In Defense of the Revine Button

Warning: This post may offend you.

The revine button has a bad reputation among viners, and I don’t think I need to explain in much detail why this is the case.  It is abused.  It is abused mostly by “revine 4 revine” or “R4R” groups of mediocre (to be kind) viners who target children with tired, hack jokes and gimmicks to encourage more likes and follows.  These groups are fairly organized and often employ a variety of techniques to artificially push their garbage ahead of more worthy content.  These techniques include, selling/trading revines, tagging each other when they post to boost chances of making the pop page and creating alternate pages full of stolen material protected by copy.  The people behind these latter faceless and shameless pages represent the true scum of vine.  They post all kinds of stolen material – movie clips, sports highlights, youtube clips and previously posted vines (often without permission) – all in order to either trade or sell revines with other viners and boost their own content.

But enough about them.. R4R is certainly an unwanted side effect of the revine button, but that doesn’t mean you should completely discount its benefits.  People love to talk about the good old days of vine… ah, yes all 300some days ago when everything was perfect.  Stop it already.   Put aside how ridiculous it is to reminisce about a last year; the pop page wasn’t very good or useful back then either!  Sure, it wasn’t quite the festering pile of prepubescent slop it is today (I know Vine has made changes in the past couple days – I will get to that), but come on.  Did you forget about “smack cam” already?   Why do you think Unpopular Now was created?  If you truly do think that the pop page was a paradise before the revine button, then you probably shouldn’t be complaining much about its current state… because you have horrible taste.  Further, it is likely that you were contributing to the general shittiness of the pop page back then as well.

Again, I agree that the popular page definitely sucks more now, and that quality posts did make it to the popular page more often before the revine button.  However, aside from a general downward shift in pop page viner age, the difference can only really be spoken about in degrees of shittiness. To be fair, part of this problem does not have a solution.  Kids, the kid version of me included, have a different (undeveloped maybe) taste for comedy, and they can’t easily spot hack jokes.  Most have little to no taste for anything beyond slapstick comedy.  Hell, a lot of adults have pretty poor taste.   This isn’t going to change.

So what’s the point?  What is the answer to all of this?  The new pop page, i.e. the randomization of the order of vines once they reach the popular page, may help.    However, a lot of the damage has been done already, and this may be a case of “too little, too late.”  Don’t forget, a vine still needs to gain significant momentum to get on the page in the first place, and this is next to impossible for most viners without a revine.  Also, there could be some negative side effects to this change as well.  Pornography posts, which seemed to be a problem of the past for Vine, have already found their way back on to the page.  In addition, the randomization could hurt the momentum of those exceptionally good vines that may have made their way toward the top of the old pop page anyway.  Thus, it’s possible that gap between the vine haves and have nots could grow more.  In general I’m cautiously optimistic about this change. Time will tell how effective it will be.  In the meantime I have a better answer…

REVINE

Yes, that’s right.  Fight back by using your revine power for good.  I’m not saying you should form groups or trade/sell (you shouldn’t), but be a little more liberal with your revine button.  When you see a post you like, revine it, regardless of the follower count (low or high) of the viner who made it.  The only reason the R4R bozos have been as successful as they have been is because most of the rest of us sat on our hands refusing to revine.  Maybe out of principle, maybe out of fear of losing followers – it doesn’t matter.. we sat by and watched it happen.  I’ve noticed that some of R4R’s harshest critics seem to be viners who were on top in the “old days”.  They revine very little, or not at all.  I’ve heard some say that lesser known viners should earn their followers the old fashioned way.. whatever that means.  Of course their decision to revine or not revine is up to them.  However, I’d contend that they probably would be in a better position today if they did more to support quality vines/viners.  They would have more viners supporting their work, rather than just viewers and people with whom they collab.  Further, whether they realize it or not, they benefitted from an early adopter advantage.   Times have changed.  I’m not sure where the tipping point is now, but it is impossible for viners with fewer than X followers to get on the popular page without a revine – even the new pop page.  Why not help out talented viners who weren’t lucky enough to stumble upon the app in the first couple months?  Help everyone producing stuff you like.  It’s good for the app, and it’s not too late.

As always, Let us know what you think!..  vineblogger@gmail.com.