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I once told you about Shibuya Epiphany 2.0 – when old time webheads get exposed to mobility for the first time and start coming up with these fantastic ideas unaware of the fact that old time mobilists have been discussing or actually implementing these sort of things for the past 5 years. No problem there, as I said. It’s part of the cycle, great minds are joining the mobile fray, some good stuff will come out of it.

But now, after the release of the JesusPhone, we are seeing a different phenomenon, where, well, the regular folk or wide-eyed virgins climb on the mobile train, with consequences varying from the hilarious to the catastrophic.

An there is no epiphany there, friends. We’re talking about Eternal September 2.0. What the hell is that, you may ask? Wikipedia has the scoop:

Usenet originated among universities. Every year, in September, a large number of new university students got access to Usenet, and took some time to acclimate themselves to the network’s standards of conduct and netiquette. After a month or so, the new users would (it is supposed) learn to comport themselves as normal Usenet users. September, thus, represented the network’s largest regular influx of newbies.

In 1993, the online service America Online began offering Usenet access to its tens of thousands, later millions, of users. To many old-timers, these ‘AOLers’ were far less prepared to learn netiquette than university freshmen. (…) Since that time, the dramatic rise in the popularity of the Internet has led to a constant stream of new users — in some people’s view, drowning out the old Usenet entirely. Thus, from the point of view of the pre-1993 Usenet user, the regular “September” newbie influx never ended.

The iPhone toting crowd are the new AOLers. Totally clueless of what the hell is this mobility thing they harm themselves unwillingly:

Fun, Tours and a $3,000 Bill for Hardly Using an iPhone
(…)As it turned out, the cellphone carried by Mr. Dingman, a mortgage consultant in Minneapolis, made calls on a European data network several times each hour to check for e-mail messages. Because he didn’t deactivate the feature that automatically checks for new e-mail messages, during Mr. Dingman’s trip through Italy, Croatia and Malta, the phone went to retrieve e-mail more than 500 times.

That’s how a n00b learns about international data roaming. I know, Johnny, this must be new for you. Yes, I know it hurts. But it hurts less than it hurts on me when I hear an “Nouveau AOLer” trying to create a category out of thin air:

Daring Fireball
Nice move on Apple’s part, but it leads to a question: What do we call iPhone-optimized sites now?

Or hear how weird it sounds when someone ponticates and glorifies what cannot be sustained in the long run – the iPhone cross-platform consistency, very easy to manage with a single device portifolio:

Signal vs. Noise
(…) We know the exact screen size/resolution, we know the exact typeface, we know how the face renders on the screen, we know the colors, we know the browser, etc. (…) Then Ryan nailed it: Designing for the iPhone is like a hybrid of print and web design.

I bet there are a million other examples, but these are just three from the top of my head. Well, what can I say? Welcome n00bs, and jump right in. The water is fine. And yes, with Apple’s help slashing prices, I don’t think September will end anytime soon.

Update: Another interesting example just came my way. Read about it here.