After 16 years helming The Daily Show, its host Jon Stewart announced his intention to step down in February. The writing had been on the wall for months, as Stewart had already taken the summer of 2013 off to direct a movie, yet the news still shocked me: The man was a pop culture institution. He’d been on air for more than half my life.

Thanks to my family’s early adoption of TiVo, I began watching Jon Stewart by the fourth grade. Stewart’s satire profoundly shaped my opinions on politics, the media, even humor. (My very liberal parents definitely owe Stewart; he saved them the trouble of teaching me how to be a good liberal.) And I’m far from alone in feeling Stewart’s influence. Twelve percent of Americans say they got their news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, according to the Pew Research Center.

That’s because, as Stewart said in his last-ever broadcast, the true target of the show wasn’t the war in Iraq, Fox News or even conservatives: It was bullshit.

“Your premeditated, institutional bullshit, designed to obscure and distract,” Stewart told viewers in one last epic rant. “Designed by whom? The bullshitocracy.”

Stewart called out bullshit nightly, from his (in)famous hypocrisy videos – footage of politicians promising one thing superimposed with them saying or doing the exact opposite – to his show-long satire of Glenn Beck’s showmanship. And he wasn’t afraid to do it on other people’s shows either. After Stewart called CNN’s Crossfire “partisan hackery” that was “hurting America” in his 2004 appearance on that show, CNN’s president cancelled Crossfire partly because he agreed with Stewart’s critique.

But perhaps Stewart’s best callouts of the bullshitocracy weren’t funny or barbed at all. After national tragedies, Stewart often broke the show’s comedy format to speak directly to his audience. While his post-9/11 address evokes tears, Stewart’s more recent monologues were not just heartbreaking but appropriately rage-inducing. After this summer’s shooting in Charleston, he told the audience there would be “no jokes” that evening.

“Nine people were shot in a black church by a white guy who hated them, who wanted to start some kind of civil war,” he said. “The Confederate flag flies over South Carolina and the roads are named for Confederate generals. And the white guy’s the one who feels like his country’s being taken away from him.”

Stewart officially left his desk in September, and he’s apparently signed up to create content for HBO. Yet his legacy lives on in his various successors, from Samantha Bee (ready to become the first woman in late night) to John Oliver (who revamped Stewart’s template into This Week Tonight) to Larry Wilmore (host of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore) to Stephen Colbert (now graduated from The Colbert Report to the big leagues of The Late Show) to, of course, Trevor Noah (the new Daily Show host). But Stewart’s unique voice – including those terrible impressions – will still be missed.

“The best defense against bullshit is vigilance,” Stewart advised his viewers on his final broadcast. “So if you smell something, say something.”

We’ll try, Jon.