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RIP Prince, A Legendary Musician With A Complicated Internet History (networkworld.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the RIP dept.

alphadogg writes: Reflecting on the popular musician's uneasy relationship with the Internet and social media upon the 57-year-old surprising death. In 2010, Prince "famously shuttered his LotusFlow3r.com website," proclaiming that "The Internet is completely over... All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." In 2014, The Guardian ran a story titled "Prince quits the Internet," after the singer deleted his social media accounts. He filed a lawsuit against his fans, which was later dropped, for sharing bootlegged copies of his music online. He even banned fans from taking smartphone photos at his concerts in 2013. Prince did seem to open up to the Internet to some degree in the past couple years. Prince's HTNRUN album was posted on Jay Z's Tidal music site last year. In Silicon Valley, Prince is being remembered as a social innovator and a passionate advocate for Black youth," inspiring YesWeCode, Van Jones' initiative to teach 100,000 low-income kids to write code, and hackathons across the country to expose kids in underserved communities to computer science. Bob Brown from Networkworld writes, "News of Prince's death Thursday briefly crashed the TMZ news site. From there, fans flocked to the Internet and social media to mourn this music star who did his darnedest to stay off the grid." RIP Prince.

11 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Cameras by amicusNYCL · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sounds like I missed a great opportunity to troll Prince by showing up to one of his concerts carrying one of those tripod cameras with the curtain you pull over yourself while holding up a giant exploding bulb.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  2. so let me get this straight by rubycodez · · Score: 5, Funny

    The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince is now "formerly alive"?

  3. TMZ crash by ItsJustAPseudonym · · Score: 4, Funny

    "News of Prince's death Thursday briefly crashed the TMZ news site."

    Every dark cloud has a silver lining.

    1. Re: TMZ crash by chill · · Score: 5, Funny

      In other tragic news, Kanye West had been found alive in his apartment.

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    2. Re: TMZ crash by roman_mir · · Score: 5, Funny

      you know it was a damned daring person who refused to be typecast and shoved into a box.

      - but the box always wins at the end. Too soon?

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    3. Re:TMZ crash by gijoel · · Score: 2, Funny

      So some good came out of his death.

  4. Re:Chyna also died by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah I guess Prince really took her death hard.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  5. Re:Good night, sweet Prince. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    You're confusing sex with masturbation.

  6. Re:News for nerds PLEASE! by whipslash · · Score: 5, Funny

    Cool story AC. Scroll on by.

  7. Re: Good night, sweet Prince. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    He died in poverty because of copyright infringers.

  8. Re:Crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    No, I forgot about Bowie: it's like he's not dead.

    Sorry, Netcraft confirms: Bowie is dead.