Whenever you find a quote floating about on social media and you see it attributed to a certain person, do not immediately believe it. Be especially wary if the source of the quote – such as a news article or an interview from a reliable outlet – is missing entirely. It means something is usually amiss.

Over the past few days, some people on social media have been spreading this quote, attributing it to an interview which techno veteran Richie Hawtin gave to Mixmag this month. Here’s the quote…

“The ‘Nu-Techno’ scene is just Instagram models dressed in bondage gear from Amazon. They have no idea what they are listening to. Nor does the DJ”

Strong stuff, isn’t it? Well, it would be if Richie Hawtin had actually said it. A quick search on Mixmag’s website – literally all we had to do was visit their site and type in our query – reveals they have not recently conducted any interview with Hawtin.

Indeed, it appears the last time Hawtin spoke to Mixmag was December 2021, when he was speaking about an event he did at the Tate Modern in London. And who was he doing the event for? None other than clothing company Prada – so if Hawtin ever spoke about “Instagram models” obsessed with their clothes, he could soon find himself accused of hypocrisy.

So what’s the story here? Well, Ears To The House set out on a mission to find out – and then we took the rest of the afternoon off. Searching the quote on Google brought us to a Facebook page – we’ve pixelated his name for privacy reasons, but it looks like this…

Reading through the comments, it soon became clear the individual in question published the post as a sarcastic joke – but the sardonic nature of the post seems to have been lost as the post was shared widely. Even some of Hawtin’s own followers appeared to think he’d said it.

So we can now definitely confirm he hasn’t. Although we do know at least two other male DJs in the techno world who do hold the view expressed in the fictional quote…