looking at wikipedia it seems that there's even been research about the concept:

Binghamton University did a study on undergraduates from a midsize university in the northeastern United States. There were 562 participants with 305 identified as female and 257 as male. Of the 562 participants, 427 were exclusively heterosexual while 113 were not exclusively heterosexual. The participants were asked "Have you ever friend-zoned someone else?" and "Have you ever been friend-zoned?" The study found that 65.7% of exclusively heterosexual males have friend-zoned someone while 92.6% of exclusively heterosexual females have friend-zoned someone. The study also found that 75.2% of exclusively heterosexual males have been friend-zoned before while only 41.2% of exclusively heterosexual females have been friend-zoned before

unless the participants got severely misled about what the term means, I think this shows the idea is not going away any time soon

(also I just noticed, this was posted to an "antique memes" community)