Now that his conservative persona has been laid to rest, comedian Stephen Colbert on Monday gave the commencement address at Wake Forest University out of character — but he still managed to tuck some political gags into his set.
“A lot of candidates will be vying for your attention,” Colbert said of the upcoming presidential election, “and you will perform the ultimate civic duty: deciding for whom you will swipe right, and for whom you will swipe left. Because I think we’re voting on Tinder now.”
“At least Republicans are — Democrats might be voting on Grindr,” he said. (Grindr is a gay dating app.)
He weaved in jokes while reviewing the history and culture of the North Carolina university.
“This was among the first Southern schools to teach biology in a lab,” he said. “Before that you weren’t allowed to learn about biology until marriage.”
The former Comedy Central host is set to take over the CBS “Late Show” from David Letterman later this year.
Watch the address. Colbert begins at about the 1-hour mark in the video below:
Yep, it’s a commencement speech. Some hits and misses, lots of polite laughter, some references to campus traditions and lore, etc. It was fine.
In other words, it’s really hard to be David Foster Wallace.
Heh. Tricky, TPM, telling us that the end of the speech (1:12) was actually the beginning!
Link’s borked, currently.