A Reminder That Vine Was Actually Really Fucking Bad

Since its untimely demise in late 2016, Vine has posthumously garnered an obsessive, cult-like fanbase on social media that rivals The Office and outshines all other forms of media, dead or alive. Immortalized by YouTube compilation videos with tens of millions of views and redundant, viral Twitter threads, internet users have been consistently bombarded with Vine’s “highlights” for the past two years. The app has transcended the boundaries of mere trends and solidified itself as an idolized, god-like entity despite being largely uncared about in the final months of its existence. It’s even gotten to the point where quoting popular vines has evolved into a trendy personality “quirk” that young adults proudly flaunt in dating app bios and dub as a “relationship requirement.”

I don’t necessarily have a problem with that — I mean, I still fucking hate it with my whole heart — but it’s obnoxiously innocent. The stars of the vines being commemorated are mostly one-hit-wonders who never tried to force their accidental virality into anything more than just that.  People like oven-smashing girl and “wow” guy are okay in my book. Even a large portion of the popular Viners featured in the compilations, like Nick Colletti, Josh Kennedy, Victor Pope, Drew Gooden, Sarah Schauer, Evan Breen, and Cody Ko were (and still are) undoubtedly hilarious and talented.

What needs to change though, in my factually correct opinion, is the way people perceive Vine as a whole. It’s time to take off the rose-colored glasses and look at the app for what it actually was: a looping pile of ephemeral excrement spewing from a large collection of the biggest assholes on the planet. Remembering Vine for its minuscule percentage of funny videos and talented users is like remembering 9/11 for being a beautiful, sunny day in New York — or remembering Joe Paterno for his football accom…forget it.

The widespread appeal and watchability of six-second-long looping video clips proved to play perfectly to the attention span of children and adults alike. As a result, the app blew up and sparked a bizarre revolution of astonishingly easy-to-obtain fame for a conglomerate of the literal worst humans in the world.

If you have a functioning cerebrum and refused to watch the video above, it’s essentially a highlight reel of half naked, male suburbanites having full-blown sexual intercourse with their living room carpet to the blaring chorus of “Grind On Me,” while their divorced moms took Xanax naps in a nearby room. This trend of semi nude young men sexually assaulting their homes to the musical stylings of Pretty Ricky was, as morbid as this sounds, the most popular shit on Vine for months. To get even darker, the less specific act of garment-deprived teen (and older) boys practicing soft core porn, was one of the defining characteristics of the app’s entire 4 year career. Oh, and many of the hooligans performing these routines became rich and famous.

Great Value Brand Biebers flaunting their adolescent chests in the form of solo acts or troupes was so common on Vine that a YouTube search for “shirtless vine boys dancing” will yield several compilation videos with millions of views that fit that exact criteria. Take Dem White Boyz (pictured above) for example. They were a trio of incessantly shirtless 16-18 year-old boys who air humped to Top 40 hits for a huge audience of Justice shoppers and Megan’s Law offenders. Their charismatic captain, Cole Labrant (center) used the Vine fame he achieved from erotically twerking to jumpstart a successful career as a millionaire Christian YouTube star. He now spends his time making G-rated videos and preaching the word of the Lord in between having marital, missionary sex with his smoking hot wife in their luxury mansion.

While both Mr. and Mrs. Labrant have not been shy about exploiting their relationship for online attention and money, Cole notoriously crossed the line by making the following announcement on his wedding day:

Brent Rivera (9 million followers, 10th most on Vine)

Mr. Rivera was the epitome of remarkably unfunny and comically talentless Vine boys who used their seemingly average but apparently charming teen looks to gain a mass following of millions of Thin Mint-slinging pep club stars. The vines he, and many like him, posted ranged from vapid kindergarten comedy to impressively awful fecal matter. But the fact that he was making low-effort “homework sucks” and “food is yummy” skits was completely arbitrary. 9-year-old girls were following him and liking his videos solely because he was in them and they had schoolgirl crushes on him. He could’ve simply stuck his tongue out at the camera for six seconds and gained the same amount of traction, if not more.

If you’re wondering what he’s up to now as a 20-year-old man, which you shouldn’t be, he’s doing the exact same thing except for an audience of 11 million Instagram followers and 6 million YouTube subscribers.

A casual tweet reader would probably just brush this off as being corny and attention-seeking. But it’s important to remember that Brent isn’t just an average Horny Tweeter or Tweetdecker; he’s a literal celebrity whose fanbase is almost entirely made up of underage girls. This fact makes the tweet particularly weird when you realize that its replies are filled with girls with shit like “MVHS ’24” in their bios volunteering as tribute to date and fondle him.

While scanning his highly entertaining Twitter page, I came across a link to a YouTube video that advertised a daring stunt that Brent allegedly pulled off with none other than his ex girlfriend. Tempted by the inevitable, edge-of-your seat suspense and awkwardness, I felt compelled to check it out.

He conveniently used a thumbnail image of what appeared to be a risqué shower scene that didn’t even remotely occur in the video. But hey, sex sells! Even if you’re trying to sell it to prepubescent children.

One minute into the video, Brent nonchalantly revealed that the “ex-girlfriend” he was cuffing himself to for this awkwardly humiliating gag was actually a former middle school classmate he “dated” for two months. His friend. It was his friend. He handcuffed himself to his female friend and they proceeded to hang out with some of their other YouTube friends in a couple public places. That’s it. The highlight of the entire 8 minute video was when one of the Influencer Bros, upon finding out about the wacky hijinks Brent got into with his ex, made the joke: “it is cuffing season.”

Here’s a terrifying image:

Magcon

Perhaps one of the most bizarre phenomena to stem from Vine was the “Magcon Family” of unrelated but virtually identical teen boys who toured the country performing absolutely nothing for sold out crowds of female embryos. For those of you who are old enough to vote, MAGCON stands for “Meet and Greet” Convention and consisted of a swarm of about a dozen skill-deficient, half naked mole rats juxtaposed by the insanely talented, heterosexual musician, Shawn Mendes. If none of that made any sense to you, it’s not because you’re “too old” but rather, because it fundamentally doesn’t make any sense.

Aside from the straight Canadian pop star, the other teen boys in the group were barely distinguishable lip biters and lip syncers like Carter Reynolds:

The squad of goofy goobers also featured hottie legends like Nash Grier (13 million followers, $3 million net worth) and Cameron Dallas (11 million followers, $4.5 million net worth).

You might be thinking “yeah okay, but these are just shitty kids being kids.” I get it. You can’t fault teens too much for effortlessly blowing up socially and financially and continuing to run with it.

Well…

In this comedically revolutionizing skit, Curtis (10 million followers) facetiously used the words “my snickers, my snickers ” in place of the YG lyrics “my n***a, my n***a” after getting his Snickers candy bar swiped from his brazen pal, Christian Delgrosso (7 million followers). Delgrosso ended up using masterful performances like this one to obtain millions of dollars as well as leading roles in real television shows.

Curtis stars alongside fellow grown adult Vine stars, Amanda Cerny (6 million followers) and Jerry Purpdrank (10 million followers) in this coming-of-age comedy that was one of the most popular vines in the history of the app. In the short film, Cerny, 26 tells Lepore, 35 that she “only dates black guys.” Ha! If that, in and of itself, didn’t make you laugh, then don’t worry, it gets better! For the climactic punchline, the camera pans to Lepore shrugging and then conveniently “transforming” to Purpdrank (black male), which is nothing more than an unedited screen cut to Purpdrank wearing the same shirt as Lepore. This was the absolute extent of “comedy” used from the majority of Vine’s top stars.

In between acting in award-winning vines and fighting rape cases, Lepore also crafted highly relatable tweets about the woes of being a *checks notes* man in his thirties.

Brittany Furlan was the painfully unfunny, nonfiction version of Dee Reynolds who inexplicably skyrocketed to 10 million followers and Vine superstardom. I’d rather, and I’m saying this without a modicum of hyperbole, catheterize myself with barbed wire than watch one of her 15-minute-long Vine compilations. But in the spirit of spreading hate and misery, I’ll graciously share with you some samples of her work. For those of you who aren’t brave enough to watch the following videos with sound on, I’ll do my best to provide adequate narrations.

In this raunchy but hysterical skit titled Giving Head, Furlan (32 years old) innocently claims to her fully grown male counterpart, “I’ve never done this before” in regard to performing oral sex. She then proceeds to get down on her knees in preparation for cunnilingus, before cocking back and head-butting his crotch, sending him to the floor in a fit of agony. These were the slapstick theatrics that helped Furlan and other people like Lele Pons cater to Vine’s gigantic demographic of 8-12 year old users.

Lepore, who faced rape charges in 2014, turns to Furlan and asks her if she wants to see his “wiener” in a very silly, child-like voice. Visibly disgusted, Furlan grimaces and pulls her head back, only for Lepore to quickly reveal the “wiener” he was referring to is actually a Wiener Dog that he was mysteriously holding. Visibly relieved, Furlan excitedly starts to explain to Lepore what she thought he meant, only for Lepore to quickly reveal that he did, in fact, have his penis out for her to see as well. Entertainment for the whole family!

The versatile duo is back at it again! This time, Furlan harshly breaks the news to Lepore that she needs a “real man,” implying that he isn’t one. Clearly offended, Lepore claims that he is, in fact, a real man and then storms off in a shot that reveals he’s wearing a girly skirt. I’m not even exaggerating in the slightest when I say that you could pick two random children from any 1st grade classroom, tell them they have 60 seconds to come up with a skit, and they’d almost definitely create something funnier and better than this. Again, it cannot be overstated that these people profited off videos like this.

In this timeless classic, Furlan showcases one of her brilliant, culturally-ambiguous accents to make the following joke: “I was all set to go shopping on Black Friday, but then I realized I’m not black, so now I gots to wait for White Wednesday.”

Again, Furlan (10 million followers) made the joke, “I was all set to go shopping on Black Friday, but then I realized I’m not black, so now I gots to wait for White Wednesday.”

Now I gots to wait for White Wednesday.

Yeah nevermind, fuck this.

You get the point.