Vine, the six-second looping video app and arguably one of the best things about the internet, is shutting down. Twitter, which owns Vine, announced today that "in the coming months we'll be discontinuing the mobile app".
It's a tragedy. And not just because of the insanely good comedy Vines that have graced our screens over the years (a few of my favourites include swim dog, seal king, Bernie Sanders marijuana guy, dancing doge, sleeping plane and a late contender of man shocked by Donald Trump speech), but because it was such a good tool for politics reporting.
Politicians have long been careful to speak in soundbites -- short, succinct quotes that can be easily cut and packaged for the TV and radio news bulletins. Vine's six-second time limit may have seemed bizarrely short, but it was actually perfect for capturing sound bites and it was just long enough to do some 'compare and contrast' videos showing politicians saying one thing and then something completely different at another point in time.
The Huffington Post Australia used Vine a fair bit to share what was going on in the federal parliament -- some of it serious, some of it silly -- and so did a lot of other media outlets. In memory of Vine, let's go back through some of the all time best #AusPol contributions to the platform. Strap in, there's a lot of Tony Abbott.
When Tony ate the onion
Possibly the most famous AusPol Vine of them all, and for good reason
When Tony ate the second onion
When Glenn Lazarus threatened to stick his finger up Tony Abbott's bum
When Barnaby just got really shouty about carp
Sorry, that should be CAAAAAARP.
When Bill Shorten just loved to dance
And then it turned into a fantastic meme
When Tony literally groomed ScoMo
When people realised Malcolm Turnbull's new slogan was ripped from TV show Veep
When Sam Dastyari got nerdy
When the Senate focused on the very important things; whether "bottom" or "bum" was the right term
When Pauline Hanson got behind the wheel
When Tony did karaoke
When Tony Windsor high-fived a dog and the ABC got very dank
When Leigh Sales shut down the PM
When Bill started mixing with locals in western Sydney
And was popular in Adelaide too
When Tony put on the sun glasses
When these school kids weren't too pleased with getting Tony Abbott's new book
Really, they were super unimpressed.
And basically everything Bill Heffernan did
Goodbye Vine, we'll miss you, thanks for the memories.