Five score gigabites ago, Bill Gates, on whose invention we sit in front of, signed the �Fun� Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of teenagers who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred download hours later, we must face the tragic fact that the Teenager is still not free. One hundred jpegs later, the life of the Teenager is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred dead links later, the Teenager lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred packets of printer ink later, the Teenager is still languishing in the corners of society and finds his or her self an exile in their own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.
In a sense we have come to this webpage to cash a check. When the architects of our world wide web wrote the magnificent words of the Internet and the declaration of �Freedom�, they were signing a promissory note to which every Teengaer was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all teenagers would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Teenager. This sweltering summer of the Teenager's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 2003 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Teenager needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in Cyberspace until the Teenager is granted his or her boredom reducing rights.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of teenage rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of surfing, cannot gain lodging in the chatrooms of the adults and the porn sites of the perverts. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Teenager's basic mobility is from a smaller webpage to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Teenager in Australia cannot download and a Teenager in America believes he has nothing to download.
Go back to Yahoo, go back to Google, go back to Ask Jeeves, go back to Meta Crawler, go back to the search engines and chatrooms of our world wide web, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Teenage dream.
I have a dream that one day Windows will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "Microsoft Works.�
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every fan page shall be exalted, every cookie and html code shall be made simple, the boring places will be made fun, and the fun places will be made even more fun.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the computer. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of bored a stone of entertainment. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our search engines into a beautiful symphony of stuff we actually wanted to find. With this faith we will be able to chat together, to surf together, to go to porno sites together, to stand up for entertainment together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all Teenagers will be able to sing with a new meaning, "I�ll never fall in line, become another victim of conformity, and back down."
And if the Internet is to be a great entertainer this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious offices of Bill Gates. Let freedom ring from the mighty makers of Bored.com. Let freedom ring from teenager�s screens around the world!
Let mobiles ring from the snow-capped pictures of our desktops!
Let landlines ring from the curvaceous peaks of the chick in the Coke ad!
But not only that; let modems dial from every computer!
Let download limits be endless from Sydney to Washington!
Let speakers sound from every desk and every table of the world. From every computer, let entertainment be.
When we let fun be known, when we let it be known from every desktop and every webpage, from every monitor and every printer, we will be able to speed up that day when all Teenagers will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Blink 182 song, "Well I guess this is growing up."