MINIPROMPT! Lessons from Your {Graduation Speaker}

Graduation is a special time. So special, in fact, that every high school and college tries to roll out the big thinkers,  mind-benders, and revolutionaries to give some big, rousing speech to a sea of disaffected youth in weird gowns. But through their tryhard prose, high concept missives, and elaborate metaphors, the messages often get muddled.

So, what do we even get from these breathing inspirational posters? What do we even remember? We asked our staff to tell us their takeaways from graduation speeches long forgotten.

Josh Bard’s speakers – George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, President & First Lady

I was tired, hungover, sad, sweaty, and not in the mood, but when you get to hear from a former President and First Lady, you GET IN THE MOOD. So what did they say? I… don’t… exactly… remember. But I do remember was that they were funny as hell, playing off each other like a married version Abbot and Costello (I am pretty sure Abbot and Costello were not married). And that was my takeaway, that this old, married couple was hilarious and awesome, and how uplifting that revelation was.

Erin Vail’s speaker – Katrina Szish, underwhelming Fox Business Network contributor

My high school graduation speech was given not by Wyomissing’s most famous alumna—Taylor Swift—or even its second or third most famous alumni—Jon Gosselin or Ross Tucker. No, the speech was given by Katrina Szish. If memory serves me correctly, Katrina’s speech was pretty much one long name drop and story about her life as a jet-setter/model/on-air contributor. It had nothing to do with her time spent in the hallowed halls of Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School, and truly no parting wisdom for the crowd of 135 graduates. This was stunning, and the exact opposite of what we all believed a graduation speech was supposed to be. It was one last bittersweet bonding moment for the class of 2011.

Tom Viehe’s speaker – Michael Douglas, Actor

I just lied. Michael Douglas didn’t speak at my graduation. He sat smugly next to the speaker—some guy who started the Scottish version of 7-Eleven—nodding when the speaker joked that everyone was really there to see some actor and was wildly disappointed. He suffered through the speech like the rest of us, getting an honorary degree for being himself. A year after Prince William graduated, they needed to get people excited about something at the ceremony. Friends bragged later that they’d smoked a fag with their new best friend, Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was funny. I never met her, but if she reads this, she should send me a joke and prove it.

Ryan Fay’s speaker – Some Dude

The best graduation speech (sounds like an oxymoron) I ever heard actually happened at an afterparty. Realizing how much debt I had accumulated in order to still be working at a part-time, minimum wage soul-crusher, I was a few drinks in before the speech happened, but it went something like…

“Centuries of people have graduated before you. Even more will graduate after you. Having your name on a piece of paper does not make you special. You have spent the last few years gathering knowledge, skills, and gifts—it is how you use them that will give you the opportunity to become something special.”

Jillian Conochan’s speaker – Some Overachieving Creative Dipshit

I once attended a graduation that I had exclusive insider knowledge of. This Student Council leader, known for her spirited, SAT-word-peppered soliloquies, was invited to speak as four-year president of the class. Expectations were high, and she thought a visual aid would help her deliver something memorable. I know, she thought, I’ll release a butterfly at the crescendo! She begged her mother to drive around in her station wagon to help capture this inspirational insect with kaleidoscope wings, which proved to be far more daunting than expected, with just one hour before the ceremony was set to begin. The speaker had to settle for a buttermilk colored moth, snagged in the airspace above a field of long grasses.

At its big moment, the moth clung to the walls of the jewelry box in which it was imprisoned. Stockholm Syndrome strikes again, the speaker thought, as she shook the box and the moth fell limply to the ground. It was alive, just mortified. Nobody but the speaker, her mother, and her sister were any the wiser.

15 years later, the speaker went on to found the magazine from which you are reading this very anecdote. She never lost her penchant for pep talks… she just uses gifs now.