The too-brief life of Adam Perkins, and Vine
Perkins, 24, died on Sunday, leaving a legacy that won't be duplicated.
Patrick Perkins announced on Instagram last night that his twin brother and fellow Vine star Adam Perkins, 24, passed away on Sunday. I’ve been trying to find the most dignified way to write that Adam was best known for a video in which he walks in front of his bathroom mirror in his underwear and says “Hi, welcome to Chili’s,” but the undignified, off-the-cuff nature of his videos was exactly what made him so beloved.
After Vine shut down in January 2017, Adam remained popular on Instagram but focused on getting his degree in music composition at NYU. He released an album, Latch Relay, in 2018, and graduated in 2019. Of the handful of videos Adam posted on TikTok, the most popular were the ones in which he referenced his days on Vine and being the creator behind “hi welcome to chilis.”
“i can’t even really put into words what this loss means for me,” Patrick wrote on Instagram. “being a twin is a very central part of my identity. it’s all i’ve known. and i’m struggling to find the words to explain what it will be like for me to live in this world without him. my best friend.”
Patrick also announced that he will be releasing a limited edition of Adam’s 2018 album on vinyl, writing in a follow up post about the album that “in typical Adam fashion, he did no advertising or marketing or promotion. it was always about the music for him. nothing else mattered.”
Past Viners like Rickey Thompson and Gabriel Gundacker have gathered in the comments of Patrick’s posts to mourn his late brother, and it’s a reminder of how strong that community still is. Vine nostalgia is real, especially given how briefly the platform lasted, but there really was something special about it, both as a precursor of the internet to come and a closing chapter for a generation that can genuinely claim to have gotten famous by accident. There certainly won’t be another creator like Adam. —Kate Lindsay
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