1993

[greg]

I recently learned about the "Eternal September" of UseNet that happened in 1993. I didn't get access to UseNet until 1994, so it is just slightly before my time. I was still only using FidoNet and AnimeNet at the time.

Basically, every year in September, a new wave of college freshmen would gain access to UseNet and it would take about a month before they all learned proper netiquette and basically how to not be a doorknob online. 1993 was the year that AOL added UseNet access for their users, and there was an explosion of obnoxious people that started reading and posting on the newsgroups. Some say that this marked the first step in the eventual decline in UseNet readership.

Does anyone remember the so-called Eternal September? How did it affect rec.arts.anime and its related newsgroups?

[ServantOfPriss]

I was six, and had just gotten into anime thanks to my cousin. It's when I watched Bubblegum Crisis for the first time, and from there I was an addict to the whole "Japanimation" thing.

[Animusubi]

I had to think really hard where I was, and even as I type I don't really remember. My memories are very fuzzy about almost all my childhood. I can only remember snippets.

I was 9, 3rd and 4th grade. I remember hating my 3rd grade teacher (Ms. Law), but loving my 4th grade one (Mrs. Weaver). Around that time I was obsessed with drawing Sonic the Hedgehog on EVERYTHING. Books, desks, my homework (lol). I started collecting the Sonic the Hedgehog comics since they came out in 1992, I still drive by the Fred Meyer I got my very first issue every once in a while, when visiting the area. I wasn't hugely into anime yet, I was more into X-men and Saturday Morning Cartoons. Though late 1993 is when Power Rangers came out, and I know me and my siblings loved the crap outta Samurai Pizza Cats. I'm pretty sure around this time I was renting various things from our local library (Sea Prince and the Fire Child, Warriors of the Wind, Windaria, to name a few).

I don't know what year Vampire Hunter D and Robot Carnival aired on tv, but I feel like it was around this time, because I remember not being able to stay up late to watch them, and being pretty graphic for me.

[llj]

Funny thing is, I remember my early years by grades and age, rather than year. But according to my calculation, I was in my second year of high school.

And that was a pretty bad year for me. Although my grades were "okay", I hadn't really made any new friends even after the first two years of high school (all my elementary school friends had gone their separate ways), so I tended to spend much of my lunch hours wandering the halls and trying to kill time and/or hanging out at the libary. The following year would be much better for me socially.

Still, comics and anime did help me pass the time at home. I think this was the year I picked up my first issue of Animerica: the first inkling I had of a growing fanbase in North America. Prior to this, anime had been more of a word of mouth thing and I was not aware of a true "movement" yet. I didn't attend conventions--I'm not even sure I was aware of them at the time. My anime watching was limited to renting Cantonese-dubbed VHS tapes from Chinatown at this point in time. Highlights for me would be Future Boy Conan (or about 23 episodes of it), Dragon Ball Z of course, a few episodes of Zeta Gundam, and Macross 2.

My memories of my first internet experience is foggy. I remember that up to my last year in high school, my library only had 1 computer for internet access. And the only person who used it a lot was this one girl who was obviously writing e-mails to someone incessantly every single day. She was truly ahead of her time! I poked around a few times on that computer but all I really remember most was catching some computer virus on my floppy disk, and then having it affect my computer at home. Ahhh yes...90s computer viruses. I didn't really discover rec.arts.anime. until 1997.

Today, I really only remember 1993 as the last year my MLB team won the World Series, or even made the playoffs for that matter. It's been a loooooong time!

[ParaParaJMo]

Wow, happy anniversary.

Anyway, I have great memories of X-Men, Batman, and Power Rangers for the most part. I was also doing Tae Kwon Do. The Suns also made the finals but lost against The Bulls.

I also got a Genesis and was extensively playing the hell out of that.

In context to anime, it was just mostly watching G-Force/Battle of the Planets and Voltron reruns.