(Tired of Hearing It) Through the Grape-Vine

Twitter. Oh, wasn't it great.

It offered a platform for artists to get recognised, a medium for musicians to spread their work, and promised opportunity for the creative. Just look at the tag line: 'Yours to Discover'.

This was, of course, before the age of the Vine. Like the pestilent proliferation of its name-sake plant, within the space of two months of 2013 Twitter had gone from being the home of new music and interesting thoughts, to being overrun by the spread of green logo-ed vermin. Out with the three minute video - in with the Six Second.

In case there is anybody who is not aware of what Vines are - and do any of us really know? -  these are six second video clips, usually intended to be funny. Don't be fooled by their appearance, however; they are not.

But the issue caused by Vines runs far deeper than this problem - although the fact that their success has relied on the use of racial stereotypes is doing nothing for progression or to aid an already ignorant world - as they are a final blow to the dying era of creativity and, well, meaning.

Vines are meaningless, lack any form of originality, and are drowning out the real showcase of talent that Twitter was made for. They exploit the repetition that is a drug for today's youth, playing themselves in loop over and over. It's clearly not bad enough that most Vines are unidentifiable from any other in the first place!
But that's just the internet world that we live in: Everything is the same, there is no creativity, and everything must be short. First there were albums; they were too long, so along came the single. Then the death of the book; instead we are given Facebook. The other day, I even heard Joey Essex use the word 'Long' as a condemnation. Now it's reached Joey, who knows where it will stop.

Whether it's just that attention spans are truly running out, or we have finally been hardwired by the instant world of social media, Vines are just the epitome of what is happening today.

I may be being a tad harsh on them, but along with their 9 Million + followers (That's 27 times the amount that David Bowie has), to me this is a clear cause for concern. I'm just warning you now - before you become just another number; glued to the screen watching repeats of Jerome's Tea Party... 14,400 times a day.