Vine’s Remix Culture

Vine has created a specific culture of remix that encourages users to create in a spirit of collaboration, and branded its remixes accordingly. 

Since its beginning in 2013, Vine has been the source of internet memes based around remix. One of the most famous memes in which Vine had a large part is the “Duck Army” meme. In August 2015, user kevin237 uploaded a video of himself pressing down on a container filled with rubber ducks, which emit a loud sound when he releases his hand. 

Interestingly, the creator of this video worked with Viral Hog, a licensing agency that allows creators to monetize their viral content. Viral Hog contacted the user who posted “Duck Army” to Vine since he had done so without permission, and the video has since been removed. This concept of exclusive ownership and monetization clashes with Vine’s culture of collaboration.

Because of its collaborative nature, Vine became a major vehicle for remixes of the “Duck Army” video. Websites like Buzzfeed and MTV posted listicles featuring the best remixes of the “Duck Army” video. Users added the audio to existing clips, like in this one remixing a scene from Spongebob Squarepants:

Just two months later, Vine added a native remix feature. Vine’s remix feature allows users to add an existing Vine’s audio to their own video, thus creating a “remix” of the original Vine. 

In the blog post announcing the new feature, Vine’s iOS engineer, Kristian Bauer, wrote that “[r]emixes, remakes and collaborations are essential parts of the Vine ecosystem, and today we are introducing new features that build on this, allowing everyone to get in on the action.” Because Vine’s user culture created an environment for remix, the app’s developers responded by creating a feature that made remix more accessible. Now, instead of creating a remix in another app or with video editing software, users could create this specific kind of remix within the app. Adding remix to Vine was a strategic response to the way that content creators were using the platform. This user-centered design is a key part of Vine’s collaborative culture. Further, making the remix feature native to Vine not only means that remix becomes easier, but also means that it is explicitly endorsed, even encouraged, by the platform.

Collaboration?

Vine calls its particular type of remix “audio collaboration,” which raises the question of how one can create a collaboration with only one party being aware of their material being used (Bauer). With Vine’s remix feature, users can take the audio from another vine and remix it without obtaining permission from the original creator. Is this really a “collaboration”? The nature of Vine suggests that the seemingly one-sided collaboration enabled by the app may actually be more of a collaboration than it initially appears; many users remix their own audio with new visuals, or that of their friends. The culture of Vine also suggests that uploading content to the app gives a kind of implicit permission to use and remix the material.

Memes

The remix feature also makes it easier for users to create memes on Vine, replicating a concept over and over in new iterations. Pairing existing audio with new video literally places that audio in a new light, providing a new interpretation of the audio and giving a new meaning to the video. When many users remix the same idea over and over, it is easier for a meme to spread around Vine, like “Duck Army” did. The ease of replicating content on the app also led Vine to become a large source of internet memes.

Importantly, making the remix feature native to Vine means that the app can build in a citation of sorts– in a Vine with remixed audio, a box containing a music note appears in the bottom left corner of the video. By tapping on this, users can see the source of the audio. This is another way in which Vine encourages collaboration among users; even if a clip is taken without permission, it automatically shows the source of the remixed audio if it has been added through Vine’s app.

Vine is a user-focused community in which content creators are able to explore and experiment with new forms of creation and remix. Vine brands its remixes as “collaborations” and encourages users to make connections both inside and outside the app. How is Vine’s definition of remix important to understanding its appeal?