To the web on its thirteenth birthday

Teenager now, growth spurts wild and luxuriant,
Your gangling form changes month on month.

Born from the womb of academe in 1994
Pornography was your wetnurse
Growing you big and strong
Teaching you new tricks
(webcams, streaming video, cash payments)
that your parents never dreamed of.

Seeing such a robust child the heavyweights moved in
Banks and shops and telecoms
"what share of the action can I buy?"
You tolerate them
-you are young, they have weight-
But meet their smiling advances with a scowl.
You partied as the dotcoms crashed.

Teenagers and the law- well.
"Lurks" they say "on street corners
Something Should Be Done." You smirk.
You know who they are. Specially the publishers. It's fun to tease.
You smell the fear whenever they walk past.
Police? You'll go to Russia.

Teenagers must have independence!
So Web-2.0 has arrived.
Now everybody feeds you.

New life for democracy
- are you aren't you?
- are you aren't you?
Giving voice to the millions in blogs and online voting.

Or are you a cancer
Spam spammer spamming
Greetings from childhood friends lost in the avalanche
Phishing, viruses, Trojans
Appropriating mutating multiplying.

New life or cancer? Both of course
Like nuclear physics and the Russian Revolution.
More man-hours spent on online solitaire than the Panama Canal
You are huge like Exxon, Zeus and China
We tremble and we lick our lips as we watch you grow.

Adam Kilgarriff, Spring 2007

Last modified: Fri Aug 10 06:44:45 GMT Daylight Time 2007