Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
Eternal September en · NOUN
Pronunciation
Etymology
Before the Internet became mainstream in the mid-1990s, Usenet was largely restricted to colleges and universities, meaning that September (the start of the academic year) represented the largest annual influx of new users. Around 1993, commercial ISPs began offering Usenet access to their userbases, leading to a large amount of new posters with little idea of netiquette joining year-round. From the perspective of experienced Usenet users, the influx of new users in September 1993 never ended.
Meanings
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(Internet, empty-gloss, no-gloss) (Internet slang)
For decades, the phrase “Eternal September” has been used to describe the tipping point for a message board or online community—the inclusion, or invasion, of new users who dramatically change the existing subculture. […] The creation of Startup News was a response to Reddit’s Eternal September; […] The tech industry as a whole is having its own Eternal September.
2019 August 8, Anna Wiener, “The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 08 Aug 2019:"Twitter can feel cheesy sometimes, so promotional and self-aggrandizing," says John Manoogian III, a tech entrepreneur in San Francisco who joined Twitter in 2006, its inaugural year. "It's experiencing Eternal September," he says, using the Internet slang for when something becomes overcome by the masses. He says that he and other purists are finding refuge in Weird Twitter.
2013 August 4, Katherine Rosman, “Some Twitter Users Push Back on Ads”, in The Wall Street Journal, New York, N.Y.: Dow Jones & Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 08 Dec 2025:
Forms
wikipedia: Usenet
Eternal September en · PROPN
Pronunciation
Etymology
Before the Internet became mainstream in the mid-1990s, Usenet was largely restricted to colleges and universities, meaning that September (the start of the academic year) represented the largest annual influx of new users. Around 1993, commercial ISPs began offering Usenet access to their userbases, leading to a large amount of new posters with little idea of netiquette joining year-round. From the perspective of experienced Usenet users, the influx of new users in September 1993 never ended.
Meanings
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(Internet, historical) A period beginning around 1993, in which large amounts of new users were joining Usenet.
"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'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):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: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:
Forms
Synonyms
Endless September · September that never ended · never-ending September
wikipedia: Usenet