Transcript of Duffers Speech — For Future Reference
They compared adulthood to fighting monsters in a Dungeons & Dragons game and shared lessons from their own struggles.
They joked that the world today is unstable and their generation “messed things up” for young people.
They said they wanted to give advice through “monsters” that represent real-life fears.
The Mimic looks like something you really want, but it hurts you when you reach for it.
In real life, this means rejection, failure, heartbreak, or disappointment.
They shared how they were rejected by film schools, studios, and producers many times.
Even the pilot for Stranger Things was rejected by many studios.
But they said the important thing is to keep trying and “keep opening new chests,” because eventually one may lead to success.
This monster tricks people by showing an easy and safe-looking path.
They explained that following the “safe” path can stop you from doing what you truly love.
They once tried writing trendy movies just because producers wanted them, but it failed because they didn’t enjoy it.
When they finally created stories they truly cared about, they succeeded.
Their advice: trust your inner voice, take risks, and don’t be afraid of failure.
They said regret from never trying is worse than failing.
This monster represents losing your individuality and becoming part of the crowd.
They talked about growing up as identical twins and trying hard to fit in.
Later they realized their differences were actually their strength.
They warned that social media, algorithms, and AI push people toward sameness and “average” thinking.
Their message was to stay unique, weird, creative, and true to yourself.
They said AI and algorithms can copy many things, but they can never copy the real, messy, one-of-a-kind “you.”
Life will be difficult and full of challenges.
You will face rejection, confusion, and pressure to conform.
keep trying, take risks, stay different, trust yourself, and rely on friends, family, and supportive people (“your party”) to help you through life.
They ended by wishing the graduates courage and success in facing the future.
(0:08) Are we going up there? (0:10) Oh, shit. (0:10) I think so.
(0:11) Are you ready for this? (0:13) OK. (0:15) All right.
(0:16) All right. (0:21) Thank you, President Parlow, Provost Deva, and the entire faculty for this incredible honor and for inviting us here to speak today. (0:30) And a special shout out to our favorite professor, Michael Kowalski, associate dean now, who once told us that the script for a first student film was thematically incoherent.
(0:42) He was right, by the way. (0:44) And to the class of 26 and your families, congratulations. (0:48) You did it.
(0:53) We did it once too, many moons ago. (0:57) We graduated from Chapman and Dodge College back in 2007. (1:04) To put that in perspective, we were printing out MapQuest for directions.
(1:09) Netflix was mailing out DVDs in little red envelopes. (1:13) And the Sopranos finale had just cut to black, and people thought their power was cut out. (1:18) It feels like a lifetime ago.
(1:21) But we still, of course, remember being you. (1:24) We remember feeling excited about the next chapter. (1:27) But we also remember being scared, scared of stepping off this campus and into a world that felt pretty uncertain.
(1:35) But you guys are lucky, because thanks to the hard work of our generation, you're going to step off this campus into a far more stable and certain world. (1:47) That's a joke. (1:48) It's a joke.
(1:49) It's a joke, obviously. (1:52) Our generation screwed things up for you. (1:54) I mean, not us specifically.
(1:55) We were just making a TV show. (1:58) But still, on behalf of our generation, we are sorry. (2:02) Deeply sorry.
(2:03) Deeply sorry. (2:04) We decided to make up for this by writing what is going to be a life-changing speech. (2:09) But then we watched a bunch of life-changing speeches, and it frankly made us feel inadequate.
(2:14) Because no matter how hard we try, we'll never be as wise as Steve Jobs or as profound as David Foster Wallace. (2:21) We won't. (2:22) But that's fine, we realize, because those speeches are available for free for you to watch on YouTube.
(2:29) They're good. (2:29) You should watch them. (2:30) So we scrapped the dream of writing something life-changing and set a new, far more achievable goal to write the nerdiest commencement speech of all time.
(2:39) That's right. (2:39) That's our goal. (2:46) Which brings us to our nerdy TV show, Stranger Things.
(2:52) Thank you. (2:54) If you haven't seen it, it's a coming-of-age story set in the 1980s. (2:58) Over the course of the show, the kids have to overcome a lot of stuff, bullies, puberties, monsters from other dimensions.
(3:05) And the kids name these monsters after villains from Dungeons & Dragons, Demogorgon. (3:11) Yeah, Demogorgon, Mind Flayer, Vecna. (3:13) Well, obviously fictional.
(3:14) Each monster represents real fears we faced growing up, fears that we had to overcome as kids and teens. (3:21) There will never be a Stranger Things 6. (3:24) I'm sorry, Netflix.
(3:25) I know. (3:26) But for a minute, we're going to pretend there is, okay? (3:29) So our characters have graduated.
(3:30) They placed their D&D binders back under the shelf, and they've left Hawkins for good, okay? (3:35) And we're going to talk about the three biggest monsters that we bring into this new season, monsters that would represent the scariest things that we faced in adulthood. (3:43) And then we'll be your monster manual, or as best to our abilities, and tell you everything we know about them and the best tools that we found to chop off their heads.
(3:52) All right. (3:54) Okay. (3:54) All right, here we go.
(3:55) So the first monster, the first monster is called the Mimic. (3:58) It's a tricky little bastard. (4:01) Because the Mimic doesn't appear as a monster.
(4:03) It disguises itself as the thing you most desire. (4:05) So in the world of D&D, that's usually like a treasure chest. (4:08) So you race up to the chest.
(4:10) You're excited about the gold or armor you're going to find inside. (4:13) You rub your hands together like Indiana Jones. (4:15) You reach out, and you reach for the treasure, but then it glues itself to you.
(4:19) You can't move. (4:20) And then the treasure chest opens up, flashing razor-sharp teeth, and then it eats you, which sucks. (4:28) It really sucks.
(4:30) But what sucks more is you're going to run into many Mimics as you make your way through life, things that look like things you desperately want, things you're convinced hold the answers. (4:38) But when you reach out for them, they hurt you. (4:41) They won't literally eat you, hopefully, but you get the point.
(4:44) It's not a subtle metaphor. (4:46) And some Mimics hurt more than others. (4:49) Back in 2003, we lived in Durham, North Carolina, and we had this dream of making movies in Hollywood.
(4:55) And most people thought our dream was impossible. (4:57) We got a lot of pats on the backs and condescending smiles. (5:00) That's cute, kid.
(5:02) But we had a plan to achieve our impossible dream. (5:05) We were going to go pack our bags, head out to California, and attend a famous, prestigious film school with a history of alums who went on to achieve major success, alums like Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis, and George Lucas. (5:19) Yes, I'm talking about USC.
(5:27) And they rejected us. (5:29) They rejected us. (5:31) We didn't even make the wait list, okay?
(5:33) And it hurt. (5:34) It hurt really bad. (5:35) It made us feel like we weren't good enough, that maybe those naysayers back home were right.
(5:41) And later on, we wrote so many screenplays that we were positive would sell, and each one got the same response, no, no, no. (5:48) We pitched our hearts out to board executives who looked like they wanted to be in it. (5:53) The Stranger Things pilot, the very one you see on screen, was rejected by 12 different studios.
(5:59) But then finally, one studio liked the script, and they wanted to finance it. (6:03) The only problem is they weren't sure about us directing it, so they asked to watch a little film we made called Hidden, a film we were really proud of. (6:12) We gave it to them.
(6:13) They watched it, and then they said, yeah, no, you can't direct. (6:18) So it was another no, another bite, and that one really hurt. (6:21) And, you know, sometimes it's not about reaching for success.
(6:24) Sometimes it's about reaching for someone's love, reaching for someone's approval, for connection, and you'll frequently get bitten. (6:31) And every time it happens, it makes you want to curl up into a ball and cry, and it makes you want to stop reaching out. (6:36) But here's the thing about the Mimic.
(6:38) It has a challenge rating of 2 out of 30, so it's kind of a wimpy villain. (6:43) But it's still super dangerous, not because it's going to kill you, but because it makes you afraid to open the next chest. (6:48) And some of those chests, they do have gold in them.
(6:52) After we rejected by USC, we heard about a smaller, lesser-known film school in Orange County called Chapman University. (7:00) Yes. (7:05) And Chapman not only let us in, they were excited to have us, and our experience here changed our lives.
(7:11) And when the studio told us we couldn't direct Stranger Things, we walked away. (7:15) Four days later, Netflix came knocking. (7:18) We can't promise you the next chest you open will be gold or that it will be Chapman or Stranger Things, but we can promise you this.
(7:25) If you stop opening them, you'll never find out. (7:28) Okay. (7:29) That's number one.
(7:30) All right. (7:31) It gets increasingly difficult, okay? (7:33) So that's easy.
(7:34) The second monster we're going to talk about has a challenge rating of 2 also, but don't be fooled. (7:39) This is the most dangerous CR2 monster in the Monster Manual. (7:41) It's called the Will-O-Wisp, okay?
(7:43) So as you're wandering around the dungeon and you're getting bitten by these nasty Mimics, you're also going to get lost. (7:48) It's a maze, after all, and there are no signposts telling you where to go. (7:52) So you look around.
(7:53) You see spikes to your left, scattering of bones to your right, wet gurgling noises behind you, and none of this looks good. (7:59) But then you see a hazy, beautiful blue-green flame dancing in the distance. (8:03) This is the Will-O-Wisp.
(8:05) Its light illuminates a clear, safe path forward. (8:09) So naturally, you go that way. (8:11) Turns out it's not a real path.
(8:13) It tricked you. (8:14) The Will-O-Wisp tricked you. (8:15) And you drown or you fall into a pit of spikes or you step onto an oddly aggressive frog.
(8:20) That's why the Wisp is dangerous, because it doesn't try to kill you. (8:24) It just leads you somewhere that will. (8:27) So why did you follow the light?
(8:29) Because you could see the damn path. (8:31) It was safe, the least risky, or it seemed like it. (8:33) Something we've learned the hard way is that the safest-looking path is often the most dangerous one.
(8:38) So remember when I told you about all those rejected pitches and scripts? (8:41) Well, that was the fault of the Will-O-Wisp. (8:45) You see, every producer we met told us the same thing.
(8:48) They all wanted, this was a while ago, they wanted a found-footage movie like Paranormal Activity. (8:53) So this was the light for us, the shortcut to our dreams. (8:56) And we diligently set to work on writing a found-footage script.
(9:00) But there was one problem. (9:02) We didn't really like found-footage movies. (9:04) But we kept trying anyways and trying and trying.
(9:06) And years later, we had a script that didn't work. (9:09) We had serious credit card debt. (9:10) In growing doubt, we remember the phone call from our parents.
(9:22) They had always been supportive of us, and they still were. (9:25) But for the first time, we detected real worry in their voices. (9:28) It was clear the realities of life were catching up to our dreams.
(9:33) If you can't pay rent, well, maybe you have to come back home. (9:36) Something about that phone call snapped us out of our days. (9:40) Okay, so we threw out our found-footage script, made a hard pivot, and quickly wrote a script about something we loved.
(9:47) And it wasn't at all what the producers were looking for, but it was something that we truly loved and related to. (9:53) And guess what? (9:53) That script sold.
(9:54) At long last, we had made it out of the marsh. (9:57) Years later, when we came up with the idea for Stranger Things, we were told that it, too, would never sell. (10:02) A period piece starring kids that is not made for kids?
(10:05) You're out of your mind. (10:06) God, I'm struggling not to curse. (10:07) At the same time, you can fill it in.
(10:10) At the same time, we were offered a safe, cushy job to write a TV show for a big network. (10:15) There it was again. (10:16) The blue-gray-green flame, glowing, tempting, safe.
(10:21) But we gave the will-o'-wisp the middle finger, holed up in our small apartment, and wrote Stranger Things. (10:26) And guess what? (10:27) Those two things that we were told were major liabilities, the period piece 1980 setting and the kids.
(10:32) Those were exactly what made the show successful. (10:34) In D&D, the official tactic for fighting a will-o'-wisp is simple. (10:41) Ignore it.
(10:42) That's it. (10:43) But easier said than done, because we followed the will-o'-wisp many other times over the years. (10:48) Sometimes it's a career move.
(10:49) Sometimes it's a creative decision. (10:51) Sometimes it's more personal, involving a significant relationship with a friend or a significant other. (10:56) Sometimes we'd recognize we're on the wrong path very quickly.
(10:59) Sometimes it would take months. (11:01) Sometimes years. (11:02) And the longer you're on the wrong path, the harder it is to get off it, because that means doing something hard, which is admitting that you made a mistake.
(11:10) The best way to avoid the will-o'-wisp is to listen to the voice deep inside you. (11:15) If you wake up in the middle of the night or when you're showering in the morning and something just feels off, trust that above all else. (11:23) And to the parents out there who might be worrying right now, like ours did on that phone call, you're not wrong.
(11:28) We all know that sometimes taking a risk doesn't pay off. (11:30) Sometimes you fall into those spikes or you step onto that angry frog. (11:34) They're called risks for a reason.
(11:36) But to the graduates, we promise if you take a risk and fail, it won't destroy you. (11:41) You will recover. (11:42) But what can destroy you, what you end up regretting, is taking no risk at all.
(11:46) That's what the will-o'-wisp counts on, not the dramatic failure, the slow drowning. (11:52) So don't fall for that. (11:54) Okay.
(12:02) All right, all right, all right. (12:03) We got one more monster. (12:05) This is it.
(12:05) It's the final boss. (12:07) You might want to hold onto your caps because, spoiler alert, this baddie has a CR rating of 14, and it's getting stronger every day. (12:15) It's called the Elder Brain.
(12:16) It's basically a giant brain floating in a vat of liquid. (12:20) It's pretty gross, but it's not super intimidating at first. (12:23) But here's the thing.
(12:24) It's not a single brain. (12:26) It's actually a soup made out of hundreds of brains liquefied together into a single consciousness. (12:32) Every mind that has ever lived in this world has been absorbed into it.
(12:35) The individuals are gone. (12:37) What remains is an average. (12:38) It's the annihilation of the self.
(12:41) We've been fighting the Elder Brain our whole lives. (12:44) It started pretty much as soon as we were conceived, actually. (12:47) See, we were created out of the same egg.
(12:49) It just split into two. (12:50) We're twins, identical ones. (12:52) And that one feature most defined our childhoods.
(12:55) Back in the 90s, being a twin was pretty rare, and we were the only ones at our school. (13:00) And for the longest time, we hated it. (13:03) We were introverted and shy, and being an identical twin tends to attract attention.
(13:08) Strangers would stare at us in the supermarket. (13:10) Worse, sometimes they would come up and speak to us. (13:13) If you're punched in the shoulder, does he feel it?
(13:15) No. (13:17) No. (13:17) I don't feel it, you idiot.
(13:18) All we wanted to do was fit in. (13:21) We wanted to just be like everybody else. (13:23) We wanted to join the Elder Brain.
(13:25) It took us a long time to realize that the parts of us we wanted to erase were, in fact, the most important parts to preserve because they allowed us to experience the world in a different way than other people, to develop into unique individuals. (13:37) They allowed us to tell stories specific to us and share those with the world. (13:41) So the more we leaned into what made us different, the more we rejected the call of the Elder Brain, the more successful and happier we became.
(13:48) Now, it would be naive of us to say your fight with the Elder Brain will be like ours. (13:52) It will be harder, much harder, because the world today is very different now than it was in 2007. (13:59) Shortly after we graduated, iPhone came out.
(14:02) Then social media surged, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok. (14:06) It all seemed so innocuous at first. (14:08) Not anymore.
(14:10) And now there's something else that all this is getting mapped onto, that dreaded two-letter acronym that's getting booted every commencement speech across the country, AI. (14:19) Yeah, there you go. (14:21) Yeah, there you go.
(14:24) Okay, to return to the beginning of the speech, this area is where our generation really and truly screw things up for you because the machines, the feeds and the algorithms and the models control what you see and hear, feeding you the same crap, or as you guys call it, slops, like the broadest possible stuff. (14:44) Anything that's weird or different or challenging or that, God forbid, might take a little bit of time to sink in, that surprising stuff that helps shape you into a unique individual, that goes out the window. (14:57) Your brains, our brains, are all being liquefied and fed into the vat, and it sucks.
(15:05) So, it sucks. (15:10) So how do you avoid brain liquefication? (15:13) I'm not talking 20 years ago.
(15:15) I'm talking now. (15:17) The truth is we're not sure. (15:19) Anyone who says they are is a charlatan, okay?
(15:22) And honestly, a lot of this is going to fall on you to figure out, which is not fair, but it's just the truth. (15:27) But we think that while the stakes are much higher now, some of what we learned applies growing up. (15:34) You have to refuse the average.
(15:37) You have to be yourself, and that involves being vulnerable and letting your freak flag fly. (15:49) But the trap, right, is that the more raw and vulnerable you are, the higher risk of embarrassment, being called lame, a loser, cringe. (16:01) Matt and I, if you can believe it, have been called all those things, and worse, by thousands and thousands of people, and it always hurts, always.
(16:10) And the natural instinct is to recoil, to stop putting yourself out there, to self-censor, to throw yourself into the brain vat. (16:17) But you can't, because the vat can make infinite versions of almost anything with zero risk to itself. (16:24) But there's one thing it can never make.
(16:26) It can never make you. (16:28) The specific, weird, messy, embarrassing, cringe, one-of-a-kind you. (16:33) The average can never be an individual.
(16:35) Because of that, your individuality is the most valuable thing you will ever own. (16:39) Don't you dare flatten it. (16:48) Yeah, I agree.
(16:50) There are, of course, a lot more monsters out there, and because the world is changing so fast, you're going to encounter ones that we never did. (16:57) It's going to be scary, hard, and upsetting, but just like a game of D&D, it can also be fun and rewarding. (17:03) We don't want to be too depressing.
(17:05) And to meet these challenges head-on and conquer them, and you don't have to do it alone. (17:10) In fact, you really shouldn't. (17:12) You need a party.
(17:13) And maybe this party is made up of a boyfriend or a girlfriend or the family that came to see you today or maybe all of the above. (17:19) The friends you made here are Chapman, right? (17:21) Whoever it is, whoever it is, you're going to need them because everyone has their own unique strengths.
(17:26) Like maybe your companion is a halfling, like a tiny human, and you reach a gate, but it's locked, and you think there's no way in until you see a small hole, and only they can fit through it. (17:35) So they crawl through the hole, they pull a lever, gate swings open, and you're in. (17:39) Or maybe you're the halfling, and someone else is in your party.
(17:43) It's the warrior who carries a sword who you can't lift, or the cleric who can heal, who puts a spider in your farm, or the bard who can talk you into trouble with goblins. (17:51) That's enough. (17:52) I think we've already achieved it.
(17:55) The nerdiest commencement speech ever. (17:57) Have we achieved it? (18:03) I just hope that Professor Kowalski found it thematically coherent.
(18:09) And I also hope it helps some of you, too. (18:12) Because I have two little girls at home, and I'm really scared for their future. (18:17) Because we are on the front lines of something major, and we don't know exactly what it is or what it's going to look like.
(18:23) And you will be challenged in every possible way. (18:26) You'll be bitten, you'll be misled, you'll see some of your friends get brain liquefied. (18:31) But keep reaching, take risks, stay weird, find your party, grab your swords, and get out there and start slaying.
(18:39) Good luck, Class of 2016. (18:40) Congratulations.
Confession: I used AI and transcript software I genuinely don’t have enough time (or language skills) to go through everything and write it all myself after work and side hustles 😔
