The Before Time

"The Before Time" is a reference to the 1966 Star Trek episode "Miri" in which the Enterprise encounters a planet inhabited only by children, due to a pandemic infecting and eventually killing all the adults. The children refer to "the before time" as the time when adults were present.

This episode was parodied in the South Park Episode "Wacky Molestation Adventure" in which the children claim to be molested and are subsequently removed from their adult guardians.

In 2020, the phrase has come to mean the time before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, when people could freely associate and go to bars and parties.

'The Before Time' is now used to reference the era proceeding the virus apocalypse of 2020.

While commonly believed to originate from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, this is a classic Mandela Effect misperception of history. No video exists of any character in the film ever using that phrase.

Rather, South Park Season 4, episode 16 parodies Beyond Thunderdome, and is the true origin of the saying.

Phrase from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, used by the children born after societal collapse in referring to the time before.

Also occurs in South Park's "Wacky Molestation Adventure," as a cultural reference to Mad Max, as the kids cause society to collapse in the episode after claiming that every adult in town molested them.

A phrase referring to the age of mankind before the advent of the internet and/or before advanced data mining, search engines and online resources (especially Google, Wikipedia, etc.) made information widely available and convenient; i.e. when people had to do research manually via libraries, card-catalogs, paper books and reference materials such a Encylcopaedia.

Also jokingly referred to as "the before time, the long long ago" referencing the cultural memes of Star Wars and the 64th episode of South Park.

Everything before about Feb 2020 when covid became a worldwide phenomenon

Before COVID-19.

The time preceding a major shitty phase in ones life. You don’t think much of it in the moment, but once you’re past it and you’ve entered the bad phase of life, the before times come back to haunt you, angry that you weren’t grateful for them. You get this intense feeling of despair, you’d do ANYTHING to go back to the before times. But that’s the thing, once they’re gone, you can only move forward.