Vine have announced that the app will be officially discontinued on January 17 – but that won’t mean the death of your favourite viral video content for good.

The app – famed for its six-second looping clips – will automatically convert into Vine Camera, a similar but lighter app that lets you post and share six-second looping videos on Twitter.

In a set of FAQs widely shared on Twitter, the social media giant encouraged users to download their videos before the transition date, when all content will be archived on the Vine website.

Vine also recommended that users link their Vine and Twitter accounts, so audiences may continue to follow them on there if they wish. This is because Vine’s own social community will be deleted along with the original app.

As we reported before, the company first announced that it would be “discontinuing” the app last October. However, a specific closing date was only confirmed today, sparking numerous crying gif reactions on Twitter.

Founded in June 2012, the fledgling social media start-up was snapped up by Twitter for a cool $30 million shortly before its official launch in October 2012. Now its closure comes amid a sweeping drive to cut costs at Twitter in an attempt to get company profits back up. Vine’s active user numbers had plunged from 100 million a month to just tens of millions.

But many will no doubt treasure the viral video app for a long time to come. Its pioneering short format revolutionised the way people shared and consumed video on social media, giving young people of colour in particular a dynamic new platform to express themselves. As well as spawning many iconic memes and dance moves over the years, Vine has launched countless ordinary people to TV, comedy and music stardom.