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Happy 21st birthday, World Wide Web! You’re now officially a grownup

Now here are some things you should REALLY grow out of.

The ultimate result of Tim Berners-Lee's vision.
The ultimate result of Tim Berners-Lee's vision.
Image: Screen grab via RickAstleyVEVO

THE WORLD WIDE WEB celebrated its 21st birthday this week, with techies around the world marking the fact that Tim Berners-Lee’s creation is now officially a grownup.

On August 20, 1991, Berners-Lee announced the release of his groundbreaking application to a Usenet group. He wrote:

WorldWideWeb is a hypertext browser/ editor which allows one to read information from local files and remote servers. It allows hypertext links to be made and traversed [...] Internet news articles  are displayed with hypertext links to other referenced articles and groups.

And with that, he laid the groundwork for his appearance in the Olympics opening ceremony two decades later. Nice work, Tim.

Anyway, now that you’re an adult, web… Here are some things you should probably grow out of:

1. Doing things that old people don’t understand

YouTube/saraj00n

2. Having a strangely intense relationship with household pets

YouTube/nathannielwalmer

3. Listening to crazy music

YouTube/Luismckl

4. Misbehaving in public

psd/flickr

5. Laughing at the misfortune of others

YouTube/wwinterweb

OK, you can’t grow out of everything.

6. Sulking

Watch: Prophetic 1990s Kids’ Video of the Day>

About the author:

Michael Freeman

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