OG Viner on How the Creator Economy is Broken

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 episodeChapters4:05 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 up11:11 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 solidarity24:09 Divine: rebuilding Vine on an open, decentralized protocol where you own your identity, your audience, and your work26:45 What “enshittification” really means, and why creators are the value platforms keep extracting41:43 What social media should look like in 2026 — and how to “just get weird again”