Popular One Minute, Gone The Next

I find it fascinating how some things in life go from insanely popular to practically nonexistent, in only a short span of time. It’s almost as if you could miss it if you blink an eye.

Claire’s article on the disappearance of Vine got me thinking about this famous-one-minute-and-gone-the-next trend in apps, music, people, and even words.

Claire questions where Vine went and why it disappeared, and I have similar thoughts. For a few months, it was one of the most popular apps and, at the time, it’s 13 million users were sharing around 1 million videos each day, according to the social media analytics firm Simply Measured. A Long Angeles Times article, by Paresh Dave, states that Vine grew four times faster than Instagram.

To date, I don’t know anyone who uses Vine and I have even considered deleting it a few times. It has become practically nonexistent, as the social media world and app store continues to expand.

This hasn’t only happened to Vine though, there have been many other tragedies. Take for instance Myspace, Doodle Jump, Soulja Boy, Gym Class Heroes, Jonas Brothers, the words ‘YOLO’, ‘as if’, and ‘shiznet’. These all experienced extreme popularity in their day but have now transformed into outdated long gone things. (Well, YOLO may still be relatively popular but I don’t remember the last time I heard Soulja Boy on the radio).

My predication, as to why all of these things come and go so quickly, is that we overuse them so much that they become trite and annoying and then we never want to hear/use them again. Everyone used to be glued to their phone playing Doodle Jump as if they were addicted to it, but now hardly anyone has the app.

I think we become overly obsessed with new things that we tire them out just as rapidly as we got addicted.

I am impressed that Facebook has stayed as popular as it has because I thought a new website would have stolen it’s thunder by now. Myspace remained popular for only eight years and Facebook just celebrated its 10 year anniversary, and doesn’t seem to be dropping in the popularity polls.

So to answer Claire’s question, I think our compulsive personalities, combined with a short attention span, is the cause for these apps to come and go in the blink of an eye.