The Bad Boys of Vine
They’re not just unoriginal and inane—several of these Viners have had legal troubles.
By Brooke Mondor, Brookhaven College
Vine is an easy way for users to share short videos, and as a result, it’s provided an entirely new route to Internet stardom.
While plenty of Viners are creative, funny and actually worth watching, the accessibility of the app has enabled a lot of unremarkable amateurs to reach millions of viewers.
In addition to producing videos based on humor that is often insipid or unoriginal, several of these Viners have posted homophobic, racist and sexist material. A few have even run into legal trouble.
So here, in no particular order, are some of the most intolerable male Viners on the web. Why they are popular I do not know.
Nash Grier
Nash Grier is currently the second-most popular person on Vine, with about 12 million followers, but when I read or hear anything remotely positive about him, a tiny part of my soul shrivels up and dies.
I do not understand the obsession with him or his Vines. Not only are his videos not funny, but he sucks as a person, too. He’s posted homophobic, sexist and racist content on the Internet multiple times, yet for some reason his fans still adore him? It’s a mystery to me.
Curtis Lepore
Lepore, another Viner that’s quickly risen to internet fame, makes the list largely because of his involvement in a scandal in which he allegedly raped his then-girlfriend Jesse Smiles, who also happens to be Vine-famous. Despite what your personal opinion about the whole situation may be, no decent person would even be accused of something like that. When the news broke I was immediately disgusted, and it just furthered my opinion that he isn’t all that. Regarding his videos: Apparently making weird faces and doing a funny voice here and there is enough to get you worldwide recognition on the internet. Yawn. The only redeeming quality for his account is when he posts stuff with his cute little grandma. I refuse to even chuckle at anything else he posts.
Matthew Espinoza
Matthew Espinoza is part of a herd of boys that have become so popular that they’ve travelled the country to meet their Internet fans in real life. Like the other members of his boy herd, Espinoza’s Vines are pretty bland and unoriginal.
When I watch his videos and then watch some of his friends’, I feel like I’m seeing the same stuff over and over. It gets boring fast.
While Espinoza isn’t the worst boy to ever be on Vine, he definitely isn’t the best. There was a bit of controversy when he apparently dressed in blackface at an event to go meet fans. He denied that he did so, but later deleted the tweet in which he denied it.
Christian DelGrosso
When did yelling and being obnoxious become funny? Literally all Christian DelGrosso does in his videos is make loud noises and make stupid faces. It drives me up the damn wall. If the only way you can deliver a joke or a punch line is by yelling it, maybe you shouldn’t be telling jokes, and if all of your punch lines are screeches and horrendous noises, you definitely should not be trying to pass that off as comedy. I cannot make it through his channel without cringing.
Brent Rivera
Brent Rivera—where do I begin? He fills me with such extreme secondhand embarrassment. I start to feel bad for him, but then my empathy is immediately replaced by annoyance.
Rivera’s really just not funny—it’s actually hard to make it through his videos.
Also, at one point he started doing this catch phrase noise, and I am not a fan. He reminds me of that one kid in your class who really wants to fit in with the cool kids, but just doesn’t quite get there. Sorry, pal.
