The Speech I Can't Stop Watching
About a month ago, I was tasked with finding a commencement speech for my Principles of Communication class. The other members of my class all found speeches by celebrities they liked or the top results of a Google search for "inspirational commencement speech." They were all competent speakers, and I'm sure my classmates were legitimately inspired by them. I wanted something different, though, so I searched differently. I searched for “inspirational commencement speech” and then scrolled down for a few minutes. What I found was different, but it was more than that. It was incredible.
The video, titled “The Valedictorian Speech that will change your life,” begins with the speaker, West Hall High School graduate Carl Aquino, adjusting the microphone on the podium. The audience then laughs at the creaking sound the microphone makes. Upon seeing this interaction, I immediately began questioning whether it was intentional. It probably wasn’t, but if he planned that subtle movement as part of his speech, wouldn’t that be incredible? It would so perfectly set up the nervousness inherent to a high school graduation speech, but it’s hard to tell if it was intended – and that ambiguity of intention, I think, only makes it a more effective beginning.
After going through the typical thanks that make up a speech’s introduction, Aquino introduces his guitarist friend and, moving into his discussion of freshman year, the Rubik’s cube. He begins solving the cube as he describes the beginning of high school, using cliché descriptions and awkward writing. It’s a gimmicky speech, but it’s admirable: the Rubik’s cube is an interesting analogy for the high school experience.
As I was slowly forming these opinions about the speech and how I would describe them to the rest of my class, they were quickly demolished by Aquino’s depiction of sophomore year, where he does one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in a speech: he pretends to talk, but actually doesn’t. When I first saw this, I thought I had accidentally muted the video or that my computer might have broken. When he broke up the silence with nonsense, I realized what he was doing. I knew then that this wasn’t just a generic speech by a nervous teenager. I had found a work of art. It was making me ask questions. I hadn’t asked a single question about any of my classmate’s speeches by celebrities and millionaires in their twenty-minute speeches, but this high school student was able to do it in just three.
His description of junior year is brief, smooth, and cool. In this description, he describes junior year as difficult, stressful, and requiring caution. As I listened, I realized this reflected my junior experience as well. It was my most difficult year of high school, but it really just flowed without any real problems. I don’t know how he’s able to make me feel that way in less than a minute; it really shows his skill as a speaker. Maybe it’s that, or maybe he just didn’t have much to say about junior year. I’m left wondering what he really wanted to do, and just as before, I’m only more impressed by that ambiguity.
His discussion of senior year is the opposite. It’s long and complicated, but he describes the year as simple and easy. It’s also during this portion of the speech that his skill as a performer is most apparent. The music is skillfully integrated into his comparison of applying to college to proposing to a partner, and his discussion of senior year flows well into his discussion of the future beyond high school. He finishes his Rubik’s cube, and then he pulls out the “college” Rubik’s cube: a 5x5. The guitarist sings a song, with occasional imperfections. These imperfections were almost definitely intentional, but with the context of the rest of the speech and the fact that he is a high schooler, I’m not entirely sure. Even at the end of the speech, it still makes me question what really was part of the speech and what was accidental.
I’ve watched this speech several times since I researched it for my class, and I’ve had new questions every time. Those questions have only made me appreciate the speech even further. Did he intentionally have his guitar player not play into the microphone during the freshman part of his speech, or was that an accident? Did he intentionally use a more impressive and interesting style of writing and delivery as the speech progressed, reflecting his growth throughout high school, or did it just happen to be that way? Did he mean to struggle a bit with the Rubik’s cube at the end to add humility to the speech, or was he actually having a problem solving it? How was he able to make me ask so many questions about what was intended and what wasn’t while also delivering such a satisfying and accurate portrayal of the high school experience? It feels almost like a parody of commencement speeches – a feeling the video title definitely contributes to – but also like an earnest, palpably human performance. It’s a multimedia commencement speech. It’s a postmodern commencement speech. It’s a twelve-year-old commencement speech by a nervous high school graduate, and it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. Either intentionally or unintentionally, this speech is beautiful in its imperfectness. Carl Aquino’s speech hasn’t “changed my life,” but I’m glad such a wonderful performance has been a part of it.