Meagan Cignoli's eye peers through a veil of cotton balls. In stop-motion bursts, her face emerges. The vignette lasts mere moments, but on Vine, the social network that lets users upload six-second clips, this is how a star is born.
Cignoli, 32, is in the vanguard of so-called Viners using the eight-month-old service to build a lucrative following. When Facebook's Instagram launched a similar video feature three months ago, some thought Vine, which is owned by rival Twitter, was toast. So far that hasn't been the case. Just as YouTube has launched Saturday Night Live careers, Vine is increasingly minting its own kind of celebrity.
Five days after Cignoli perfected her style, for example, she was contacted by ad agency BBDO to make Vines for Lowe's. The home-improvement chain tapped her to create videos showing how to remove rust from kitchen knives and organize household cleaners. Since then, she's worked on Vines for 38 other major brands.
She's not the only one. "I was working at Subway four months ago," says Brandon Calvillo, 19, a top Viner known for his acerbic humor. "Today I might get a TV offer." Calvillo, who has 1.3 million followers, Vines for the likes of General Electric. Nicholas Megalis, 24, has accumulated nearly 2.9 million followers with his snack-themed raps; he now makes videos for Trident and Virgin Mobile. While the medium is in its infancy, advertisers have been paying creators anywhere from $1,000 per video to $20,000 for an ongoing series of Vines.
What's fueling the app's popularity? Vine's restrictions, say power users. Its time limit leads to experimentation, as in early television. Says Megalis: "I have a horrendous attention span, so six seconds was perfect."