Eternal September

1993

Date: 1 September 1993 · Place: Usenet, all hierarchies · Figures: America Online, gateway provider · Dave Fischer, coiner of the term · Tags: Usenet, Endemic Newbie, AOL 01. The September That Never Ended Every September, college freshmen got internet accounts and flooded Usenet with stupid questions; by October the upperclassmen had taught them the norms. On 1 September 1993, America Online opens a Usenet gateway to its subscribers, and the September cohort never stops arriving. The cycle of acculturation breaks. The term Eternal September is coined by Dave Fischer in a January 1994 post to alt.folklore.computers. It calcifies fast into Usenet's foundational defeat narrative. 02. The First Platform Collapse Narrative Every later platform inherits the structure. Digg dies when Reddit users flood it; Reddit oldheads watch newcomers arrive after every Apollo shutdown; Twitter veterans complain about Elon's people; bluesky has its own September. The Eternal September is the prototype of this place was better before you got here, and it dates to a specific morning. Sources • Dave Fischer, original post (alt.folklore.computers, 25 January 1994, Google Groups archive) • Wikipedia, 'Eternal September' • The Jargon File 4.4.7, entry 'September that never ended'