In light of commencement addresses on campus, Bill Maher decided to give his own on Friday, from the future in 2041.
Maher categorized the addresses this year as “when America’s overrated gasbags and wisdom free celebrities are invited by star f*cking universities to come to their school to tell a bunch of spoiled, stoned, debt-laden brats things like ‘your only limit is your own imagination and the world will be a better place for having you in it.'”
Maher laughed off those addresses, and asked “why not level with the kids for once?” telling them they’re “not the future,” they’re destined to work at Chipotle, their parents sent them to college to drink, and they have a gloomy plight of student loan debts.
Students can take solace in how much worse it will be in 25 years, 2041, providing a segue for Maher’s address from the future, at the University of California-Goldman Sachs. He spoke of a sunken Miami, Jesus returning but changing his mind, former presidents Kardashian, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, and Chief Justice Matthew McConaughey. But, the world had also worsened in other ways, with “the leading cause of death is going outside. Driverless cars still won’t pick up black people. And 90 percent of America’s wealth is owned by Katy Perry.”
Maher did close by reminding the crowd “we are resilient,” and quoted Chief Justice McConaughey’s line of “all right, all right, all right.”
In the Overtime portion, Maher spoke with former MSNBC host and Wake Forest Professor Melissa Harris-Perry, who denied “there is a culture of political correctness on college campuses that is stifling debate and learning,” when asked. She also denied she had the experience of comedians refusing to speak on campus, which Maher also mentioned.
Instead, Harris Perry provided a non-answer about how she assigned students to work on campaigns with Republican students working for Democrats and vice versa. She pitied her students, pointing out “they are struggling with it. And we don’t have good language to talk to each other across differences. And I don’t know if we’re doing a good job in this country giving our young people good tools for having good conversations. But I think that’s our fault, not theirs.”
Maher laughed off her response. “As always, nothing’s their fault,” he mentioned before moving on to another topic.
