Jimmy Fallon, host of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, surprised seniors at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas commencement this weekend, CNN reports. The late night host encouraged the students, who have become emblematic of the fight against gun control in the past four months, to keep fighting.
"Today, you're graduating from high school. You should feel incredibly proud of yourselves. But that doesn't mean you should rest on your laurels," he told the crowd, adding, "Or your yannys." (For the internet-averse kids in the back, this is a reference to the AI clip that sounded like both "yanny" and "laurel.")
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He later gave them some earnest advice. "When something feels hard, remember that it gets better. Choose to move forward," he advised. The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have become celebrity activists of their own right — Emma Gonzalez, perhaps the most recognizable survivor of the February 14 tragedy, has over 1.6 million followers on Twitter.
"Most commencement speakers, they'll get up here and talk in the future tense. 'You will succeed. You will make us proud. And you will change the world,'" Fallon told the crowd. "Most commencement speakers says, 'You are the future.' But I'm not gonna say that, because you're not the future. You're the present."
Watch his full speech, below.
'Thank you for showing me and the whole world that there is hope.' — Listen to @jimmyfallon's full remarks to Parkland's graduating class pic.twitter.com/iYscNQFm7r
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 4, 2018