A video shared on Facebook purportedly shows the late singer David Bowie predicting the future of social media and the internet during a 1999 interview.
Verdict: False
The man featured in the video is an English comedian, not Bowie.
Fact Check:
The video allegedly shows Bowie, the famed singer who died of cancer in 2016, discussing in an interview how the internet would be used in the future. A notice in the upper left-hand corner of the clip claims the alleged interview is from “Newsnight 1999.”
“I think in the future, we’ll be wasting hours and hours of our lives just watching videos of cats and dogs being adorable,” says the man who appears to be Bowie. (RELATED: Did Jim Carey Say A 30-Day National Media Shutdown Will Solve The World’s Problems?)
“David Bowie predicted on[sic] how internet and social media will eventually enslave people….hmmm,” reads part of the video’s caption.
The man in the footage, however, is not Bowie. Through a keyword search, Check Your Fact discovered the clip actually shows English comedian Michael Spicer, who shared the video on his Twitter and YouTube accounts on Jan. 3. The clip appears to be Spicer’s satirical reenactment of an actual interview Bowie gave to journalist Jeremy Paxman for BBC Newsnight in 1999. Some of the clips of Paxman are used in Spicer’s satirical interview. Spicer frequently posts videos of himself playing characters on his YouTube account.
At one point in the real 1999 interview, Bowie begins discussing the impact of the internet and says, “I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable.” Spicer, playing Bowie in his satirical video, says the same line to open the video.
Check Your Fact reached out to Spicer for comment and will update this article if a response is provided.