Main questions: What’s Vine all about? What’s the state of digital loops? How can brands use loops?
Experiences thus far with Vine
Vine has been in the popular tech consciousness since January, when it announced its acquisition by Twitter. Its user base has grown rapidly (currently the #3 free app in iTunes) and continues to grow. I’ve been interested in digital loops before Vine, and had downloaded a few similar apps prior, but none pulled it off so well. Vine is so simple that I can whip my phone out while on a walk or at the bar and post a loop in 30 seconds. It is so easy that I now see potential Vines throughout my everyday, similar to how Nathan Jurgenson writes of the Facebook Eye: “Our brains [are] always looking for moments where the ephemeral blur of lived experience might best be translated into a Facebook post; one that will draw the most comments and ‘likes.'”
Few of my friends use Vine, making the app seem like a city whose infrastructure was built before anyone moved there. Thus I post things knowing they won’t get much feedback (comments or likes), which is often my reason for returning to Facebook or Twitter, to see what the reactions to my posts are, to see if my digital self has received any pats on the back.
The rapper Riff Raff has over 100k followers on his Vine, which is often populated with monologues and boozy antics.
VAMPiRE TRYiNG TO CONViNCE HiMSELF THAT HE iS A REAL BOY.
RAP GAME ALL MY EX’S LiVE iN TEXAS …
Actor Will Sasso, known for his role on Mad TV, has gained a large following from his Arnold Schwarzenegger Driving series.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Driving Pt. 10
Arnold Schwarzenegger Driving Pt. 13
I started following both of these accounts because I heard they were amusing and I didn’t know who else to follow. Similar to when I started Twitter, my initial post-signup moments on Vine were unsure. Okay, I’ve signed up. Now what?
I enjoy making Vines enough to use the network without much networking. I have returned the past few weeks on my own accord, not because of notifications, which is a major factor in my use of Facebook, and Twitter to a lesser extent. But the longterm forecast is unclear. I am not addicted. And one of my favorite parts about Vine, its emptiness, will likely make me use the network less. I don’t want my real-life acquaintances to all join, because then I feel like I have to follow them, and then I’ll receive all their Vines, and then it’s Facebook all over again–political rants, unsettling food pictures, shares from George Takei.
The mysterious loop
The loop is mysterious. Chris Baraniuk, on his blog The Machine Starts, writes how the loop is “divorced from the linear nature of reality.” Digital loops, primarily in the form of GIFs, defy time and our urges to push forward, produce, improve. Many of my digital sessions veer into frantic scrambles, irrationally searching for something, some piece of content or whatever that will satisfy me, entertain me, inform me. The GIF throws a wrench in this. It’s active but maniacal.
In the same article, Baraniuk writes of William George Horner, a 19th Century British mathematician who created the modern zoetrope, a spinning wheel with pictures on the interior that when spun gives the illusion of a moving picture. Horner called his device the daedelum, but it was known popularly as the wheel of the devil. This all predated cinema, so people were understandably shocked by the moving image, but I’m sure the wheel’s loop played a part in its devilry: active but maniacal.
Matthew DiVito has created an impressive collection of GIFs, most of which are hypnotic geometric animations that loop seamlessly. Imagine the wheel of the devil’s crowd, gawking at a flimsy wheel depicting a boy jumping over a barrel, and then imagine their reaction at DiVito’s GIFs.
Looped GIFs are autonomous. There are no start or stop buttons. They’re moving when we arrive at a webpage and are moving after we leave. And the more I look at the loop the more absurd and maniacal it gets–similar to repeating a word over and over until its meaning melts and we are left with an utterly baffling collection of sounds and mouth movements.
In November 2012, Oxford American Dictionaries chose “GIF” as its 2012 Word of the Year. The writeup quotes Katherine Martin, Head of the US Dictionaries Program at Oxford University Press USA: “[The GIF] turned 25 this year, but like so many other relics of the 80s, it has never been trendier…[and has] evolved from a medium for pop-cultural memes into a tool with serious applications including research and journalism, and its lexical identity is transforming to keep pace.”
It was an excellent Word of the Year choice, perfectly in tune with the flood of GIFs on Reddit, Imgur, Buzzfeed and beyond.
Like Katherine Martin mentioned, the GIF is over 25 years old “but like so many other relics of the 80s, it has never been trendier.” This makes me think of parents confused why their son is spending his time online watching stupidly simple, low-quality loops of the Swedish Chef. We dropped $300 on Timmy’s iPhone for this?
Brands and loops
So, GIFs are big, Vine is growing and the loop continues to mystify–but how can brands benefit? The easy answer is by creating engaging content that engages relevant users. The harder answer is take a look at how the loop can work into your brand, product and audience–hardly an answer. But before you write off this post as utter garbage let’s quickly move to examples of other brands embracing the loop. Onward!
American Apparel has created a large collection of GIFs on their Tumblr (some NSFW), many of which properly embrace the GIF’s wackiness. Fragmented, off-the-wall, seizure-inducing–nicely in line with their young target audience.
Lincoln created a series of GIFs staged in different decades. Elegant and hypnotic, with no mention of Lincoln anywhere, bringing full attention to the loop’s glory. 
And who else but us, Response. We incorporated GIFs into each of our services pages. That’s me driving my Civic 170 mph down Route 1.
