Vine: Six Seconds That Changed The World

Episode 7: The Battle of Vine Street

Date: May 6, 2025
Host: Benedict Townsend
Podcast Description: The inside story of Vine, the social media app that shaped—and was outpaced by—the modern internet. In this episode, Benedict tracks down pivotal movers at the moment Vine’s future was transformed: the high-stakes showdown between Vine’s creators and management at 1600 Vine Street.

Episode Overview

This episode centers on a dramatic, transformative confrontation in late 2015 between Vine’s top creators (the “1600 group,” named for their infamous Vine Street address in LA) and Vine’s management. At stake: the platform’s very future, the possibility of creator payment, and the aftermath that would eventually seal Vine’s fate. Through interviews with former Vine staff, creators, and industry insiders, the episode unpacks the hyper-charged tensions, miscommunications, and industry inexperience that led to chaos—and Vine's demise.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: 1600 Vine Street Summit

• [00:24] Benedict Townsend sets the stage: It’s autumn 2015, and Vine management meets with top creators at 1600 Vine Street, the epicenter of collaborative Vine content.
• Top creators include Jake Paul, Marcus Johns, and others. Notably absent: Logan Paul and King Bach (“He’s just one of those like, I’m a nice guy and I want to surround myself with nice things...he wasn’t going to participate but wanted to benefit from whatever it was they negotiated.” — Karen, [03:23]).

2. Creators Flex Their Power

• The 1600 group had unprecedented leverage—“A group of barely 20-something internet goofballs...holding one of Twitter’s biggest products for ransom.” (Benedict, [10:11]).
• They recognized their role as the lifeblood of Vine: If they stopped posting, the app would wither.

3. The Central Grievance: Payment

• Twitter had forbidden Vine from directly compensating creators, fearing demands to also pay for tweets (Karen, [04:18]).
• Despite creators making substantial external income, they felt “unheard and unseen” by the platform (Karen, [05:10]), fueling frustrations.

4. Proposal & Negotiation Breakdown

• Marcus Johns fronts a proposal: top creators will deliver three Vines a week for “a million dollars” ([12:39]).

• Initially, Karen and the Vine team believed this was a million dollars total—potentially a manageable sum to buy much-needed time.

  “So we left that meeting quite excited because we felt like a million dollars...we can do this.” (Karen, [13:02])

• Days later reality hit: the ask was a million dollars each—roughly $19 million ([15:07]).

  “They literally said, we will all make three Vines a week for a million dollars. And they just didn’t say that word ‘each’ in the room.” (Karen, [15:29])

5. Aftermath: Leaks, Uproar, and Exodus

• News of the negotiation spread rapidly, stoking jealousy and demands from other creators (“So much for that NDA...” Benedict, [16:45]).

• Vine, unwilling and unable to meet the asks, declined. The 1600 group followed through—redirecting audiences to Instagram and beginning a mass exodus ([17:17]).

  “...You empowered a hundred people to be the lifeline to the entire product. And then like when those people decide to use their leverage, you’re in deep shit...You hitched this entire thing on, you know, 20, 21 year olds...” (Rich Arnold, [17:31])

6. Was the Ask Unreasonable?

• In retrospect, some felt the creators’ value was significant—calculations show they could have commanded a million-dollar salary via traditional ad CPMs (Brendan McNerney, [19:15]):

  “That run rate’s over a million dollars a year...The audiences were well worth a million dollars, and they just didn’t click that.” (Brendan, [19:15])

7. Collapsing Community & Platform Decline

• The fallout fractured the creator community, with resentment over the “1600 group’s” monopolization. Smaller creators felt ignored (Brendan, [20:32]), while even those outside the clique questioned the entitlement and wisdom of the demands (Madon Matthews, [22:01]).
• The ecosystem suffered as collaborators and parody targets deserted; traffic and engagement plummeted ([24:39], [25:31], [25:47]).

8. Karen’s Desperate Push for a Plan B

• Vine staff tried to rally “Ivy Leaguers” and “sprouts” (the next generation of creators) with creator trips, brand collaborations—including an event with Michelle Obama ([27:02]).
• “Camp Unplug,” a Vine original series with creators who’d later become online stars, was a last hurrah.

9. Leadership Change & the Endgame

• In early 2016, a new GM was brought in apparently to “shut it down as gracefully as possible” (Karen, [28:43]).

• Employees recall bizarre, California-style “write down your fears and let them go” management exercises—while layoffs loomed (Rich Arnold, [29:43]).

  “A friend of mine, what she wrote was like: it’s too late. Like, you blew it. Basically, that’s what happens.” (Rich Arnold, [29:43])

10. The Casual Email That Ended Vine

• Employees were notified by an infamously flippant email (“Hey dudes, we’re going to do a midweek huddle tomorrow at 11am...would be rad if you could VC in...”—read aloud at [33:00]), signaling layoffs and shutdown.
• Staff gathered at a bar as news of Vine’s shutdown hit TV.

11. A Creative Era Ends

• For many, the end brought mixed feelings: sadness, relief, pride, and a sense of missed opportunity.

• Karen continued to distribute Vine merch and support creators; she mourns that Vine was only a “year or two ahead of its time”—if Twitter had shown more insight or commitment, Vine might have anticipated the TikTok era ([37:40]).

  “If every decision maker at Twitter was a regular vine user, then I think we would have had a lot more internal support...If we had had good leadership and we had had one more year, we could now be TikTok.” (Karen, [37:40])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The Power Dynamic:

  “We knew that we needed to just like hear them out. Because there was several years of pain and frustration that had not been voiced.”
  — Karen ([02:53])

• The Reality of Leverage:

  “They knew that basically they wielded all of the power and all of the eyeballs and all of the audience, and that they could redirect that audience to Instagram and put us out of business quickly.”
  — Karen ([08:11])

• Perspective on Platform Fragility:

  “You created this culture where you empowered a hundred people to be the lifeline to the entire product. And then like when those people decide to use their leverage, you’re in deep shit...that’s your problem.”
  — Rich Arnold ([17:31])

• The Missed Opportunity:

  “I really think if we had good leadership and we had had one more year, we could now be TikTok and Congress wouldn’t be worried about...China.”
  — Karen ([37:40])

• The Absurd Casualness of Vine’s End:

  “Hey, dudes, we’re going to do a midweek huddle tomorrow at 11am...Would be rad if you could VC in.”
  — Shutdown email, read by Benedict Townsend ([33:00])

Important Segment Timestamps

• 1600 Vine Street Meeting: [01:02] – [03:45]
• Twitter’s Hardline on Payment: [04:18] – [05:03]
• Creators Air Grievances: [05:10] – [06:18]
• Negotiation for Payment: [12:07] – [13:02]
• The Real Ask Revealed ($1M Each): [15:07] – [15:29]
• Fallout and Mass Departure: [16:45] – [17:17]
• Was $1M Each Justified?: [19:06] – [20:12]
• Broader Community Fracture: [20:32] – [22:01]
• Decline in Engagement: [24:39] – [25:47]
• Camp Unplug & New Creators: [27:02] – [28:00]
• Leadership Change & Offbeat “Fears” Exercise: [28:43] – [29:43]
• The Shutdown Email: [33:00]
• Karen’s Retrospective: [37:40]

Episode Tone & Style

Benedict and guests balance deep industry insight, wry humor, and clear-eyed nostalgia. There’s empathy for both the creators’ ambitions and the company’s growing pains, paired with incredulity at the sometimes bumbling, ad hoc nature of new media empires.

• “It was, if I can take some dramatic license, like a polite slow motion coup.” (Benedict, [11:39])
• “Not with a bang, but with an email. There we go. Vine’s dead.” (Benedict, [39:37])

Conclusion & Next Steps

The “Battle of Vine Street” proved to be both a creative labor action and the beginning of the end. The sacking of Vine’s creator elite—amid financial ignorance and corporate inflexibility—opened a wound that wouldn’t heal. As Benedict promises, the final episode will examine Vine’s autopsy, funeral, and lasting influence on the internet, revealing how much of today’s digital landscape—especially TikTok—grew from these very roots.

Next episode: The autopsy, the funeral, and the legacy of Vine.

For more, listen to the full series or contact the podcast at vinepod@global.com.