We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13090029 and marked it off-topic.

That's been a reasonably common phrase in the U.K. for a few hundred years, so it already is a thing.

Eh? Just a turn of phrase..?

The line "Stop trying to make 'streets ahead' a thing" is a joke from the TV show Community.

Which is a derivative of "Stop trying to make 'fetch' a thing" from Mean Girls.

It is from the TV show, Community.