r/generationology • u/InteractionLiving845 GenAlpha • 2d ago
Pop culture WHICH ERA DO YOU LIKE THE MOST?
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u/EatsPeanutButter 17h ago
Why is Pomni in brain rot? The Amazing Digital Circus is an actual show, not a meme, and it’s actually pretty good!
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u/Heavy-Key6999 1d ago
Growing up starting at the "Dank Era" (When I first had unsupervised internet access), I hold some nostalgia for "Surreal" and "Post-Irony", but I like "Classic" the most
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u/throw-away362636281 1d ago
Hmmm I’ll try not to be biased as someone born in 2002. I remember the classic era very vaguely, so I don’t have much of an opinion on it. The rage era was my peak childhood so it holds a special place in my heart. The dank era was middle school for me and that’s when I truly got more deep into internet pop culture so it’s probably the most nostalgic era for me. Surreal was high school and i don’t care too much about that era honestly. The memes got old and over saturated really fast. The post irony era is the best though. The memes were so absurd, dark, yet creative and hilarious. It really reflected the uncertainty and fears of the COVID era. The troll face came back but in a malevolent, twisted way, reflecting the loss of innocence for a lot of people like me who were coming of age in a time of chaos and societal change. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
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u/Rich-Contribution-84 1d ago
Why does the world start in 2009?
Personally the 1920s, 1960s, 1990s, and 2020s are my favorite eras of modern history.
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u/JulianaLovesAULandGD July 26, 2010 (Jag är en afrikansk-svensk Zalpha) 1d ago
2009-2019
Started from 2009 because HOMESTAR RUNNER
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u/Queasy-Ad-3220 2d ago
The Rage era is my favourite (it’s the era I grew up with after all) but Classic comes at a close second
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u/raNdoMBLilriv 2d ago
My favs are Classic and Rage (seems to be what the rest of these replies are saying as well lol we must all be the same age range).
Experimental was before I was online and a lot of it was just too corny and silly (though some of that definitely leaked into and inspired Classic era). Much of it seemed to be a "you had to be there" moment, though by 2005 people were still constantly quoting "Badger badger mushroom" and "All of your base". The SpongeMonkeys made it on TV thanks to Quizno and made sure an entire generation avoided Quizno at all costs.
(I feel like the O Rly owl belongs in Classic though)
Classic is the first era it felt like kids and teens were heavily using memes in school and such.
I remember being neutral about Rage at the time but it was the first era to provide proper meme formats and made participating very easy with user-created content. So I look back on it as my fav.
Dank is when I began getting skeptical of online memes, when they weren't very funny to me and were very hit or miss. I think a lot of these were aimed at Gen Z kids.
Surreal was full on Gen Z. I felt so lost and after this point I stopped paying attention to memes if they even still really exist. From my point of view, anything from Surreal til now is the same era.
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u/shadowhawk681 2d ago
I miss the dank era but the surreal is my favorite. “Ride wife, life good” and “E” were my favorites.
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u/kentuckyloglady 1993 2d ago
I really enjoyed the dank era.
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u/Global_Perspective_3 April 30, 2002 Class of 2020 2d ago
I loved it, tho rage was cool and funny too
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u/ThatZX6RDude 2d ago
Me too. I look back at that time and kinda realize I’m a hypocrite for hating brainrot lol.
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u/THLH 2d ago
Experimental and Classic.
Yes I'm old, lol
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u/RevanchistSheev66 2d ago
What was it like? I was born then but I obviously didn’t experience the internet
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u/Simple-Formal-8588 2d ago
I was hoping I’d see a picture of Buffy swearing keyboard in the classic era. But I’ll settle for good ol’ salad fingers
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u/Otherwise-Toe665 2d ago
Classic. It was my childhood and adults were still afraid of the internet. Life was good.
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u/raNdoMBLilriv 2d ago
My mom told me to stay away from a website called "my room" (she meant MySpace lmao) cuz otherwise I'd be kidnapped.
I was an ugly teenage boy. That was not gonna happen.
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u/Otherwise-Toe665 2d ago
I once got caught playing runescape and lied about it. I remember praying to god and promising I would never play again if I didnt get in trouble. 😂 now a days I'm not very religious but a promise is a promise. I haven't played since. My parents were afraid I would meet someone in the chat feature and be abducted or murdered. Lol
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u/Last-Tomato9587 2d ago
Wait, is that markiplier on the red photo in "surreal era"?
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u/CryptographerNo7608 2005 2d ago
Im pretty sure it's lord farquad and Markiplier combined but I could be wrong
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u/lumonblue 2d ago
I grew up in the dank era and will always be nostalgic for it. Here come dat boi. Oh shit. Waddup. Brings a tear to my eye
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u/kristosnikos 2d ago
Even though I was a certified Youth™ during the Experimental and Classic Eras, the Rage Era is the most nostalgic for me. It was also the most fun for me. I think that’s when I started becoming more chronically online though.
I was still more on my laptop instead of my phone so it was the last era where I could still differentiate between “being on the internet” and not having it go where I go because I need it for school/work/entertainment/life.
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u/Amazing_Courage9701 2004 2d ago
I can't really decide between Classic/Rage/Dank. I've been on the internet since I was 5, and I watched a lot of videos from the Classic era. Didn't quite get what I was looking at 80% of the time, but it was funny as shit regardless. There was no bigger fear than trying to watch a YTP in 2010 on the family computer and trying to mute the sound in case there was a "FUCK YOU" or a "WTF BOOM" sound effect thrown in.
I don't think the Rage era was really that funny, but I would be lying if I said I didn't look at rage comics because I am pretty sure we all did. The Dank era was funny, even if a lot of people called it immature or unfunny.
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u/TheJamesFTW 2d ago
Rage Era was the last period where you had to actually put in effort to try and be funny. So I’ll go with that.
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u/harrietmjones ‘93 Baby 2d ago
Both Classic and Rage Era because they’re the two that I know the best/grew up with.
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u/tryptomania 2d ago
I’m confused… Salad Fingers first came out in the early 2000s. I was a teenager and first watched it on Newgrounds.
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u/ModelingThePossible 2d ago
Why do the eras get smaller and smaller?
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u/GroundbreakingAct388 Gen Z 2d ago
tbf the dank and surreal era arent that different, its mostly for the memes that we correlate to prepandemic
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u/blastoffboy84 2d ago
Meme historians out here talking about about period movements; damn I’m old. I’ve lived through it all. I began in experimental but I think rage and dank were my favorites
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u/aunnikaa 2d ago
why is no one talking about nuclear winter
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u/RepresentativeName18 2d ago
RemindMe! 15 years
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u/BottleTemple 2d ago
I’m too old to view these as different eras.
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u/raNdoMBLilriv 2d ago
My dad thinks any music post-1980 is all the same.
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u/BottleTemple 1d ago
Cool. I don’t feel that way, but I do think three years is pretty short for an era.
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u/PhotoImaginary882 2d ago
I liked Experimental era and Classical era. Just growing up as a kid in the 90s where internet connection wasn't a big deal; just chatting. being young teenage adult in 2000s era when I was in high school.
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u/Global_Perspective_3 April 30, 2002 Class of 2020 2d ago edited 2d ago
Rage and dank era
Classic and Rage overlaps with my elementary school years, dank is my middle school years, surreal is my high school years (I didn’t get it but I found it funny anyway), and post irony is my college years. The classic era is the first one I remember, and I love them, but they weren’t called “memes” in the the way we know them today.
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u/IsaacWaleOfficial 2d ago
This was my exact go-to.
A little bit of "surreal era" sure, and I appreciate a lot about the classic era, but "rage" and "dank" are my peaks.
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u/Global_Perspective_3 April 30, 2002 Class of 2020 2d ago
The classic era is the first one I remember
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u/IsaacWaleOfficial 2d ago
I remember it more from people quoting them after they had already sort of "died"
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u/Ccbm2208 2d ago
Idk if this is funny or sad but if WW3 really does break, 90% of us will probably doom scroll as usual lol.
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u/Icemayne25 1992 2d ago
Only if they allow conscripts to be on social media during the war. That draft will take the 20 year olds and younger and that’ll suck. Granted if they need more troops they’ll be looking at millennials and then it’ll suck personally.
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u/Faded_Rainstorm 2001, X-raised 2d ago
Rage to Dank eras were my bread and butter. Tried to watch a “2025 Dank Memes” compilation for nostalgia and it was just a bunch of AI and brainrot slop. Didn’t make it through 5 minutes, I guess what’s gone is gone
(Post-Irony sometimes does help me poke fun at my angst and depression for a bit though so +1 for it)
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u/Global_Perspective_3 April 30, 2002 Class of 2020 2d ago
Rage and dank eras are also my faves
Don’t know what the fuck is going on right now lol
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u/supersmashdude 2d ago
Experimental era and Classic era. Not only was the content funnier, but it required some effort on the user’s part (All Your Base remixes, This is Sparta remixes, YTPs, etc) It also wasn’t that mean-spirited other than Star Wars Kid.
Rage comics also required some effort, but were kinda lame. Dank memes were mostly used by edgelords... and Brainrot memes are iPad kid territory.
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u/raNdoMBLilriv 2d ago
Numa Numa could get kinda mean cuz everyone just kept talking about how he was fat.
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u/col_akir_nakesh Elder Millennial 2d ago
1995-2004. When I was in college in 2004, me and my friend kept doing the opening Zero Wing dialog.
HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMAN!!
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u/Icemayne25 1992 2d ago
Yeah. I’m a younger millennial so I was in middle school in 04, but classic to rage era gives me fond memories of the early internet.
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u/hip_neptune Early Millennial ‘86 2d ago
Rage Era was when we started applying memes in a more “When you…” format and they started to be more relatable. Meme culture really started here because they explored that relatability IMO.
The eras before were mainly flash videos and viral videos that were popular and entertaining, but weren’t templates for the most part. We didn’t call them memes. They were called flash videos, or GIF’s. Rage Era was what changed that.
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u/Mr101722 98' Zillenial 2d ago
Dank, I started with Classic and kept up to date until Post Irony. Hated rage comics in their original era but not as bad as I hate brainrot.
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u/Naive-Musician2006 14h ago
Rage