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Tracking 4chan's overall history is rather difficult considering early there wasn't much active documentation, and experience varies between boards, but in general it goes roughly something like this:
>The Golden Age (2004 - August 2006)
(the mythical "good old days" of 4chan, Cracky Chan,Tom Green Raids, Habbo Hotel, and the melding of YTMND, SA, and Jap 2chan memes, ending with /b/ Day)
>The Dark Age (August 2006 - September 2009)
(newfags everywhere, /b/tard shitposting almost everywhere, poor moderation, death of /b/, ending with Chanology)
>The Silver Age (September 2009 - Late 2011)
(notable events like 4chan.json and Operation Payback, whilst /b/ regained some quality for a short while)
>The Reactionary Age (Late 2011 - August 2014)
(marked by a great shift in 4chan culture with blueboards becoming of greater focus than /b/ and a newer culture of elitism being formed in reaction to the mainstream nature of the internet and its memes, also tightened moderation)
>The Chanpocalypse Era (August 2014 - Early 2015)
(Gamergate and celeb nudes, legal suits, a great migration to 8ch, and /pol/ getting nuked, a bunch of chaos ending with moot stepping down as admin, selling to Hiro)
>The Extrovert Era (Early 2015 - Mid 2017)
(/pol/ and reddit essentially ruins the entire site by drawing in more newfags than ever seen before, all due to the 2016 election and the surge in funni greentext stories and 4chan memes; huge wave of newfriends all around, ending with the HWNDU fiasco)
>[Unknown] Era (Mid 2017 - Present)
(not much defines this era yet except /pol/ now mostly staying in /pol/ and most boards having calmed down a bit)
Keep in mind, I based a lot of this on how Bibliotheca Anonoma splits up 4chan's eras. The reality here is there is no use in trying to capture exactly how 4chan once was at any given time and bringing it back somehow. Nostalgiafags are the absolute worse. What makes the site great is anonymity and content Darwinism, and that's all that matters.
