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 filtered out AI slop. 

The idea was to create a different kind of social media experience, one without AI-generated videos or picture-perfect photos, one that prioritized authenticity over engagement. That's what led him back to Vine.

Vine, which peaked in popularity around 2014, was one of the original places online for short-form videos, known for its unpolished style and quirky humor. Despite the app being shut down in 2017, those old Vine videos still existed thanks to the Internet Archive. The Divine team worked with folks there to convert those archived videos into a more accessible format so they could be viewed again.

"That's how Divine came to be, where we're [asked], can we bring back these old videos? Can we bring back this old way of creating? And can we empower users to not see AI-generated content, to control their experience?" Henshaw-Plath said.

Now the app has been reimagined for the new digital age. 

Called Divine -- "di" meaning "of" in Italian and the pleasant coincidence of sounding like "do it for the vine" -- the new video app is available for download in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. You can also watch videos on the website without an account. In addition to over 500,000 classic videos, you can find and share new videos. 

Divine is not exactly the same as Vine, but it will feel familiar to scrolling through other social media apps like Instagram and TikTok. 

The app's initial announcement generated excitement beyond simple nostalgia when the team behind Divine confirmed it would be AI-free -- no bizarre AI videos to be seen. This is a high bar to reach, as AI-generated videos are becoming increasingly realistic. But it's a refreshing position given how much of the internet is filled with AI slop.

Here's what you need to know.

Bringing back Vine, kinda

As with any online space, what makes Divine special is the people on it. Some of the biggest creators who got their start on Vine are back on Divine, including Lele Pons and JimmyHere. Old videos from folks like Logan Paul and Nash Grier are back, too.

"Many of us came from Vine, and it was the beginning of everything. An iconic app," said Pons, a Venezuelan-American influencer. "It was such a key moment in my own personal journey, and in internet culture. It makes me so happy to see these early classics brought back to life, and to have the chance to make new ones."

When building the app, Henshaw-Plath and his team initially tried to recreate the original Vine app as closely as possible: square videos, lime-green color scheme, etc. 

But social media has evolved a lot since the heyday of Vine over a decade ago, and the team realized they had to pivot at least a little to include features now industry-standard -- like editing tools that can overlay text and subtitles. But the basic, 6-second looped video format remains untouched.

The Divine app also includes two camera modes: the classic square and a modern, vertical camera. You're going to want to film and edit videos within the Divine app, because the camera's behind-the-scenes tech is central to Divine's other big promise: being an AI-free platform.

Keeping AI out of Divine

Social media platforms of every shape and size have struggled to identify and label AI-generated content. The majority of major platforms -- Instagram, YouTube, TikTok -- allow people to post AI-generated content. 

But it's controversial. Many social media users complain that it's drowning out human creators and making it difficult to discern what's real and what's fake.

Divine's plan to be an AI-free social media site is to limit the types of content shared. The platform uses a set of technologies called proof mode, which adds invisible watermarks to content as it's captured and verifies the origins of every video uploaded to the platform. It's an open-source initiative from The Guardian Project that's also used by human rights and media organizations to verify suspicious media.

If the video you're trying to upload doesn't include the invisible watermarks that verify its authenticity, you won't be able to share it. The Divine team knows that limiting its uploads might make it difficult for professional creators who edit in third-party apps, like CapCut, to post videos, but they're hopeful they can support uploads from other apps as they adopt content verification tech.

"AI-generated content is a major problem for everyone, not just for Divine, and we need to change the way our technology works so that we can know what is real," said Henshaw-Plath. "If CapCut were to support this technology, we'd love to support publishing from there, but our central, important thing is that it's real and it's authentic and it's human, and so we use a bunch of technology to keep that the case."

A few third-party apps, such as Adobe Premiere, are compatible with proof-mode standards. But it will be easier for you to film and edit videos in Divine. Time will tell if Divine's efforts to keep AI off the platform will be successful. 

Social media has transformed since those early days of Vine, not only because of AI. Bringing back Vine for 2026 meant intentionally designing the platform to be "resistant to enshittification," Henshaw-Plath said, referring to the theory that our experience using online platforms is deliberately degraded as tech companies monetize every part of the experience. 

Part of that means Divine avoiding an advertiser model -- so you shouldn't see paid ads on the platform. Another part is giving users more control over their experiences by building Divine on an open protocol called Nostr and working on a future update that will allow users to choose which algorithm builds their feeds.

Holistically, as Henshaw-Plath put it, social media can and should be fun again. "We should have joyscrolling instead of doomscrolling," he said.