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hello everyone
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my name is Matthew deSilva and I'm a marshall for the class of two thousand
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twelve
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And my name is francisco Miscliki and i'm the representative from Winthrop House.
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With a diverse range of comedic talents
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our guest speaker has established himself as a captivating and hilarious
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entertainer
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do his work and filled and television
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most notably as a cast member in Saturday Night Live
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for the past seven years
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several films featuring our guest speaker have titles representing the perhaps idols representing some of the
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emotions we feel
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as our time at harvard comes to a close
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parents, for example, will be proudly repeating the name of his upcoming film
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"That's My Boy" as they watch us receive our diplomas
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No phrase captures the nostalgia and bromance we have developed for friends
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and block mates
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like his two thousand nine film "I Love You, Man".
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and some of you in the recent weeks have articulated the name of his two thousand
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and eleven film "What's Your Number"
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either out of genuine need more romantic desperation
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you know, come to think of it
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our guest speaker's Emmy- award-winning SNL digital shorts kind of parallels the class of two
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thousand twelve's senior week events very closely
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Well, we had the moonlight cruise... Our guest speaker had
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"I'm on a Boat".
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than we had "Last Chance Dance"... he had
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"I Just Had Sex"
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and finally we had Senior Soirée...
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"I Just Had Sex".
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clearly, our guest speaker understands what it's like to be a Harvard student.
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So without further ado,
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our two thousand twelve Class Day guest speaker
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Andy Samberg!
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Wait.... sorry, sorry, sorry
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Stop the music, sorry
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What happened there?
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That song is just so emotional... I just met that guy!
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alright...
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I have to compose myself- the show must go on here...uh...
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*clears throat*
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students
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faculty
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parents
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grandparents
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Uncles that weren't invited but showed up anyway
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handsome young janitors who are secretly math geniuses
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and the homeless guy from with honors
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my name is Andy Samberg and i was honored to be here today as I am
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unqualified.
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There's a storied history of incredible Class Day speakers here:
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Nobel Prize laureate Mother Teresa
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Former US president Bill Clinton
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and now me
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The fake rap wiener songs guy.
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I'm also just
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over the moon to be receiving an honorary degree here today... I mean,
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never
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in my wildest
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dreams, did I... what's that? ...No degree?
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So what... I'm just like,
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a professor, or...
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Oh- nothing.
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Then why am I here?
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Dean Hammonds,
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You've lied to me!
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Alright, then, uh, this crappy speech then...
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I flew my folks in...
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Here we go.
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Class of Two Thousand and Twelve
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You are graduating from college
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that means this is the first day of the last day of your life... no, that's wrong.
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this
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is the last day of the first day
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of school... nope, that's worse.
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Uh....
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This is a day.
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You know, I
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too turned to Webster's Dictionary and uh,
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it defined Harvard as
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this season for gathering crops
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And admittedly that's actually the definition of "harvest"
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but it was the closest word I could find to Harvard that wasn't a proper noun.
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And in the end isn't that what Harvard is really about, though:
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planting the seeds of knowledge that eventually produce
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crops-A.K.A, money.
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in order to this satisfy the farmers... your parents
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who pay, like,
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forty five thousand crops a year
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to send you harvest
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Just so you could major in women's agriculture
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You see what i'm doing.
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Before I move on, uh, the world outside of harvard has asked me to make a quick
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announcement
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the following majors are apparently useless after tomorrow
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history,
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literature,
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all things related to art,
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social studies, east asian studies,
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pretty much anything that ends with "studies".
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uh... romance languages and uh...
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finally
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folklore and mythology? *laughs*
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Come on, guys.
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Just study something useful and play World of Warcraft in your free time, okay?
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Anyhow, all those majors now useless
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unless you can somehow turn them into an iPhone app.
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uh... math and science majors, you guys are poor.
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Finally,
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But 2012 is a great time to be graduating from college
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Sure, the job market's a little slow
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Sure, our health care and social security systems are going to evaporate in
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five years
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Sure, you'll have to work till you're 80 to support your 110 year old
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parents who will live forever because of nanotechnology
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Sure, the concept of love will soon disappear, leaving us all lonly robots
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ready to kill our best friend for a lukewarm cup of microchip soup,
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but that doesn't matter, because tomorrow, you graduate from harvest...Harvard... from
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Harvard
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is where you will graduate
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Now, I'm sure a lot of you are looking up here and thinking,
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what makes this guy so special
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you know, was he accomplished
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He didn't even go to Harvard!
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Well to you, I say this:
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I didn't even apply to Harvard,
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because I knew I wouldn't get in!
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Boom, suck on that! I didn't accept you,
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esteemed college, I'd break up first.
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I move on and you see me with my hot new girlfriend and she's riding shotgun in my
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convertible Sebring.
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That's right, it's the one Harvard was begging me to rent when we went up the coast, and I'm just laughing
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and looking really fit, like,
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"Has he been hitting the gym?" Nope.
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I've just been eating right and making positive choices.
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Man, I really wanted that honorary degree!
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Well, I guess the old saying is true
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"Never trust Dean Hammonds!"
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Regardless,
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Harvard remains iconic in our culture
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one thing that sticks out of my mind is the central role this campus played in
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one of the most important films ever made about
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social connections and how we communicate
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i'm referring of course to 1986 whimsical blackface romp, "Soul Man".
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starring C. Thomas Howell as a white student posing as an African-American in
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order to exploit affirmative action.
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He was at Harvard Law that movie,
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and that movie exists.
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Now, most of you don't know this yet,
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but Harvard is one of the few schools you can attend that can also eventually
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become your workplace nickname.
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"Whose edamame is this in the break room?" "Probably Harvard's".
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"Whose Vespa's in my parking spot?" uh, "I'm going with Harvard's!"
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In fact, once you graduate, you can never wear your Harvard sweatshirt in public
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again without looking like a world-class a-hole.
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I honestly think the Coop should sell University of Michigan T-shirts that
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you can wear
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just to blend in once you're out of here.
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And to clarify, when I say "The Coop", I mean your campus bookstore,
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and not famous film actor Bradley Cooper
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whom i also referred to as the Coop,
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And who also sells books and sweatshirts in his free time.
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Speaking of fame, Harvard has many famous alumni
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Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates
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just a few ex-students that started successful businesses after dropping out
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which means it here in this crowd today and graduating
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you're destined to be a massive failure.
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Sorry, those are just the facts.
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Also a fact,
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Class Day is a terrible name for a day when you don't have to go to class,
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like, ever again.
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It's pretty much like calling New Year's Eve sobriety night.
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"Hey, you going out for Sobriety Night?" "Yeah, it's gonna suck."
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And now on a more literary note,
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I'd like to read a poem
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by the great W. B. Yeats
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which is actually pronounced, "Yeets".
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A lot of people don't know that.
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thanks for the heads up, Barney Frank.
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anyways
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This is a truly beautiful and poignant passage
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from the 1929 collection, "The Winding Stair and Other Poems".
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and I think it's especially applicable to today's ceremonies. It goes like this:
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*sings* "This is how we do it!"
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*audience laughs*
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*sings* "This is how we do it!"
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"It's Friday night and I feel all right"
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"Hit the shore, 'cause I'm faded"
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"Honeys in the streets say, yo, Mama, yeah, we made it!"
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There's more, but you get it... classic Yeats.
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An important poet.
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*Clears throat*. Well, now, I am truly excited to be here today to be honest.
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At 33 years of age I haven't endured or lived that much more than you
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guys so
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in order to give you a broader scope of what's to come,
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I reached out and asked for some words of wisdom from some people that I thought
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were relevant to your experience here
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uh... the aforementioned Mark Zuckerberg
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who as a Harvard student was kind enough to send me some remarks
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that i will relate to you now
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Uh, hey, guys. It's me, Mark.
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Or, as my friend Kofi Annan calls me, Zuckleberry Finn *affected laughter*
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He thought of that.
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I just wanted to give a big congrats to you all, but really, more of a
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congrats to me.
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You know, since I left, things have gone so good, you guys. solely because
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like, a six-year-olds fantasy of the future good.
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uh... in fact, I recently completed the Harvard trifecta.
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Start your own company, have a movie made about you, and marry an Asian doctor.
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Trifecta!
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So everyone out there, be sure to upgrade to Timeline, and lay off the Pinocchio's Pizza. *affected laughter*
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I went to Harvard!
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That's what he had to say.
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Uh... I also,
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as for the local experience asked
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massachusetts native Mark Wahlberg to send over some thoughts for you guys
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and uh... here is what he had to say.
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uh...
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*breathy voice* "Hey Harvard, how's it goin'"?
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So you guys are graduating, huh? I think that's great!
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Hey, we should do a film together, what do you think?
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You guys are super smart, right?
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Okay, just think about it.
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Say hi to your mother for me, alright?
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He asked me to say that to you guys.
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And then finally
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I asked blockbuster superstar Nick Cage for some remarks
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i realized he didn't go to Harvard and he's not from Boston
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But he has a special connection in this case that I'll let him explain.
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Here's what he wrote.
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uh...
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Good afternoon.
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As I write to you I am currently digging a tunnel
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into the bowels of the Widener Library
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When I finally breach it's mighty walls
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I will steal the legendary Gutenberg Bible
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And return it to its rightful owner.
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Steve Gutenberg.
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you know, I've seen some weird stuff in my day
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In Istanbul, I saw a small child swallow a pelican whole.
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In the Sahara Desert I saw a herd of oxen
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fly into a portal and disappear from our world forever.
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But no matter what I've seen there's one thing I've held to be true.
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Love is the most powerful force this universe has to offer.
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And we should show kindness to all around us.
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With the exception of Dean Hammonds, who is a filthy liar!
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And that my friends
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is the true meaning of Hanukkah.
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I'd love to keep writing,
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But now the time has come for me to ride on to my next adventure.
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What's that, you ask?
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Simple.
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I'm going to have sex with the statue of John Harvard.
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and those
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are my three impressions!