It started as an experiment, Divine co-founder Evan Henshaw-Plath told me. He wanted to see if he could build an app that effectively removed AI slop.
The idea was to create a different kind of social media experience, without AI-generated videos or perfect photos, and one that prioritized authenticity over engagement. That led him back to Vine.
Vine, which peaked in popularity around 2014, was one of the original short-form videos online and was known for its unpolished style and quirky humor. Although the app was shut down in 2017, old Vine videos were still around thanks to the Internet Archive. The Divine team worked with local people to convert archived videos into a more accessible format so they can be watched again.
“That’s how Divine started and where we are. [asked]can I bring back these old videos? Is it possible to bring back this old-fashioned production method? And can we prevent users from seeing AI-generated content and give them more control over their experience?” said Henshaw-Plas.
This app has been reimagined for the new digital age.
The new video app, called Divine, a play on the Italian word “di” for “of” and a fun coincidence that it sounds like “do it for the vine,” is available for download on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. You can also watch videos on the website without having an account. Discover and share over 500,000 classic videos, plus new ones.
Divine isn’t quite the same as Vine, but it will be familiar to scrolling through other social media apps like Instagram and TikTok.
The app’s initial announcement sparked excitement beyond simple nostalgia when Divine’s development team confirmed it would not use AI, meaning it wouldn’t display weird AI videos. This is a high bar to reach as AI-generated videos become increasingly realistic. But it’s a refreshing position considering that much of the internet is filled with AI slop.
Here’s what you need to know:
Should I bring back Vine?
Like any online space, what makes Divine special are the people who are there. Some of the biggest creators who got their start on Vine have returned to Divine, including Lele Pons and JimmyHere. Old videos of Logan Paul, Nash Grier, and more are also back.
“A lot of us come from Vine, and this is where it all started. It’s an iconic app,” said Pons, a Venezuelan-American influencer. “It was such a seminal moment in my own personal journey and in internet culture. I’m so happy to have the opportunity to bring these early classics back to life and create something new.”
The Divine app contains over 500,000 archived classic Vine videos.
When building the app, Henshaw-Plath and his team initially tried to replicate the original Vine app as closely as possible, including the square videos and lime green color scheme.
But social media has come a long way since the heyday of Vine more than a decade ago, and the team realized they needed to pivot at least a little to incorporate features that are now industry standard, such as editing tools that can overlay text and subtitles. However, the basic 6-second loop video format remains unchanged.
The Divine app also includes two camera modes: a classic square camera and a modern vertical camera. You’ll want to shoot and edit videos within the Divine app. Because behind-the-scenes camera technology is central to Divine’s other big promise: being an AI-free platform.
Keep AI away from God
Social media platforms of all shapes and sizes struggle to identify and label AI-generated content. Most of the major platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok allow you to post AI-generated content.
However, it is controversial. Many social media users complain that social media drowns out human authors, making it difficult to tell what’s real and what’s fake.
Divine’s plan to become an AI-free social media site is to limit the type of content that is shared. The platform uses a set of technologies called Proof Mode, which adds an invisible watermark to captured content and verifies the origin of every video uploaded to the platform. This is an open source initiative by the Guardian Project, which is also used by human rights organizations and news organizations to verify questionable media.
If the video you’re trying to upload doesn’t include an invisible watermark proving its authenticity, you won’t be able to share it. The Divine team recognizes that restricting uploads may make it difficult for professional creators who edit with third-party apps like CapCut to post videos, but they hope that by employing content verification technology, they can also support uploads from other apps.
“AI-generated content is a big issue for everyone, not just Divine, and we need to change the way technology works so we can know what’s real,” Henshaw-Plas said. “If CapCut supports this technology, we want to support publishing from it, but the core and important thing for us is that it’s authentic, it’s real, it’s human. So we use a lot of technology to keep it that way.”
Some third-party apps, such as Adobe Premiere, are compatible with the Proof Mode standard. However, Divine makes it easy to shoot and edit videos. Time will tell whether Divine’s efforts to move AI away from the platform will be successful.
Social media has changed since the early days of Vine, and not just because of AI. Henshaw-Plas said that bringing back Vine in 2026 means intentionally designing the platform to be “encity-proof,” referring to the theory that our experience using online platforms is being intentionally degraded as technology companies monetize every part of the experience.
Part of that means Divine is eschewing the advertiser model. As such, paid advertising should not be displayed on the platform. The other part is building Divine on an open protocol called Nostr and working on future updates that will allow users to choose the algorithms that build their feeds, giving them more control over their experience.
Overall, social media can and should be fun again, as Henshaw-Plas notes. “We should introduce joy scrolls instead of doom scrolls,” he says.
