Eternal September

alternative eternal September

1. InternethistoricalA period beginning around 1993, in which large amounts of new users were joining Usenet.First known use 1994

   I've only been here since the start of the Eternal September, but I was on at the beginning of that whole mess with the Highs.

   1994 April 17, Ziegler, “HERO: Star Wars in 1995”, in rec.arts.comics.misc (Usenet)

   3 more examples

   Certainly the arrival of Eternal September also brought spam, both on Usenet and in email, because the spammers realised that there were a growing number of people who were stupid enough to believe their promises of pharmaceutical or financial wonders.

   2007 November 16, Charles Arthur, “A filter for stupidity?”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 09 Jan 2014

   "September 1993 will go down in net history as the September that never ended," Dave Fischer wrote on the world's most popular social network at the time. That post spawned the idea of the "Eternal September," a phenomenon that happens when an internet community is forced to deal with a neverending influx of new people.

   2015 September 30, Jason Koebler, “It's September, Forever”, in Vice

   I like the thing that we did where we made it much easier for everyday people to use it, and lots of people got to join the party. I’m really glad about that. I’m not one of these Eternal September people, angry that normal people use the internet now.

   2025 October 20, Benjamin Hart, quoting Cory Doctorow, “The Internet Doesn’t Have to Suck”, in Intelligencer, New York, N.Y.: New York Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 07 Dec 2025

   Synonyms: Endless September, never-ending September, September that never ended

alternative eternal September

1. Alternative letter-case form of Eternal September.

   Those are not known to be involved in causing any large desaster,^([sic]) like Usenet's eternal September.

   1999 September 20, Kai Henningsen, “Robert Heinlein and New Religion”, in rec.arts.sf.written (Usenet), archived from the original on 08 Dec 2025

   4 more examples

   AOL are commonly blamed for the beginning of the end of usenet^([sic]) - not by withdrawing from it, but by making it accessible to their users. That event marked the start of 'the eternal September'

   2010 December 30, Whiskers, “META+ The Root Cause of Usenet's Decline”, in rec.arts.tv (Usenet), archived from the original on 08 Dec 2025

   Already in September 1993, the commercialization of the Internet on the consumer side unleashed what was known in early Usenet groups as “eternal September.”

   2017 August 4, Carly Goodman, “Commercialization brought the Internet to the masses. It also gave us spam.”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2019

   So, anyway, I think the USENET should not be a place for lay or young or regular people. It should be the place for the type of people who created it and populated it --- before eternal September, say, lol.

   2023 December 3, Julieta Shem, “USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix”, in comp.misc (Usenet), archived from the original on 08 Dec 2025

   Ms. [Jay] Graber referred to the culture clash as the “eternal September” problem, an allusion to how universities turn over their student population every year and a new class of students would log onto Usenet, an early social network, resulting in drastic changes to the culture.

   2024 November 17, Mike Isaac, “How Bluesky, Alternative to X and Facebook, Is Handling Explosive Growth”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 18 Nov 2024