Just like that, the invite code barrier that lasted over three months is gone. Divine, the Vine revival project led by early Twitter employees, is now open for anyone to download and use—no invite code required to get in.
Divine's approach is straightforward: 6-second looping videos, just like the Vine that spawned countless memes before shutting down nearly a decade ago. The app even has a dedicated "classic" category for rescued footage from Vine's original database, with over 2 million videos restored so far. The app has no official ties to Vine, but there's real bloodline here—it's funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, though the company states he holds no equity or ownership in it.
Beyond the nostalgia, Divine's technical approach feels right at home in today's social media landscape, which is increasingly wary of AI-generated content. The whole platform runs on a decentralized architecture, built on nostr, an open protocol also backed by Dorsey. Users can only upload videos recorded through Divine's built-in camera, and the app itself has AI detection tools baked in to vet where content actually comes from.
Founder Evan "Rabble" Henshaw-Plath told Engadget that what comes out of this approach is "a lot of weird stuff"—but that's exactly what makes it one of a kind. "So much of what you see on social media is just stuff other people clipped and reposted from somewhere else," he said. "That's just not what's on Divine, whether it's original Vine content or stuff being made on Divine right now—you won't find the same thing on TikTok or Instagram."
Vine's original success largely came down to creator creativity, but a lot of those same creators eventually left because they felt the platform wasn't backing them properly. Henshaw-Plath said he's already thinking about how to build a monetization system for Divine's creators: "We don't know exactly how it's going to work yet, but one thing's clear—once creators build up an audience, they're going to want to figure out how to make money from it."
He also pointed out that behind all this nostalgia might be a longing for "the hope and excitement social media used to have." "Part of Divine's whole idea is that a chunk of the problem came from power getting concentrated in too few hands," he said. "Our fix is: don't let that happen again this time around. Bring back the old content so people aren't drowning in AI junk, and build the structure so it can't get wrecked down the line."
