"Come On, It's 2015" / Current Year

About

"Come On, It's 2015", sometimes iterated as >[Current Year] or "It's 2015," is a catchphrase expression often said by users on 4chan's /pol/ (politically incorrect) board to mock English comedian and pundit John Oliver's frequent resort to reminding his viewers of the present year as a straw man argument against ideas and beliefs which he deems to be old-fashioned or conservative.

Origin

Mentioning the present year has long been used by liberals as a rhetorical device to promote progressive agendas and dismiss conservative beliefs, particularly in the context of issue-specific political debates, with the earliest known online satire of the phrase attributed to an Onion article published in February 2014 with the headline "Report: Stating Current Year Still Leading Argument For Social Reform" (shown below, left). However, the phrase "I mean, come on people, it's [current year]" became a popular fodder for mockeries in late 2015 after it was recognized by users of 4chan as a signature line associated with John Oliver on his late-night TV talk show Last Week Tonight; the oldest 4chan parody of the expression as used by John Oliver can be found in a /tv/ (television & film) thread submitted on September 3rd, 2015 (shown below, right).

Spread

On September 29th, 2015, Bodybuilding Forums user PissBeerBreh highlighted the satirical use of the phrase on 4chan in a discussion thread titled "Come on!!!! It's 2015!!!!!!!!!!!™." In the thread, the original poster (OP) openly criticizes John Oliver's resort to the expression as a logical fallacy:

The argument is literally this: "We are living in a year."

So because we're living in 2015, you need to check your privilege and agree with them or you're a racist bigot homophobic cisshet Islamophobic conservative trans hating KKK member of Westboro Baptist Church.

In the following months, numerous discussion threads addressing the popularity of the expression emerged on other 4chan boards, including /pol/ (politically incorrect), /a/ (anime & manga) and /v/ (video games), where many users similarly began poking fun at the cliched nature of the phrase and dubbed John Oliver the "Le 2015 Man."

By the end of 2015 the expressions started to gain even more popularity, with /pol/ users joking about how John Oliver would get increasingly stressed that 2015 would end. Many threads were created mocking the British Comedian on 4chan boards. Many of these threads eventually were shared on the 4chan subreddit. On New Years Day 2016, user /u/aleon33 shared "Some of you liberals are alright…"^[13] on /r/4chan, the post quickly reached the frontpage and as of January 5th 2016 has accumulated about 4894 upvotes and 559 comments.

Examples

Usage in Politics

The phrase has been also frequently employed by a multitude of liberal politicians, most notably Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau, as well as many activists in the social justice blogosphere in defense of a wide range of politically progressive agendas.

It's 2017!

On February 6th, 2017, an anonymous 4chan user suggested that /pol/ users troll liberals by turning the "current year" meme against them (shown below).^[14]

Some users began subsequently using "it's 2017" ironically in defense of bigotry. captioning pictures of neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan with the expression (shown below).

Search Interest

External References