Divine Is Bringing Vine Back — And It's Now Open to Everyone
The short-form video phenomenon Vine is getting a second life through Divine, a new platform created by one of Twitter's early employees. After operating for several months with an invitation-only system, the app is now open to anyone, aiming to revive the creativity and simplicity that once made Vine a cultural phenomenon.
Divine spent a little over three months in invite-only mode before removing its sign-up restrictions. At the heart of the platform is the same concept that made Vine famous nearly a decade ago: six-second looping videos.
More Than 2 Million Original Vine Videos Are Back
One of Divine's biggest attractions is that it doesn't simply imitate Vine's format. The platform is also bringing back content from Vine's original archive.
According to the company, more than 2 million original Vine videos have already been restored. A dedicated "classic" feed allows users to revisit clips from the platform's original era.
Divine is not officially affiliated with Vine, which shut down years ago, but there is a notable connection. The project is funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, although the company says he does not hold equity or ownership in Divine.
A Different Approach to TikTok and Instagram
Divine also wants to distinguish itself from today's dominant social platforms through its underlying technology and content policies.
The platform is decentralized and built around the open-source nostr protocol, which has also received financial support from Dorsey.
Another major focus is keeping AI-generated content away from the platform.
Users can only upload videos recorded through Divine's built-in camera, while additional AI detection tools are used to help verify content. The goal is to create a social network where users are not constantly surrounded by automatically generated videos and recycled material.
According to Divine creator Evan "Rabble" Henshaw-Plath, this approach is intended to create a fundamentally different experience from platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Instead of seeing the same clips endlessly reposted across multiple networks, users should encounter content that originated on Vine or Divine.
Learning From Vine's Biggest Mistake
Vine's original success was largely driven by its creators. Many of the platform's most recognizable personalities built enormous audiences through six-second videos.
But a significant number of those creators eventually left. One of the major reasons was frustration over the lack of meaningful support and monetization opportunities.
Divine wants to avoid repeating that mistake.
Henshaw-Plath says the company is already considering ways to give creators opportunities to earn money as their audiences grow. The exact monetization model has not yet been finalized, but the underlying principle is clear: creators who build communities on Divine should eventually have ways to benefit financially from their work.
Could Social Media Nostalgia Help Divine?
Divine's public launch comes at a time when nostalgia for early social media is becoming increasingly visible.
Older platforms such as Myspace are once again attracting attention, while a growing number of smaller services are attempting to recreate the simplicity and personality of early social networks.
That nostalgia could give Divine an advantage.
The platform is built around the idea that social media once offered more discovery, creativity and excitement, before power became concentrated among a handful of major technology companies.
Henshaw-Plath believes one of the fundamental problems with today's social media is that too much control has been placed in the hands of a small number of companies. Divine's solution is to avoid simply creating another centralized platform with the same power structure.
Can Divine Avoid Vine's Mistakes?
Divine now has an unusual opportunity. It can benefit from the enormous nostalgia surrounding Vine while simultaneously offering an alternative to the dominant short-form video ecosystem.
Its combination of six-second videos, restored Vine content, decentralized technology and resistance to AI-generated content gives the platform a distinctive identity.
But nostalgia alone won't guarantee success. The real challenge will be keeping users engaged and, more importantly, giving creators enough reasons to stay.
If Divine can solve the problems that contributed to Vine's downfall while preserving the creativity that made the original platform special, it could become more than a nostalgia project.
Vine's spirit may be coming back — but this time, Divine wants to build it differently.
