Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of David Bowie’s unfortunate passing, which means this here marks the ten millionth article on the Internet to refer to him over the past 24 hours.

One of the more interesting things to come to light during all these tributes is that David Bowie used to go onto his own message boards under the name ‘Sailor’ and troll the haters

Twitter user Ali Catterall unearthed the below exchange, in which a fan shares a story of meeting Bowie in 1978 on a bench in Hyde Park, and being snubbed by him. The story quickly degenerates into insults, and it would have been just another mean message board post had Bowie not seen fit to reply.

“I’m sorry I didn’t lavish you with attention on a fucking park bench,” Bowie claps back.

In response to the guy’s (of course it’s a guy) query as to whether Bowie heard him yell “cunt” at him as he left, Bowie jokes, “I did hear you yell that at me. As a mater of fact, my entire creative output in the ’80s was in response to that. I knew you couldn’t stay mad at me. I knew that you would get people into my music. But I also knew as I jogged away that I would have my revenge on you by making you feel stupid as I released three albums – each one worse than the one before it.”

It continues on in that matter, and the entire response is well worth reading. David Bowie: owning fools on the net since the early ’00s.

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