Did David Bowie really predict the internet?
When we think of the internet today, it often brings a flood of associations—social media, tabloids, and freedom of speech. For many, especially cynics, it has become something negative, a breeding ground for misinformation and scaremongering. But this evolution was driven by the collective energy of global communities—something David Bowie predicted just a few years after the internet’s creation.
Everything about the internet in the 1990s seems immensely torturous by today’s standards. For those old enough to remember, it was far worse than the sluggish, unappealing usability of the early 2000s Windows boom, with clunky websites where most communities flocked to chatrooms. Now, we’re likely to get frustrated if Instagram or WhatsApp are down for a few hours, but back then, the entire experience was like pulling teeth.
While this is usually what happens in the early stages of a revolutionary technological advancement, the internet’s infancy didn’t seem like it had the potential to explode into the globally integral systems it is today, despite the many tech innovators who claimed otherwise. For musicians, it likely seemed like something of a fad, but for those who were paying close attention, dismissing it was like pretending space wasn’t an infinitely endearing concept.
Bowie was no stranger to both of these. In fact, throughout his career, he was closely attuned to cultural and technological affairs, painting his artistry with the kind of brushstroke that existed in hues of constant reinvention despite the blurred lines between experimentalism and commercialism. After all, this was someone who aligned his artistic identity with the 1969 moon landing, unceremoniously crafting a song that would forever be etched into the soul of history.
So, did David Bowie predict the future of the internet?
When it came to the internet, Bowie wasn’t just on board; he also rewired his marketing efforts to take advantage of what he knew would be here for the long haul. “The potential of what the internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable,” he told Jeremy Paxman in 1999. “I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying.”
To Bowie, the internet was anything but fleeting, promising world where these small towns of huddled communities would soon find themselves in the contexts of the world around them, sharing ideologies with faceless entities that would soon have opinions on their thoughts and way of life. When Paxton quipped a sceptical remark in response, challenging Bowie about the internet being nothing more than a mere “tool”, Bowie said: “No. It’s an alien life form. Is there life on Mars? Yes, it’s just landed here.”
Instead of adopting an observational position, Bowie unknowingly became an early pioneer of the internet, launching an online service, BowieNet, in 1998. This hosted a few different fan tidbits, from exclusive content to ways to interact with the musician himself, tapping into a broader artistic trend that many still use today, giving fans access to greater, more nuanced content as a reward for their loyalty.
In the years that followed, he was also involved in several facets of online and digital communities to bridge the gap between art and audience, which even once involved a 3D chat world where users could travel through a fantasy world as an avatar interacting with others. In hindsight, many regard these moves as far ahead of their time, blending real-world concepts with the future fireball that would be the internet and all its communities.
At the same time, the internet at this point was merely a tool, as Paxton deduced, but Bowie established what could be possible when taking those realms and making them entirely interactive. Though far less commercialised than now, these efforts revolutionised everything about what these interfaces could be, guiding other artists to incorporate such practices into their own identity as a means of connecting with their audiences. In other words, Bowie might not be its sole inventor, but he no doubt paved the way for where it was heading.
