Send Offs

The Greatest Celebrity Vine of All Time Also Has the Best Backstory

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. A lot.

Today was a distracting one on Twitter because the platform announced that it will be shutting down Vine, the six-second-video app that the 140-character app bought four years ago. “Best Vine of all time” lists were made, old “best Vine of all time” lists were recirculated, and everyone took an incredibly brief moment to mourn the careers of Vine stars that will never be. But take one moment—six seconds, in fact—to consider the best celebrity Vine of all time. It is, of course, Ryan Gosling eating cereal. Look at it above.

After watching that, you might be thinking, “This is neat and great, and I like Ryan Gosling a whole bunch, but why is this the greatest celebrity Vine of all time?” First, because Ryan Gosling is neat and great, but also because it was in response to a popular Vine series by Scotsman Ryan McHenry. The series is called “Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal,” and each one involves a very, very serious Gosling movie playing on a screen while a disembodied spoon, filled with cereal, hovers near his mouth. It was just a delight. It was so popular, Gosling even had to confirm he did, in fact, love cereal in a couple of interviews. McHenry made that into a video, too.

Here, watch a compilation video of all the Vines:

Here’s what makes Gosling’s Vine so poignant, and therefore better than other celebrity Vines being pass around today. McHenry, the mastermind behind the simple and hilarious series, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, and passed away in 2015. So, in tribute, Ryan Gosling ate his cereal in a Vine.