Inside the worst Ohio State commencement speech ever
"Social entrepreneur" Chris Pan admitted to writing his speech while high on psychedelic drugs, and somehow he delivered even worse results than you might imagine.
This dispatch, from special correspondent Max Littman, is too long for email. Please open your browser to view in full.
Neil Armstrong, Barack Obama, John Glenn, Spiro Agnew, Sherrod Brown, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Woody Hayes are some of the historical figures that have delivered Ohio State’s commencement speech over the years.
Chris Pan, an alumnus whom Ohio State describes as a “social entrepreneur, musician, and inspirational speaker,” joined that storied list on Sunday in what many attendees described as “the worst commencement speech ever.”
And that, sadly, had nothing to do with the tragic death of the yet-to-be-named person who fell from the Bell Tower End of Ohio Stadium shortly before the graduating ceremony began.
Like most normal people, I had never heard of Pan before our shared alma mater bestowed the enormous honor upon him. But thankfully, several Ohio State sources, who were granted anonymity for fear of retribution from their employer, spoke to The Rooster about Pan and the decision process.
To be the Ohio State commencement speaker, there’s an open nomination process followed by a panel of students and staff who finalize the process and select the speaker. The guidelines include being a good public speaker and name recognition—two things that Pan lacked.
The Rooster asked numerous members of Ohio State’s Commencement Speaker Selection Committee for comment on the collective thought process, and none replied before the publishing of this article. Should that change, we’ll update the article accordingly.
It’s additionally unknown—at least until our public records requests are returned in one to two months—if Pan’s selection involved him promising a donation to the university.
Regardless, the committee selected Pan, perhaps because of an invocation he gave to the Ohio State Honors & Scholars Department in 2018. Ohio State notified Pan by email of its selection.
Sources told The Rooster that Pan did not reply to the university’s initial email because he thought it was a prank. Despite describing himself as an inspirational speaker, Pan had never given such a large-scale speech.
Ohio State had to reach Pan by phone to confirm that yes, it wanted him to speak at the university’s largest annual graduation ceremony.
Pan crafted his speech by constantly updating his Instagram Stories with screenshots of Google Documents containing his latest iterations.
Pan was also, by his own admission, high on the South American psychedelic brew known as “ayahuasca,” which was recently popularized by Aaron Rodgers, a conspiracy theorist who moonlights as an NFL quarterback.
Pan didn’t make many friends at the university during his, let’s say, unorthodox speech-writing process.
A University source told The Rooster that, “he is the worst person I have ever worked with,” in regards to his participation in the Commencement process.
That assessment is not hard to believe considering Pan is allegedly the first Ohio State graduate ever to be recruited to the notorious rat-fucking consulting agency McKinsey & Company. Pan went on to help exacerbate the opioid epidemic—truly inspirational stuff!
For a Commencement as big as Ohio State’s there’s a well-established process of draft speeches, speech approvals, and rehearsals.
The draft speeches did not go as planned. His early draft speeches contained extensive references to Israel and Palestine, and their shared humanity, which the university asked him to remove, according to sources.
This did not go over well with Pan, who was described as “very angry” while threatening to drop out of the prestigious role entirely.
However, cooler heads prevailed and Pan traveled to Ohio State early last week. He wasted little time offering searing insight into his brain chemistry by giving away necklaces and a ukulele to baffled May Day protestors and assembled local media crews.
Commencement ceremony rehearsals were equally challenging for Mr. Pan. The university asked Pan to remove what can only be described as “a shirtless dance number.” Pan declined.
Version 8 of the speech is available here and contains some incredible content. From imploring students to invest in Bitcoin to this sublime footnote:
Any time you can have a commencement speaker who’s only looking to speak to the “alpha males” in the audience, you simply have to do it.
There are so many disgusting lines that it was hard to choose which to highlight here. I still undertook this arduous task, though.
It certainly makes you think, that’s for sure! I’ll let the brave and noble reader reading this dispatch determine if that’s a bad or good thing.
When I graduated, the biggest barrier I had to join the investor class was that I had less than $500 in my bank account. But any Buckeye graduate in a similar scenario will be relieved to know all they have to do is adjust their mindset.
By far the best part of this speech is the Bitcoin section, which is somehow even more ridiculous than it sounds on its face. It should go without saying that no university commencement should contain a Bitcoin section.
Being lectured about Bitcoin at graduation, four years after having to have a remote High School graduation ceremony due to a global pandemic, seems like cruel and unusual punishment.
But maybe we shouldn’t have been that surprised the speech contained numerous shoutouts to fake internet money preferred by drug dealers and pedophiles. Pan later revealed that Ohio State president Ted “Slapshot” Carter sits on the board of “a carbon-free Bitcoin mining company,” which is an oxymoron to anyone living in reality.
Needless to say, the extended peddling of Bitcoin, which, again, is fake internet money preferred by nerds and cybercriminals, was deadpanned by the audience.
Matt Hall, a loyal reader of The Rooster who was in the crowd, said the speech was so hilariously bad that it was good. “Everyone's commencement speech is a bit cringe; Chris Pan’s was memorably so. It rocked. So funny that my brother graduated to this.”
Others were less forgiving.
Another attendee, George (@SixersPlease), called the speech "So bad.”
George later compared the speech to a mega-church sermon, and others who spoke to The Rooster referred to it as having a “cult-like vibe.”
George reported students dazed and confused during Pan’s final sing-along to This Little Light of Mine. When Pan asked students to “stand if you feel so inspired,” George didn’t observe anyone around him making an effort to stand.
If that’s not enough, Pan hosted not one but two afterparties for students at the Indianola Presbyterian Church.
This all feels so incredibly like a sick and twisted prank. Why would this guy become the speaker, why did he agree, and why is he, presumably, bankrolling all of this?
His entrepreneurial company, myIntent, which makes ugly custom wristbands, cannot be making the kind of money needed to be chosen for all of this. The fact that they ended up giving free wristbands to all graduates makes this even more curious. At best, it reads as a massive marketing ploy.
Pan was set up for failure by the pure fact this occasion is not for the average social entrepreneur turned daytime karaoke singer. It doesn’t need to be a stuffy speech of platitudes, but the difference between that and a shirtless sing-a-long for peace is striking—and not in a good way, either.
Sunday’s embarrassment of a speech shows the importance of name recognition and screening process. Ohio State, unlike many universities, does not pay commencement speakers. This leaves them with minimal options given the scope of such a speech and seemingly leads to this. Perhaps that policy will be reexamined.
Still, the commencement committee failed at its job to screen the candidates. The university failed in its job to attract a more noteworthy speaker. It also failed to prevent Pan from hawking Bitcoin.
Ultimately, everyone involved in the lead-up and execution of the commencement ceremony failed the graduation students and their families.
Anyone who has graduated can tell you the commencement speaker is not important, nor should they be. But graduation should be a ceremony to last a lifetime and honor graduates. At no point did that happen on Sunday. Shilling Bitcoin and trying to host a sing-a-long is an embarrassment to a flagship university that had every opportunity to stop this.
A Bitcoin enthusiast and mental health influencer will never fit as a commencement speaker, but at least he came free.
Max Littman is the special correspondent to The Rooster. You should follow him on Twitter.
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Words cannot express how happy I am to see this as today's topic. This fiasco deserves so much news coverage that local media just isn't going to give
Of course he worked for McKinsey. I can only hope that McKinsey highlights him as a successful alumnus in an upcoming LinkedIn post.