How Did I Get Here..? (Editing Edition)

2014: My First Edit

Vine was a platform like no other before; it was the first video sharing community to focus purely on short looping content. It was also the breakthrough that music and video creators needed to show out to others and improve their own engagement. Views on posts rose and fell, anyone had a chance to make it on the trending page, and the OMG page established a new level of artist interaction for those both new and experienced in the media world.

This is where I come in. I was 12 years old when I decided I wanted to try and make an edit of my favorite band at the time—Pierce the Veil. However, this is when it went downhill as the tools I was working with were a little... limited. These included: an iPod Touch, some gifs, the 5 songs in my music library, and an imagination that was larger than my skillset at the time. The result was glitchy, low quality, and got 7 views. That didn't stop me.

Two months later, I was getting hundreds of loops, a few dozen likes, and had a decent following for someone who had never even looked at a video editing app before they got on Vine. I began to follow fandom accounts and watch shows that I had never considered watching before, which led to my SuperWhoLock/Dan and Phil phase (I know I know, stereotypical of teenage me to dive headfirst into the biggest fandoms in Tumblr history due to a few edits). However, this was when I started to actively gain mutuals and more likes—and I was hooked.

2016: The Rio Olympics Edit

This was HUGE. Arguably, to this day, this was the best Olympics since London in 2012 (no offense Sochi, I enjoyed the figure skating but I'm more of a summer sports girl). I was obsessed with watching the music videos and commercials that came out around this time as they combined two things I idolized at the time—the Olympic athletes and epic video editing skills. Therefore, the "Rio Olympics Edit" was born and boy did it EXPLODE my notifications. A six second edit turned into 650,000+ loops.

And here is where it all went sideways. I posted the edit on my personal Instagram account since I was so excited that one of MY edits had made it onto the popular page... almost immediately—a comment from one of my classmates: "This isn't your edit, I saw it on Vine. You can't steal other people's videos." I immediately posted the proof on my account, but that was the first of many comments that stuck around in my head for years afterwards. Since then, I have not stayed silent about my editing accounts; however—to this day—I am a lot more hesitant to breach that separation between personal and fandom life on social media.*

*More content to come on this subject as it is a very delicate yet relatable topic

Late 2016/Early 2017: The Scramble & The Filler Years

At the peak of its success, the executives brought about the fall of Vine (curse you Twitter) and the rise of Coub. Let me note, Coub still exists but it was a fleeting popularity. The app couldn't live up to the standards of the former Vine users and so, the shift to Instagram began.

These were my drifting years... I moved between Instagram and Twitter frequently like a lost little lamb with no true home. Nothing lived up to the community we had built, especially when only a small percentage of mutuals had migrated over after the shutdown.

I tried running a bookstagram and a figure skating account and a YouTube channel. Joined random group chats and found some new friends that I'm still connected with to this day. Auditioned and accepted an invite to an editing group. I pivoted and pivoted and pivoted again to figure out what I was passionate about and almost gave up editing all together.

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Well, now that we're only a decade out from the present, time for a snack break ( I might be a little addicted to GF Cheez-Its, oopsies). To be continued...