“We are the goon squad and we’re coming to town,” sang David Bowie in 1980 on his single ‘Fashion’. “Beep-beep,” he added for good measure, “beep-beep.”

As a clumsy segue, TikTok is all the fashion (sorry) today and the Bowie estate, to mark what would have been his 74th birthday on 8th January, set up an official account for him on the short-form video-sharing app. 

Working with Warner Music and Sony Music (who, between them, have licensing deals for almost the entirety of his recording catalogue), audio snippets of his music are now available to use within TikTok posts as well as clips from the Bowie video archive. 

The whole thing was launched with a #TheStarman hashtag challenge wherein fans were asked to use the audio for ‘Starman’ (the lead single from 1972’s breakthrough The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars album) and make video clips drawing on Bowie’s many iconic looks through his career. 

Inevitably there a lot of videos that were leaning heavily on the lightning bolt painted on Bowie’s face on the cover of 1973’s Aladdin Sane album (which has become a form of visual shorthand for Bowie since his death), but others were also going far beyond the obvious in the visuals motifs they drew on. 

“A pioneer in music and fashion, David was – and remains – a cultural icon,” said TikTok in a statement. “He was never afraid to push boundaries and was always first to embrace new technology to reach his global fan base.”

Three days after #TheStarman hashtag challenge launched, there were over 33m views of the assorted videos created and shared by TikTok users. The Bowie account has also been busy in that time, already uploading clips from ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Life On Mars?’, ‘“Heroes”’, ‘Modern Love’, ‘Let’s Dance’ and (bringing us full circle) ‘Fashion’.