The Eternal September
I have had access to the internet since about 1998, and I have seen tremendous changes take place, not only in the technology and interaction of the internet but in the culture of the internet and the world at large.
The internet started as a packet communications project at DARPA starting in the 1950s. The very first people on the internet were the engineers and computer scientists creating the software and technology For the internet. Furthermore, since most of the computers in the 1950s and 1960s were very large, they were few in number and located in universities and research facilities around the U.S. The old internet was used to connect these computers together and allow researchers to communicate.
As the internet grew, technology advanced, the physical size of computers diminished, and eventually more and more universities could afford computers and internet access. Eventually, after the introduction of the IBM 5150 individuals gained the opportunity to access the nascent internet. Though, in the early 1980s getting the modem to work with the computer and then the getting the proper software to work with the modem and then get the data displayed correctly was quite a challenge.
The next big breakthrough came in the early 1990s with the invention of web browser and the IP address naming convention both of which were invented at the particle research facility at CERN in Switzerland.
The history and development of the internet was covered up to the year 1998 in the following documentary:
Nerds 2.0.1 A Brief History of the Internet
Hence, before say 1995 a significant number of people, dare I say, most people on the internet were college students, engineers, scientists, researchers, and academics. Most discussions were bound to be between people who were knowledgeable in their fields. In essence they were "nerds" and "geeks", and one of the main forms of communication was usenet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
As the number of people with internet access grew there came to be what is known in the usenet world, as the "Eternal September":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
The usenet was akin to an elitist clique:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nze8nb/its-september-forever
I like the quote: "it's better to have everyone involved, even if alot of them are idiots"
The "Eternal September" of the usenet world was bound to become the "Eternal September" of the internet in general. As the internet communication technology evolved from a way for "nerds", "geeks", and guys in their mom's basements to communicate to the main form of communication for the population at large, it should be expected that level of discourse and the method of discourse was bound to change.
If I were to pin point when the "Eternal September" became most evident on the internet I would say it was the year 2015, when Vox.com declared "2015 the Year the Old Internet Died"
https://www.vox.com/2015/8/6/9099357/internet-dead-end
Though, there is something much deeper, and much darker that occurred on internet than simply posting what one agrees with or likes.
What is missing here, is that there was bound to be a conflict between the old/original internet users, the new internet users who may have come of age before ubiquitous and easy internet access, those that grew up with ubiquitous access to the internet and mobile phones and the world population at large!
The internet started as a packet communications project at DARPA starting in the 1950s. The very first people on the internet were the engineers and computer scientists creating the software and technology For the internet. Furthermore, since most of the computers in the 1950s and 1960s were very large, they were few in number and located in universities and research facilities around the U.S. The old internet was used to connect these computers together and allow researchers to communicate.
As the internet grew, technology advanced, the physical size of computers diminished, and eventually more and more universities could afford computers and internet access. Eventually, after the introduction of the IBM 5150 individuals gained the opportunity to access the nascent internet. Though, in the early 1980s getting the modem to work with the computer and then the getting the proper software to work with the modem and then get the data displayed correctly was quite a challenge.
The next big breakthrough came in the early 1990s with the invention of web browser and the IP address naming convention both of which were invented at the particle research facility at CERN in Switzerland.
The history and development of the internet was covered up to the year 1998 in the following documentary:
Nerds 2.0.1 A Brief History of the Internet
Hence, before say 1995 a significant number of people, dare I say, most people on the internet were college students, engineers, scientists, researchers, and academics. Most discussions were bound to be between people who were knowledgeable in their fields. In essence they were "nerds" and "geeks", and one of the main forms of communication was usenet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
As the number of people with internet access grew there came to be what is known in the usenet world, as the "Eternal September":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
The usenet was akin to an elitist clique:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nze8nb/its-september-forever
I like the quote: "it's better to have everyone involved, even if alot of them are idiots"
The "Eternal September" of the usenet world was bound to become the "Eternal September" of the internet in general. As the internet communication technology evolved from a way for "nerds", "geeks", and guys in their mom's basements to communicate to the main form of communication for the population at large, it should be expected that level of discourse and the method of discourse was bound to change.
If I were to pin point when the "Eternal September" became most evident on the internet I would say it was the year 2015, when Vox.com declared "2015 the Year the Old Internet Died"
https://www.vox.com/2015/8/6/9099357/internet-dead-end
Though, there is something much deeper, and much darker that occurred on internet than simply posting what one agrees with or likes.
What is missing here, is that there was bound to be a conflict between the old/original internet users, the new internet users who may have come of age before ubiquitous and easy internet access, those that grew up with ubiquitous access to the internet and mobile phones and the world population at large!
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