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Cory Doctorow explains how to use the Internet, in 1995 [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-11-24  

In this vintage footage from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, one Cory Doctorow has a handle on the newfangled technology and shows the CBC's Laurie Brown how to use it. The seven-minute segment aired on The National on June 19, 1995: "When you are talking about playing around on the internet," he begins, "you are usually talking about one or two things, playing with yourself or playing with other people." [via Andy Baio]

Inasfar as predictions come into to, Cory does rather well. Compare to some other contemporaneous prognosticators, such as Clifford Stoll ('Why the Internet Will Fail') and David Bowie ("We're on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying".)

One thing I love about the footage: the utter blackness of the background in the studio. I figure this aesthetic flowed somehow from the equipment back then: low dynamic range video, hot lights, explosion in demand for content.

Previously:

• The glorious inelegance of the 1990s family computer

• Transformers theme as 1990s R&B

• Trove of mid-1990s Sega internal documents reveals company's struggles

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