Years ago we instituted a 4 minute time limit on all student speeches. Since there are usually 3 of them (Senior Class President, Valedictorian, Senior Speaker (selected by try-out before the class officers and selected faculty)), this keeps things moving. After a faculty speaker spoke for 45 fucking minutes a decade or so ago, there is an understood limit on those speeches as well. Mine have never gone over 4 minutes. Still too many speeches to sit through.
If there’s ever any part of a graduation ceremony that could be described as “interesting,” it’s not the part where a long line of students walk across a stage one by one and get handed their diplomas.
I think of it more that there will be hundreds or thousands of people who will now have a negative opinion of the speaker where before they may have not even known who the speaker was. Some people will be impressed by the rogue speech, but they will likely be just a tiny minority. Overall the person will be tarnishing their reputation for little gain and are unlikely to effect whatever change they are hoping for. That may not ruin their life or anything, but they may not understand what the outcome will be. They are probably thinking that they are going to blow the audience’s minds by speaking the truth, but the reality is that most people will not listen to the message and just think poorly of the speaker. And the only thing people may remember about that person from the HS days is the rogue speech and they bring it up when they see that person no matter how many years later that is.
The valedictorian is probably moving on, going to a new college community, and quite possibly a new city. I find it implausible that their speech, however good or bad it might have been, to will have much impact on their future life.
The long line of students is boring. But when MY CHILD walks across the stage, I’m interested. That’s what i came to graduation for.
My college wisely splits the ceremonies into two parts, the speeches in the morning, and then, in much smaller groups, the diplomas on the afternoon. My college sometimes gets interesting speakers, and yes, that part is of more general interest than the afternoon “new grads walking across the stage”. But for parents and students, who make up a pretty large part of the audience (and almost all the audience at high school. I guess a lot of teachers attend. Anyone else?) the afternoon diploma part is the high point, i think.
Probably not to their financial future, but it will shape the opinion of how people think about them and possibly how they think about themselves. That matters differently to different people. Some people don’t care at all, some people care a lot. Some people still feel actual embarrassment when they remember things they did in HS. This may shape how they feel about themselves in the present day. If they later they look back at that speech as something embarrassing, the embarrassment they feel is magnified by the 1000’s of people who got to observe it. That is pretty much true for everyone who feels embarrassment about something they did in front of many people. If someone gives a speech and flubs up, spills water over the podium, has their fly down, etc., it’s a memory that will frequently bubble up and haunt them throughout their lives. That can affect their self-confidence in the future. I’m not saying it means they won’t amount to anything, but I don’t feel that a rogue speech is something that is temporal and will be quickly forgotten.
This. Most of the time, “rogue” speeches are problematic because they are hurtful to others or self-aggrandizing. Even if there are no practical consequences to making an ass of yourself in a very public forum, it’s still something we should help young people avoid. And generally your family is there. If nothing else, they are going to remember sitting in the audience and hearing people being outraged.
I would apply the same reasoning in the OP to anyone, whatever their age.
I suspect, though I don’t know for sure, that the OP specified “student speakers such as the valedictorian, not an invited well known public figure,” because they assumed that those “well-known public figures” were professional and experienced enough that they wouldn’t “go rogue.”
Well we had a retired sports star (hall of gamer) and current broadcaster as a special guest speaker at our last company meeting before COVID broke out.
Chap ranted on about patriotism and religion the whole time, ironically complaining about how he isn’t allowed to talk about them. About a quarter of the crowd were thrilled to bits. Most of us wondered if he was drunk or deranged. He didn’t remember the band of our company (it’s a household name, literally 99% of Americans would recognize it immediately). Not sure if you’d call it going rogue.
Of course he was selected because our CEO’s dad was a huge fan, and was allowed to ride with him in the limo from the private airport to the theatre. Staggering sum of money pissed away.
I guess I don’t see how “huge” necessarily means ruinous, or how it necessarily involves permanently and significantly altering one’s life.
Someone who’s matured morally and emotionally can see, in retrospect, that going rogue was quite painful to those she targeted and was therefore an enormous mistake. She would then experience intense and painful regret, shame, and embarrassment. Of course, even if she doesn’t recognize it as painful, it’s still a mistake, a huge one, in my view.