Condensing TV to Vine

Metro-100814-SuperTech-HeadshotI haven’t had television for almost 10 years. That’s why I’m so bad at small talk. There’s a TV in my house, but it’s in one of those hideaway cabinet things that hasn’t been opened in, like, four years.

I thought I should keep the television in case I ever wanted to rent movies or get an Xbox 360. In my head, the ultimate endgame is getting the Xbox 360 with Kinect and having everyone over to play Dance Central in my living room. The wine would be flowing, the laughs would ring out through Makiki and finally, I would be doing something in my apartment besides sleeping and showering. This is my fantasy.

Meanwhile, the TV is just sitting there, tucked away and getting more and more obsolete as the years go by.
My movie rentals are online, and my entertainment is my phone via Vine.

Sold to Twitter for $30 million before even launching in January 2013, the video-sharing app garnered a stronghold in social media very similar to Twitter by forcing creativity through quickened, snappy posts. It also proved the Social Media Golden Rule: It’s only as good as the people using it.

Thousands of both major and minor celebrities, athletes, musicians and viral superstars took to the six-second looping platform to illustrate who they are. The result is millions of viral videos at our fingertips, and it hasn’t slowed down. The app is responsible for bringing hundreds of idiosyncratic individuals into the limelight, making them “Vine Famous” with millions of followers hanging on their every ADD-fueled post. Some of the posts are the craftiest things I’ve ever seen, and some are just plain ridiculous. I love them all. 
It’s weird to me how many people thought the roll-out of Instagram video would kill Vine. The thing is, Vine was able to garner more than 40 million brilliant users who have taken the app to the next level with imaginative and hilarious programming — including looping, stop-motion, music parodies, romance parodies, stunts and even how-to videos.

Metro-111914-SuperTech-Vine

If you already have or plan to download Vine, don’t expect to be too impressed by my videos. There is a small handful of comedic videos I’m proud of, but they are buried between tons of sloppily shot displays of crazy nights out. 
I do have quite a few favorite “big time” Viners: Treasure Fingers (he has two of the most hilarious black cats), Tokimonsta (she has the cutest gray Scottish fold cat), and BigCatDerek (who runs a big cat sanctuary in Texas) (OK, I guess you can tell now that I love cat videos).

There’s a huge conglomerate of Hawaii Viners as well. They are easy to find, thanks to their hashtags #TeamHAWAII and #HawaiiVines. Some super funny stuff, including videos from The Deadbeats and their frontman Harumi Ueda, who has some Saturday Night Live-worthy skits with his bandmates. Their saxophone player Matty Wong is MEGA Vine Famous, with more than 16,000 followers.

For me, these videos have become what I’m staring at as I fall asleep each night. If TV was our baby-sitter growing up, then Vine is my lullaby going to sleep.

@SUPERCW
Christa Wittmier is “SUPERCW” on all social media. Find her on Snapchat, Soundcloud, Twitter, Vine and Instagram. By night, she is known as DJ SuperCW. By day, she is known as senior marketing director for Young’s Market Company of Hawaii. Her nightlife blog SuperCity runs every Wednesday on HonoluluPulse.com.