Zoya Azhar ’20Contributing Writer
Oprah Winfrey’s sudden refusal to serve as commencement speaker for the Class of 2017 has been a devastating blow to the Smith College community.
Oprah tweeted a seemingly casual “Taking a break from life, #out” three days ago. Naïve Smithies — extremely keyed in to Oprah updates (her being a strong, independent woman and all) — tweeted back, joking that Oprah was clearing her schedule to write the speech that the eager students at Smith are waiting to hear, but they actually got a tweeted response from Oprah, “New phone: who dis??”
Worried with rage possibly fueled by the mediocre midterm grades they had received, a few bold folks from the Quad took up arms and got to chalking the entirety of President McCartney’s driveway, demanding she tweet back at Oprah.
When a polite but prodding tweet from President McCartney received no response either, the President’s office reluctantly contacted Oprah’s representatives. Naturally, they were feeling pretty foolish that the primary basis for the confusion was a Twitter exchange, but they had a job to do. They were both horrified and fascinated to find disconnected phone lines and no apparent way to reestablish contact with Ms. Winfrey’s representatives.
As if this were not enough of a situation for the college’s administration to deal with, the next twist in this riveting tale came in the middle of the night, when President Donald Trump decided to step in.
In his characteristic voice, he tweeted, “Oprah bails! Poor showmanship. I’ll make the speech @smithcollege. Bigger and better!”
It is a mystery as to why President Trump chooses to curate his tweets in the middle of the night before sending them out into the world. Whatever the reason, on this particular occasion, he decided it would be a good idea to step in for Oprah and deliver the commencement speech at Smith College this May.
There was initially great confusion as, between tweets promising that ObamaCare will explode and that Theresa May will persevere after the London attacks, President Trump suddenly decided to invite himself to a women’s college, as if he were a comparable replacement for Oprah.
As the news sunk in, the reaction of students on campus was mixed, ranging mostly from ridicule and “bish whet”-memes to angry proclamations and demands that this not be allowed to happen. Students, especially those belonging to the graduating class, have started to reach out to celebrities on social media, begging for someone to step up and be their commencement speaker. President McCartney has not been able to provide comment (mostly because she doesn’t know what to say) apart from announcing her decision not to contact the White House for details. Apparently, her approach is to hope the problem will go away by simply ignoring it.
There has been no further word from President Trump and most Smithies hope it is because he is distracted by actual government work.
If we are lucky, we’ll find that Oprah takes her social cues from Laverne Cox and reschedules. We can probably push commencement back a few months.
