Step into the year 1999, where David Bowie, sporting shaggy hair and groovy glasses, gazes into the future and sees the Internet as both exhilarating and terrifying. In a captivating interview with BBC’s Jeremy Paxman, Bowie predicts the upcoming decades with uncanny accuracy.
Bowie, who had already established his own bowie.net as a private ISP the previous year, discusses how if he had begun his career in 1999, he would have been an avid music fan collecting records rather than a musician. He challenges the notion that the rarity and mystery of rock music in the 60s and 70s gave it power, drawing a parallel to the allure the Internet now holds.
While Bowie acknowledges the Internet’s potential to revolutionize society, he also notes how its mystique has faded over time, likening it to a public utility. Despite embracing the increased connectivity between artists and audiences, Bowie later sought anonymity and privacy in his final years.
Paxman and Bowie have differing views on the fragmentation of the Internet, with Paxman seeing it as a problem and Bowie viewing it as a positive development.
“The potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable,” Bowie muses.
This thought-provoking interview opens up a world of discussion, inviting diverse viewpoints to be shared in the comments section. It’s a conversation that Bowie himself would have encouraged.
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Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podcast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.
