Creativity Quote by Brian May

Brian May’s throwaway complaint about the internet being “sluggish” lands like a small, perfectly timed guitar lick: casual on the surface, quietly revealing underneath. Coming from the astronomer-guitarist behind Queen’s most maximalist moments, the line isn’t anti-tech posturing so much as an old-school efficiency ethic. He’s not rejecting the digital world; he’s delegating it. That distinction matters. “I have someone do it for me” is the punchline and the tell: May positions himself as someone whose attention is valuable enough to outsource the web’s friction, the same way a touring musician outsources logistics to keep the creative engine running.

The subtext is generational but not reactionary. “Surf the net” already sounds like a phrase preserved in amber, suggesting a relationship to technology shaped by earlier, clunkier eras of dial-up and waiting. The internet here isn’t a frontier; it’s a utility that fails its promise of speed and immediacy. Calling it “sluggish” also flips the script on the usual critique of celebrities being out of touch. He’s not saying the web is beneath him; he’s saying it’s inefficient. That’s a technician’s complaint, not an aristocrat’s.

Contextually, it captures a pre-social-media celebrity model: a public figure buffered by intermediaries, not expected to be constantly online, not performing accessibility as a brand. Today, when musicians are nudged into becoming their own content managers, May’s line reads less like laziness and more like a quiet refusal to turn presence into another full-time job.