TALKING WITH WILLIAM GIBSON:

If punk emerged today — instead of in 1977 — how would it take hold on the popular consciousness?

“You’d pull it up on YouTube, as soon as it was played,” hypothesized William Gibson in a recent phone interview with Wired. “It would go up on YouTube among the kazillion other things that went up on YouTube that day. And then how would you find it?”

In the third and final installment of the Wired interview with William Gibson, the noted science fiction author discusses punk rock, internet memes, the dawn of recorded sound, and the now-infamous “Gangnam Style” video by Korean pop star Psy. The video, which has nearly 170 million views on YouTube and counting, has captured Gibson’s imagination.

“That’s something from a subculture we would have no way of knowing anything about, and suddenly it’s on YouTube and it’s got millions and millions of hits, and people all over the world are saying, ‘Wow, will you check this out?’” Gibson said.

I think early punk on YouTube would look something like this.