Another entry for "things which make one feel old" (it definitely is a reference to that, and it absolutely needs explaining, but...), especially because:
a) I can't imagine more than a single-digit percentage of people on here were on Usenet, and
b) this is _exactly_ the sort of place which will have a wildly disproportionate number of old Usenet denizens; most places that single-digit percentage would be more like 0.0x% at most. (Other candidates; Dreamwidth, I reckon, probably Tumblr, and anyone who still unironically uses mailing lists).
In the earlyish 2000s, I gave a talk once to a bunch of more senior academics at the institution I was working at, the central thesis of which was "in about five years, you're gonna start getting undergraduates who have never known of a world where they couldn't cheat on their homework by cribbing Wikipedia".
This was a true – arguably, even insightful – observation at the time, but in retrospect, it's a charmingly quaint view of the future compared to where we are with ChatGPT. Eternal September is the same kind of deal; it contemplated the future through the lens of the present and, well, it _sort_ of got there, but it kind of missed the full existential horror of "your grandmother on Facebook".
I wonder how much work it would be to change it to September[1] of 2007[1]
I hope 1993 is not hardcoded.
It would also be great to have a calendar where every year past 1993 contains just one day that is conveniently September 3rd[3]. 1993 should start normally but September 3rd should be the last day.
