The almighty meme has been through many different iterations on the internet. There's no textbook on memes yet (at least to my humble knowledge), so, it's not like we're going by some peer-reviewed research. But there are certain periods according to which netizens categorize memes.
This image is probably the best visual representation of all the different meme eras. While it's unclear who's the author, they divide the internet meme culture into seven periods. The first one is the experimental era from 1995 to 2004. Taking you back right to the Windows 95 interface, it features the Star Wars kid, the Dancing Banana, and "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" memes.
Granted, back then, we didn't really think of those funnies as memes. But today, they probably qualify as such because of their virality. Take the "Dancing Baby", for example. Some netizens call it the very first viral video in the history of the internet, as the peak of its popularity was in 1996.
Some folks today are too young to know many of the memes that made the "Experimental Era" great. Like the "Badger, badger, badger" animation: at first glance, it's just a bunch of 2D badgers doing calisthenics. Yet it has survived for more than 20 years and is still up on the internet. Back in its day, it also made it to PC World's top 5 internet fads.
YouTube ushered in the next era of internet memes. Spanning from 2004 to 2009, the "Classical Era" of memes featured the first viral videos, such as "Chocolate Rain", "Evolution of Dancing", and the iconic Rick Roll. Some netizens claim that this was the golden era of memes. After all, it's when the iconic "Over 9000", He-Man, and "This Is Sparta" memes were born.
Next, we have the rage era, where comic memes became massively popular. This is where the legendary troll face was born, and many other "faces" masterfully drawn in MS Paint. Other notable characters are Rageguy, Cereal Guy, Okay Guy, Forever Alone Guy, and "Y U NO" Guy. It wasn't all guys in this era, though, as Nyan Cat, "Ancient Aliens" and the Bad Luck Brian also hit the internet.
The next era of memes was dominated by Pepe the Frog, Doge, Harambe, Shrek, and Robbie Rotten. It's the era of dank memes. Rising to prominence in underground communities like 4chan, dank memes were offensive, sarcastic, and edgy, with "dank" meaning a satirized "cool". Dank memes were intentionally bizarre and funny to the point of being trite or cliché.
Then memes became almost a commentary on themselves. In 2017, the surreal era started, with memes featuring Markiplier, Meme Man, "stonks", and the Ugandan Knuckles. This might just be the point when internet culture reached a point of no return into the realm of weirdness. Nothing really made sense anymore, but one common denominator of the surreal genre was its minimalism.
