By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-08-19 15:42:02 | Updated at 2026-08-19 16:09:04
31 minutes ago
Vine is back from the dead – sort of. Divine, a new social media app inspired by the beloved six-second video platform, has launched nearly a decade after Vine was shut down.
Divine is deliberately modeled after the simplicity of Vine, which became famous for its six-second looping videos before Twitter – now X – shut it down in 2017.
The new platform is the brainchild of Evan Henshaw-Plath, known online as Rabble, who was one of Twitter's earliest employees.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is backing the project financially, although he does not have an ownership stake in the company, Digiday reported.
The new platform has brought back more than two million clips from Vine's original archive, giving users the chance to revisit some of the videos that helped define internet culture in the 2010s.
But Divine is not simply trying to recreate Vine.
The company is launching at a moment when consumers appear increasingly nostalgic for an earlier version of the internet – before social media became dominated by influencers, targeted advertising and algorithmically curated feeds.
That nostalgia has recently extended beyond Vine.
Divine, a new social media app inspired by the beloved six-second video platform, is now open to everyone, nearly a decade after Vine was shut down
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is backing the project financially
A brief comment in a newly released documentary about Myspace has prompted weeks of headlines and speculation about a possible revival of the once-dominant social network, although no specific comeback plans have been announced.
Smaller social platforms have also emerged attempting to recreate the simplicity and community feel associated with early social media.
That could give Divine an advantage as it expands beyond its initial invite-only audience.
Henshaw-Plath told Engadget that some of the nostalgia surrounding old social media may come from the 'hope and excitement' people once associated with these platforms.
The Divine team believes part of the problem with today's social networks is that too much power has been concentrated in the hands of a small number of companies.
The solution, said Henshaw-Plath, is to avoid creating another centralized platform where a handful of people ultimately control the experience.
'Let's bring back the old content,' Henshaw-Plath said. 'Let's empower people to not have AI slop, and let's design it this way so that it can't be enshittified in the future.'
The platform is taking a particularly hard line against AI-generated content.
The new platform is the brainchild of Evan Henshaw-Plath, known online as Rabble, who was one of Twitter's earliest employees
The new platform has even brought back more than two million clips from Vine's original archive, giving users the chance to revisit some of the videos that helped define internet culture in the 2010s
Divine allows users to record videos directly through its camera rather than upload pre-existing footage.
The platform also uses technology to determine whether videos were created by a camera or generated by AI, with AI-generated content prohibited.
Divine is also built on Nostr, a decentralized, open-source protocol that allows the company to take a different approach to controlling the platform than traditional social networks, Digiday reported.
But the company is not completely opposed to advertising.
Divine Chief Marketing Officer Alice Chan told Digiday that the company is 'certainly not closed to ads,' but said it does not want brands simply taking traditional advertisements and turning them into short videos.
Taco Bell is already among the brands testing out the platform, partnering with Divine as part of its throwback 'Decades #TBTB Menu' campaign.
