Did Kurt Vonnegus say MIT graduates about the benefits of sunscreen creams?

The Internet is popular with a speech that the famous American writer allegedly pronounced to graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). We checked whether it really Vonnig - its author.

This is how this text begins:

This is how this text begins: “In 1995, the satirist Kurt Vonnegut, a speech made a speech to graduates of the University of Massachusetts, which remains relevant so far.

"Dear graduates, be wrapped in sunset creams!

If I could give you only one advice for the future, he would be just about sunscreen creams. The benefit of their use was proved by scientists, while the rest of my recommendations do not have a more reliable basis than my own confused experience, I will present you these tips now.

Enjoy the strength and beauty of your youth, while you do not like life, it passes. Believe me, after 20 years you look at your photos and remember with a feeling that you cannot understand now. How many opportunities were open in front of you, and how fabulously you actually looked. You do not weigh as much as you think "...".

The following is a large number of general instructions that the classic of American literature allegedly gave the young generation. Wise words were very popular on the Internet in the 2000s, but today they can be found on portals such as Cont.ws, "Sphere", EVERYTHING.KZ, "Quotes of famous personalities", and in many other sources. The reposts of the text in Russian -speaking social networks even in recent years have reached three -digit indicators. In 2010, the popular radio host Alex Dubas and singer Yolka recorded the audio version of the message, Two publications which was scored in total about 500,000 views on YouTube.

To begin with, at the ceremony of presenting diplomas in MIT in 1995, Kurt Vonnegut, but the former president of the University of Chicago, acted as a guest. Hannah Gray. And in general, such an honor, unlike, for example, US President Bill Clinton or UN Secretary General Cofi Annan, Kurt Vonnegut Never honored. Do not find a similar text in his works or documented performances.

And here is another celebrity, Media Magnate Ted Turner, a year earlier, speaking to graduates of the University of Georgia in Atlanta, Said: “The only advice that I can give you is to use sunscreen and wear a hat.” Stunned graduates Turner explained that he was going directly from the ceremony for an operation to remove neoplasm on the skin.

However, the advice on the cream is the only fragment from Turner’s speech, which has something in common with the text attributed to Vonnegut. But we can almost find the same text if we open the newspaper number Chicago Tribune dated June 1, 1997. Its author is the American journalist Mary Schmik, who later admits that she wrote "purely hypothetical speech for graduates, which she would have said if someone asked about it." Soon after the publication, Schmik’s speech began to uncontrollably spread in mailing in e -mail with attribution to the author of the “cradle for a cat”, and the summer of the same year was indicated as the pronunciation time when Kofi Annan was the honorary guest. This was then forced by a little -known journalist (this is one and a half decades later she will receive Pulitzer Prize) Already in August to come up with the pages of Chicago Tribune with the following appeal:

“I am Kurt Vonnugut.

Oh yes, Kurt Vonnegut gives the impression of a brilliant, respected male novelist. I make the impression of a mediocre and almost unknown newspaper observer. It may seem that we have two two of them, except for naughty hair.

But in the lawless swamp of cyberspace, Mr. Wonnegut and I are one. Where any snake can impersonate the king, we both are the authors of the graduation speech, which begins with the immortal words "smear sunglasses." <...> I remember composing this little speech on Friday during the day under the influence of coffee and m & m’s. She came out here on June 1. It included such thoughtful tips as "sing", "use dental threads" and "do not bother with your hair too much." This was not an art. <...> Poor person. He did not earn his reputation to be tarnished in this way. "

Then Schmik said that after long attempts she finally managed to get through to Kurt Wonnegut. As it turned out, he managed to hear about “his” speech from everywhere - from his lawyer, from friends, from representatives of the female magazine who were going to reprint her until Vonnigut objected that this was not his speech.

“It was very witty, but it was not my wit,” Kurt Vonnegut said generously. According to Schmik herself, such an attachment is “it is like sticking the Calvin Klein label on KMART jeans.” Although, according to the newspaper The Washington Post, later Vonnegut will say that he would be proud of this text if he wrote it himself. Moreover, in those summer days, the wife of Vonnegut, Jill Kremenz, also received the newsletter. She took the headline for a clean coin and sent out The text to his friends and even children - she liked him so much. So the wife of the famous writer also involuntarily participated in this story.

It would seem that the incident is exhausted. However, the dissemination of information, as we know, sometimes does not lend itself to any control, and the “quote of Vonnegut” healed her life. One of the recipients of the viral newsletter was the famous Australian film director of the Base Lurman (“Romeo + Juliet”, “Moulin Rouge!”, “Great Gatsby”). Having read the text, Lurman decided Make it a musical track. The terms were very compressed, and the director was afraid not to have time to get permission to use from the writer, but thanks to the Internet he found out that this was not his speech. This did not affect the idea of ​​Lurman, and in the same 1997 the composition came out "EVERYBODY's FREE (to Wear SUNSCREEN)" (“Everyone has the right to [use sunscreen”), in which he read the popular actor of the voicing of Perry, and Rosalla's song was taken for background music EVERYBODY’S FREE. The success of unusual creation surpassed all expectations: the single became Platinov, flying to the first lines of the hit parades in many English-speaking countries. So unexpectedly the article of a little -known journalist, thanks to fake attribution, became the basis for a very successful music track. Which, however, does not cancel the rights of people to know the truth about its origin.

Incorrect attribution of quote

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Vonnegut? Schmich? Who Can Tell in Cyberspace?

2. Kurt Vonnegut Mit Comment Address