Did David Bowie say that in 1999 concerning the Web?

To say:

In 1999, David Bowie mentioned of the Web, partially, “I believe we’re truly on the verge of one thing exhilarating and terrifying.”

Analysis:

David Bowie: Cultural icon, music legend and — clairvoyant?

Bowie gave a well-known interview on BBC Newsnight in 1999 and made some remarks concerning the web, which was a booming know-how on the time. His remarks appeared to foretell among the social fragmentation and chaos catalyzed by the web within the 2010s and early 2020s:

On the time, Bowie informed BBC interviewer Jeremy Paxman that the web appeared subversive to him, as a result of the holders of energy and affect in society didn’t but have a monopoly on it.

I do not assume we even noticed the tip of the iceberg. I believe the potential for what the Web goes to do to society, each good and dangerous, is unimaginable. I believe we are literally on the verge of one thing exhilarating and terrifying.

[…]

I am speaking concerning the precise context and the state of the content material goes to be so totally different from something we are able to actually envision the second the interplay between the consumer and the supplier is so in simpatico that it will crush our concepts of what are the mediums.

The above quote from Bowie is actual, however in January 2022 a parody of that interview went viral by which comic Michael Spicer embellished Bowie’s 1999 feedback with a 20/20 retrospective on the state of the know-how and its deleterious results on society. and private time administration of individuals:

“Sooner or later, we’ll waste hours and hours of our lives watching movies of cute cats and canines,” Spicer mentioned, earlier than launching right into a critique of how far-right political figures exploited immigration to elicit anti-immigrant sentiment as a car for gaining energy.

Sources:

Evon, Dan. “Did David Bowie predict social media in ‘Newsnight’ music video from 1999?” snopesJanuary 10, 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/david-bowie-newsnight-1999/.

“Mainstreaming Hate: The Anti-Immigrant Motion within the US,” Anti-Defamation League, November 28, 2018, https://www.adl.org/the-anti-immigrant-movement-in-the-us. Accessed November 17, 2022.