The thing about bitcoin is that it has not yet reached its true potential and is far from mass adoption phase. This means all of us can still be categorized as early adopters even if some of us were "earlier". This is exactly what I told people back in 2017 who were worried that for example $5000 is too expensive and all those who came before were "early". Today the coins those people bought is worth 20 times more (almost $100000).

What rise of memecoins?
From early days when the altcoin market formed, there have been many useless coins created and sold to newbies. The market is not bigger but the principle is the same. They create garbage and sell it to anyone who buys it.
In fact I think people trust memecoins less than before, which is clear from the smaller pumps they get compared to for example 2017.