I've talked a lot about being on my phone.
And I've only mentioned the internet a couple times.
I think--I think it's important to point out that the internet,
all it is is an amplifier, you know?
When it--when the internet came along, it changed everything.
It changed the world as we live in it.
It changed what we care about.
It changed our priorities. All that stuff.
But all it really is, deep down, is a transformer.
It's an amplifier.
And if you want to do good,
it's going to help you do more good
than you've ever done in your entire life.
You're going to reach people
that you never could have otherwise.
And if you want to do evil, it is gonna take you
to a darker place than you could ever imagine.
Like for the good things, right?
As a good example, there was a little girl--
some of you may have even seen the story.
There was a little girl that was eight years old,
and she had brain cancer,
and her parents didn't have a lot of money,
and they didn't have the best insurance.
So as Americans,
we were gonna let her die.
That is what we do here, all right?
She, obviously,
being eight and having a bad brain
and not having money was irresponsible.
She should have pulled herself up
by her seven-year-old bootstraps
and made enough money
to support her dumb cancer brain, right?
That's American dogma, okay?
So we were gonna let her die, but she said,
"No--no, I'm not going to die, all right?
Not without a fight, okay?"
And so she decided to sell lemonade.
She was going to sell lemonade to raise money
for her surgery, right?
Which is adorable but, sweetie, that's not gonna cut it.
Unless you are charging
champagne levels for this lemonade
or have child soldier factory levels of it
being pumped out and produced, you're not gonna make it.
I'm sorry.
But as she was selling the lemonade,
every person that she sold a cup of lemonade to,
she told her story.
She told them why she was selling the lemonade.
And then those people started to tell people.
And then through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
someone started a GoFundMe for this little girl.
And then she blew the amount of money
that she needed for her surgery out of the water, right?
Which is great. That's amazing.
That's the power of the internet.
That's the ability for us to connect.
When we all have access to each other,
we can make an impact.
We could change each other's lives, you know?
But there's also a bad side.
We all know it.
When I was in high school,
there was this group of kids
that they were cool, and I liked them,
and I liked that they liked me, but they terrified me
because all they ever did was prank each other.
And it was, like-- it was, like, too hardcore,
and it was really mean,
and it weirdly always brought them closer together,
but it terrified me, you know?
'Cause they were heinous to each other,
but it somehow just strengthened their bond.
So I was glad that they liked me,
but I didn't want to be in the group.
And it was four of them.
It was two guys, and it was two girls.
And normally, like, the coming-of-age story
would tell you that they're all gonna hook up,
but that's not what happened.
Everyone in the group had a different
significant other outside the group except for one girl.
Her name was Beth.
And it was hard for Beth to find somebody
'cause she was too intense.
She was a lot.
You know, she just--she always felt the need to up the ante.
Take things further than they should go, you know?
Until she met a guy.
She met a guy on the internet,
and they hit it off immediately.
She thought he was cute.
They had the same sense of humor.
They--they wanted to go
and travel the same places.
And every day, she would come to school,
and she would tell us about this.
She would tell us, like,
"Oh, you know, he's so cool. I like him so much.
And here's what we talked about and everything."
And then Friday came,
and on Friday, she told me
that he wanted to meet on Saturday.
And I told her, "Oh.
"Don't do that.
That is a terrible idea."
Because I should point out--
this isn't online dating in 2021.
This is online dating in 2008, okay?
In 2021, there's bios. There's mutual friends.
There's pictures from multiple angles.
In 2008, all you are getting with online dating
was a description that was hopefully accurate enough
to give the police.
And so I told her, "No, don't go."
Because I should point out
this guy didn't give her an address to come to.
He said, "Meet me in this neighborhood
through this alley through this door."
And I was like, "You honestly making it too easy to kill you.
"Do not go.
That sounds like a murderer, okay?"
But she--she was young, and she was in love,
and so she went.
She went to that neighborhood
through that alley through that door.
And when she walked through that door,
it was a funeral home.
She was so confused.
You know, she was looking around at everything.
She walked around the whole funeral home,
and she saw that there was only one funeral,
and it was his.
And she was so confused. She was looking at him,
looking at his family and everything.
She couldn't understand it.
And then she got a call on her phone,
and it was her friends.
And they had pranked her.
You see, they found this dude's picture in the obituary.
And so they took it, and they made
an online profile with it, and then they found her,
and then they just chopped it up.
They just chatted, and they--
because they know her so well,
they obviously could make her fall
instantly in love with this guy.
They know all of the things that she likes.
They know her sense of humor.
They know the places that she wants to travel
when she gets out of high school, you know?
And so they had her come there on a Saturday--
Valentine's Day, by the way.
To come see the dead body
of this dude she had fallen in love with.
- That's terrible.
- That is how dark the internet can be.
That is what happens
when we all have access to each other.
We can change each other's lives for the worse.
I know right now you feel bad for Beth.
Don't. Okay?
She got 'em back.
Over the course of a decade, she...
banged all of their dads.
[cheers and applause]
I told you she was intense.
She felt the need to up the ante
'cause that's not all she did.
She married one.
And we honestly don't know if that's still part of it.
Maybe she loves this man, or maybe she's like,
"You got me good in high school,
and now, I'm your mom."