Funniest High School Graduation Speech of 2015

“Dear esteemed colleagues, academic adjudicators, parents who say they love their children, parents who actually love their children, ghosts of dead football players named Walter and any NSA agents sitting in the audience or listening at home ...”

After a prayer-like introductory mashup of a Farsi poem, Michael Jackson lyrics and a “Lilo and Stitch” line in Hawaiian, so began Arman Khagani’s graduation speech at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School on the North Side of Chicago.

For a solid 17 minutes, the young man kept his audience in chuckles and laughter as he recounted the best and most unusual of student achievements for the year and reflected on the possibilities before them.

“I am honored to give this speech, I really am, almost as much as I am under-qualified to give it,” Khagani said. “I apologize to those family members who flew hundreds of miles searching for an enlightening speech. I can’t give that to you. ...

“This will be more like a third-grade dance recital. The best part is when it ends.”

He noted the effect of senior malaise on the class.

“If you continue to do absolutely nothing into adulthood the only job you will be absolutely qualified for is a seat in the U.S. Senate.”

As with all great commencement speeches, he wove in quotes from the greatest of thinkers — Taylor Swift, the Rev. James Franco and Kanye West among them.

All the while, his principal, Timothy Devine, and other academic dignitaries on the stage behind him, clad in their caps and gowns — or, as Khagani put it, “medieval underwear” — struggled to hold it together.

Khagani applied to give the graduation speech. Walter Payton Prep doesn’t name a traditional valedictorian and salutatorian. He says he spent about two months composing the monologue, which captured slices of life and personality from the past year and wisely avoided delivering any advice to his fellow graduates.

“It’s not my place to tell you how to live,” he said. “I’ll leave that to the companies and special interests that will dictate your every hope and dream.”

Oh, Jonathan Stewart, you named your Daily Show successor a little too soon.