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Eternal September

You might remember it as the September that never ended

“September 1993 will go down in net history as the September that never ended.”
This is something people said. There is no recording of it to show.

1993·Early web, before YouTube

The name Usenet gave to the month the internet stopped being theirs and never got it back.

At a glanceThe facts

Remembered as
the September that never ended
Spread in
1993
Format
Phrase
Era
Early web, before YouTube
Where it started
Usenet, in the newsgroup alt.folklore.computers
What it said
“September 1993 will go down in net history as the September that never ended.”
Origin
No single original
Available
Not held by ViralWorld

What this wasThe story

Every September a new intake of students reached Usenet, learned the etiquette over a few weeks and settled down. When AOL opened a Usenet gateway in 1993 the intake stopped ending. David Fischer's post of 25 January 1994 is the earliest known use of the phrase: September 1993 will go down in net history as the September that never ended.

Why it matteredWhat changed

It is the name for the moment an online community stopped being able to teach its newcomers how to behave, because they never stopped arriving.

TimelineIn order

  1. Made

    Commercial internet providers begin sending new users to Usenet. Until now the yearly arrival of first-year university students each September had always faded as they learned the customs.1

  2. Found

    In a thread about new users, Karl Reinsch replies that it is “perpetually September”.1

  3. Found

    David Fischer writes that September 1993 will go down in net history as the September that never ended.1

  4. Found

    John William Chambless posts under the title The Eternal September, possibly the first use of the exact phrase.1

  5. Picked up

    AOL begins its own gateway to Usenet.1

What people misrememberSet straight

Commonly remembered asIt began when AOL connected to Usenet in September 1993.

ActuallyAOL’s gateway opened in March 1994. The newcomers of September 1993 came through other commercial providers.1

Commonly remembered asOne person coined it.

ActuallyThe phrase took shape over several weeks, across posts by at least three people in the same newsgroup.1

What it createdWhat came out of it

Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later

Where it came fromWhat we know

This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. The example shown is one surviving copy and is not claimed as the first.

Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — Eternal September

Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things

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