Here is my account info below. It's not lifetime status. I am only 29 and I have not stayed at a Marriott, SPG, etc in several years up until this year. My travel was very limited until recently outside of staying with friends or family.
I had about 200K points before I made any stays this year and without ever redeeming points within the last 6 years since I first signed up for the RC card (which was when I first opened any type of Marriott / SPG / Ritz rewards account). 70K of those points were a "new card bonus" and the rest were earned from spend over the last 6 years. I looked back at my CC statements and I never exceeded $75K in spend in any given year on that card either to even get Platinum - in fact, the only years I crossed the $10K spending mark for Gold Elite was in 2014, 2017, 2018 and YTD. I merged the RC Rewards into Marriott last year or so.
Below it says I have 45 lifetime status nights. It looks like 25 are from this year, which means 20 are from previous years - for which I had zero stays.
"25 nights needed to renew Platinum Elite"
Lifetime Status:
Nights: 45
Nights Stayed: 10 (YTD)
Paid: 8
Redeemed: 2
Bonus Nights: 15 (YTD)
Marriott Bonvoy Credit Card: 15