Do you remember… Vine?

Six seconds. For most of its life that was all Vine gave you, and it turned out to be plenty.

Twitter launched Vine on 24 January 2013. You held your thumb on the screen to film, let go to stop, and the clip looped forever. Within months people had worked out that six seconds was perfect for a joke: a set-up, a pause, a punchline, and round again before you’d stopped laughing.

Vines spread everywhere. Lines from them became catchphrases at school and at work, quoted at each other with a perfect deadpan. A few of its stars went on to film, music and huge YouTube channels, and the six-second sketch quietly shaped the short videos that came after.

In October 2016 Twitter announced it was closing the app, and in January 2017 Vine stopped taking new posts and became a simple camera app. Plenty of people still talk in Vine quotes without knowing it. If one just popped into your head, you know exactly what we mean.