Boston Social Media Star Mourns the Death of Vine
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Twitter shocked the Internet last month when the company announced it was shutting down Vine. One person who wasn’t surprised by the news of the video sharing app’s demise was local teen and social media star Jeffrey Miller.
Miller, who hails from just outside of Boston, became an online sensation at the age of 13 for his six-second musical clips. Over the years, the teen’s soulful covers of everyone from Beyoncé to Ariana Grande have earned him an impressive 3.2 million followers and more than half a billion “loops.”
Although the Massachusetts native mourns the end of the app, he had a feeling Vine was on the way out after noticing a dip in its popularity.
“It wasn’t that I was surprised,” Miller says. “I did see that something was going on and it wasn’t as popular as it was a year ago. It was very disappointing to see because I love the app so much.”
The Bay State star notes that he found a supportive community of virtual turned real-life friends through the app, who encouraged him to pursue his dreams in the music business.
“I met some of my best friends through the app, just singing and based on my posts,” Miller says.
https://vine.co/v/MJ0OD2E3BXa
While Vine is no longer an avenue to Internet stardom, luckily, Miller has parlayed his social media success into a budding music career. The 16-year-old recently dropped his first EP Rise, a collection of six pop tunes he’s been working on for more than a year.
Singing and performing have always been passions for Miller, who knew he wanted to be a musician ever since his grandfather gave him a guitar as a child.
“I always had a dream to be a rock star,” Miller says. “My grandpa got me a guitar when I was 6 years old and I’ve been singing and playing music ever since.”
Despite his musical pursuits, Miller hasn’t forgotten about his education and is still hitting the books in high school. The teen admits it’s hard balancing his career with school work, but says all the late nights are “worth it.”
“I’m continuing to stay in school,” Miller says. “I’m going to continue to chase after this dream of mine and, hopefully, it goes far.”
