japan’s famous ‘suicide forest'. He is now a professional wrestler who is signed with WWE and has more than 23 million YouTube subscribers. Shawn Mendes, meanwhile, has built a global reputation with hits like 'Stitches' and 'Señorita.'

In response to Elon Musk's poll, a Twitter user wrote, "We only love vine so much because of nostalgia.. like let’s leave it in the past and just enjoy what we got rn. we can love vine from afar i fear!!" However, a large section bashed TikTok, the reigning app in Vine's place, and wants the China-owned network to finally vanish. Influencer Quinn Nelson tweeted, "Bringing back Vine is the first good Musk Twitter idea and it’s a mighty good one. I want TikTok to die.’ Another user said, "All the youngsters on TikTok would be relieved and China would be pissed. Do it!"

Musk earlier made a purchase offer to Twitter on April 14, and just 11 days later, a photo of him and Rus Yusupov, Vine's co-founder, was posted online, indicating that Musk had been preparing to revive the app. Vine was the first social media platform that allowed people to create short videos to share with the world.