The Rise and Fall of BowieNet

Yes, 1999. I didn't imply it was the first time Bowie ever talked about the Internet.

The skepticism was high in 1999 that the Internet was going to be as large as it has become as a social and economic force. The Internet was economically miniscule at the time that BBC interview occurred. Bowie saying what he was saying even in 1999 was still considered very outlandish, which is why the interviewer reacts the way he does. At that point the Internet still had practically no tangible impact on or reach into the day to day lives of the vast majority of people everywhere. A mere 3%-4% of the world's population used the Internet at the time, mostly sparingly.

You have to go to after ~2004 before it became broadly accepted that the Internet was going to sustain as a major socioeconomic force and get far bigger. For example, circa 2001-2004 the media, analysts, et al. were still celebratory dancing on the grave of the dotcom bubble, slapping themselves on the back for their cynicism. It's why a story like Amazon.bomb got so much traction in 1999 (and was so celebrated in the years following), the skepticism was extremely high and broad for many years after 1999.

That got me too! I immediately recalled a paper I found in one of the free NASA ebooks (see link below):

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Susan Blackmore. “Dangerous Memes; or, What the Pandorans Let Loose” (Cosmos & Culture p297)

“This reveals the fundamental difference between all other theories of gene-culture coevolution and memetics: for the former the final arbiter is genetic advantage so that culture must always remain on its leash, even if the leash sometimes gets very loose; for memetics both genes and memes have replicator power and can drive change and creativity. For other theories, cultural traits are an aspect of the human phenotype, but for memetics they are living things in their own right.

These include a vast range of memeplexes (coadapted complexes of memes) that are copied, stored, and propagated by their human hosts using a wide variety of adaptations. All these, according to Humphrey, “should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically.” (Dawkins 1989, 192).

Some survive predominantly because they are useful to their hosts (e.g., effective financial institutions, scientific theories, or useful technologies); others depend on fulfilling human desires and preferences (e.g., the arts, music, and literature); and still others are positively harmful, tricking their hosts into propagating them. We humans are selective imitation devices (Blackmore 2001); we try to select only the useful or valuable memes but are inevitably tricked by some of the rest.” (p. 302)

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There are a lot of interesting bits in there, but this one has that creepy invasion has already happened and the aliens are living among us vibe to it.

I watched this Bowie interview before. I am of an age that I remember the 1990s and can recall how people talked about the internet's potential--always in terms of other previous technologies (really Jeremy Paxman, the telephone?).

Right now, I'm wondering what Bowie was reading and who he was talking to that informed his beliefs about the cultural change the internet was going to effect. (I was not as good a reader in the 1990s as I am now, so I'm sure I was describing the internet by the same unhelpful metaphors).

Did Bowie describe the internet as an alien life-form, because it's shocking/what we expect David-Ziggie Stardust-Bowie to say? Or, was his belief based-on, informed-by, his artistic practice (research), or ideology (his own personal experiences and world-view)? Of course the truth is likely a mix, but the bit which makes a difference--the bit that makes Bowie an informed speaker with lucid ideas and insight--would I expect be research (or surround yourself with people who are smarter than you).

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Sunday March 29, NASA's free history e-book collection (nasa.gov) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22718489)

And in the collection is this book, Cosmos & Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context Edited by Steven J. Dick and Mark L. Lupisella (2009?) (https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/hist_culture_cosmos_deta...)

Sure, Bowie was right that the industry overall would swiftly move to a situation where many people are getting music for free (or for next to free on streaming) and artists tour to actually make money. Yet he himself was still able to spend nearly a decade from 2004–2012 not actively working, living entirely off his royalties that persisted thanks to those copyright laws, so things didn’t develop as suddenly and drastically as he suggested.

The article actually calls out that this wasn't the case for the ISP at least:

> As Ars Technica's interview with BowieNet co-founder Ron Roy confirms, Bowie didn't just lend the enterprise his brand but was "tremendously involved from day one." As Roy tells it, Bowie kept BowieNet fresh "by exploring new technologies to keep fans engaged and excited. He always preached [that] it's about the experience, the new."

Your comment prompted me google George Foreman and I'm surprised to find that he was actually a celebrity (boxer) and not the founder of the company as I assumed.