What happens when you take Larry King’s studio, a crack production team, improv comedy, internet chaos, and the earliest generation of Vine creators?

You got Behind The Vine.

Eric Artell, the former host of Behind the Vine, joins Rabble for a deep dive into the golden age of Vine, the birth of creator culture, and the internet before every platform became an engagement machine. From interviewing rising Vine stars to witnessing the mental health realities behind online fame, Eric shares stories from one of social media’s weirdest and most influential eras.

But most importantly: will we perhaps get a “Behind Divine” sequel?

In this episode:

• 07:39 How “Behind The Vine” captured a generation of creators before influencers became an industry
• 15:35 Why authenticity still beats polished content, even in an algorithm-driven internet
• 23:39 What happened to Vine stars after the app disappeared, and how internet fame changed their lives
• 31:55 Can Divine bring back the creativity and community that made Vine special?
• 33:58 Why audiences connect more deeply with creators who feel human instead of optimized
• 35:47 The missing ingredient in today’s content economy: genuine human connection
• 40:40 The mental health realities creators face behind the pressure of constant visibility
• 46:11 Why social media platforms need stronger protections and healthier spaces for younger users
• 51:34 How Vine went from internet phenomenon to shutdown cautionary tale almost overnight
• 56:29 The future of content creation, creator ownership, and building platforms beyond the algorithm

Eric’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericartell/

Behind The Vine on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCauu8QfE8Z4uvkTS2l9vNw

NerdHQ helps provide therapy for those who can’t afford it: https://nerdhq.org/
80-year Harvard mental health study showing that community leads to happier lives: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

Learn more about Divine: https://about.divine.video/

And download Divine in the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/divine-video/id6747959501

or Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.openvine.app

He hit a million followers on Vine before “creator” was even a job title. Now Reggie Couz (an OG Viner) sits down with Rabble to answer the question that haunts every creator: Wwhat happens when the platform you built your career on decides it doesn’t need you anymore?

From mustaches and wigs in his mom’s New Jersey house to Vine Meetups in LA, Reggie traces how he became an internet star and why he’s now leaning in on decentralization and the revival of 6-second looping videos on Divine. It’s a conversation about creativity, community, ownership, and refusing to keep renting your own followers back from Big Tech.

In this episode

Chapters

• 4:05 How Reggie talked his mom into taking a “gap year” that became his life to chase six-second fame—and hit a million followers before that year was up
• 11:11 Why Vine was six seconds (hint: it was a phone limitation, not a creative choice)
• 12:22 The secret history of how platforms actually get built—Twitter from protest text messages, Instagram from an abandoned check-in game, Vine from “what can we do with video?”
• 15:38 The Hollywood actors’ union as a blueprint for creator solidarity
• 24:09 Divine: rebuilding Vine on an open, decentralized protocol where you own your identity, your audience, and your work
• 26:45 What “enshittification” really means, and why creators are the value platforms keep extracting
• 41:43 What social media should look like in 2026 — and how to “just get weird again”