Sean Evans Gives 2026 University of Illinois Commencement Speech

[0:00] It is now my great privilege to formally introduce our 2026 commencement speaker. [0:08] Sean Evans, who I know at least some of you have heard of, he's that guy. [0:18] He is a journalist who is best known for creating Hot Ones, [0:23] a show notable for its innovative format using spicy chicken wings as a device for provoking candid responses. [0:32] He has interviewed hundreds of celebrities, athletes, and musicians. [0:36] He's won numerous awards and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential digital voices of 2025. [0:45] But most importantly, in 2008, he started exactly where you are today, [0:51] an Illinois graduate poised to make a positive impact on the world. [0:56] Sean represents the power of curiosity, the power of creativity, and the ability to carve your own path. [1:05] His work shows us that innovation happens when an Illinois graduate redefines what is possible. [1:13] So please join me in welcoming our 2026 commencement speaker, Mr. Sean Evans. [1:20] Thank you, and thank you for the kind words, Chancellor Isbell. [1:34] I'm happy to see you've made a full recovery after our go-round with the wings of death a few weeks ago. [1:39] And good morning, esteemed faculty, families, alumni, and most importantly, graduating class of 2026. [1:50] I'm honored to be here. It's also very humbling. [2:01] There's a long list of prestigious, distinguished people who have stood at this podium before me, [2:08] from Nobel laureates to Pulitzer Prize winners and even an astronaut. [2:15] But this year you get me, a chicken wing talk show host from YouTube. [2:20] Of great esteem and dignity, I'll have you know. [2:23] But I want to say thank you to the University of Illinois for extending me this invitation [2:33] that I promise you surprised me just as much as it's confusing your parents right now. [2:38] So unlike the distinguished speakers who come before me, I feel like I should start by at least explaining myself. [2:48] I host a show called Hot Ones, where I interview some of the most famous people in the world [2:53] while we eat wings doused in progressively spicier hot sauces. [2:58] Over the last decade plus, I've interviewed hundreds of people, [3:03] from icons of broadcasting, top flight athletes, A-list actors, and world-conquering pop stars. [3:12] With the truth serum of hot sauce, the celebrity guests on our show have actually offered up [3:18] some surprisingly profound life advice. [3:21] The legendary late-night host Conan O'Brien reminded us to read widely and read well, [3:29] somehow summoning the mental strength to reference Chaucer and Don Quixote [3:34] after taking a swig of Da Bomb Beyond Insanity straight out of the bottle. [3:39] The streaming superstar Kai Sinat, who by the way has a career that didn't even exist when I graduated, [3:48] he reminded me that slow motion is better than no motion. [3:54] A gentle reminder that incremental steps towards a goal is much better than doing nothing at all, [4:01] as I always say, take life one wing at a time. [4:05] Then, there was fellow University of Illinois alum Nick Offerman, [4:12] that's right, who actually stood at this very podium for commencement speech back in 2017, [4:19] and he instilled the value of building and repairing things, saying on the show, [4:26] a person who can fix what's broken, whether it's a chair or a relationship, [4:31] will always be someone who's in need. [4:34] And then finally, rock star Dave Grohl, who said after eating the last dab, [4:41] it's not about your mouth, it's about your butthole. [4:47] A profound reminder that the test of any experience oftentimes comes after it's over. [4:58] As silly as Hot Ones is on paper, it's given me a life beyond anything I ever could have dreamed. [5:03] From entertaining millions of fans all across the world, [5:06] to being parodied on Saturday Night Live, [5:09] to appearing in Super Bowl commercials, [5:11] and performing alongside Stephen Colbert at the Kennedy Center. [5:15] If nothing else, I stand on this stage as a living testament [5:20] to how unpredictable life can be. [5:23] Along the way, though, I've learned to take it one wing at a time. [5:27] I grew up in Crystal Lake, Illinois, [5:31] which is about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago. [5:35] That's good to hear. [5:36] Got the 815 contingent in the building. [5:39] Here's what Illinois gave me that no coastal master of fine arts ever could. [5:46] The complete absence of anyone telling me I was special before I'd earned it. [5:52] The Midwest doesn't hand you confidence. [5:55] It makes you build it. [5:56] Growing up in Illinois, studying here, [6:00] it makes you work for pats on the back. [6:02] And that's good preparation for the real world, [6:05] where trust me, no one cares until you give them a reason to. [6:09] It can be uncomfortable and deeply unglamorous, [6:12] but believe me when I say that it is a gift. [6:15] U of I also fostered in me a sense of myself creatively. [6:20] One of my lasting memories here were the late nights that I spent at Gregory Hall, [6:25] editing video packages. [6:27] That's what I'm talking about, my college of media in the back. [6:30] Editing video packages until 2 o'clock in the morning. [6:36] There was something about the stillness, the silence on campus, [6:40] that I think gave me an outsized focus. [6:43] And to this day, my best work, it comes in the middle of the night. [6:48] In the studio before an interview, I liked the place silent, [6:52] because it brings me back to the habits that I formed here as a student. [6:57] These are not things that I learned in a writer's room in New York. [7:00] They're habits I learned right here in Champaign. [7:04] There was also a professor here as well, John Paul, [7:08] who's sitting right in the front row here. [7:10] John Paul is someone who told me essentially that I wasn't terrible at this. [7:16] That I had a career in broadcasting if I wanted it bad enough. [7:20] And at 20 years old, someone telling you, you can do this is everything. [7:26] And I took that energy with me from Champaign to New York and Hollywood. [7:32] John, while I'm in town, let's get tacos again. [7:35] What do you say? [7:36] Here's the thing about Hot Ones that I think is worth saying it out loud, [7:48] because it took me a while to understand it myself. [7:51] What you see on screen, the wings, the sweating, [7:56] the celebrities cursing me out after eating Blair's Megadeth sauce with liquid rage. [8:01] That's really only 5% of the job. [8:05] The other 95% is preparation. [8:09] Reading, watching, listening. [8:12] If I'm interviewing Ariana Grande, [8:15] her music becomes the soundtrack of my life for a week. [8:18] If Matthew McConaughey is coming in the studio, [8:21] I'm ending every night with a double feature. [8:24] And if Shaquille O'Neal is coming into the studio, [8:27] I'm watching every documentary and highlight reel on YouTube. [8:30] If a job is defined by what you do the most, [8:34] I'm not an interviewer, I'm a student. [8:37] And the reason I'm standing here today, I honestly believe this, [8:41] is because I never stop being one. [8:43] Through this cartoon existence I have, [8:46] interviewing famous people over spicy wings, [8:48] I've come to appreciate, more than ever, [8:51] that everyone has to start somewhere, [8:53] and we're all just figuring it out. [8:56] I've sat across from world-class athletes, [8:58] who've seen genuinely nervous, [9:00] staring at me from across the table. [9:02] I've seen Oscar award-winning actors sweat through their shirts, [9:06] and world tour headlining pop stars, reduced to tears. [9:10] One of the things that I love to research and ask guests about the show, [9:15] it's their first jobs, [9:17] the things they did before they were famous. [9:19] And that's not because these tend to be anecdotes filled with meaning, [9:24] or great life lessons. [9:26] It's actually just for the pure comedic value, [9:28] because most of the time they were terrible. [9:31] Kevin Hart was a shoe salesman, [9:34] before he ever sold out an arena as a stand-up. [9:37] Hugh Jackman worked as a birthday clown, [9:41] before he ever became Wolverine. [9:43] And I, for my part, [9:45] used to do architectural boat tours of the Chicago River, [9:48] before I ever made a dime on camera. [9:51] I did love that job, I loved that job, [9:57] but the point is, where you start is not where you'll end up. [10:00] Your next move after you leave campus, [10:03] it's just the first step, like I always say, [10:06] one wing at a time. [10:08] As wild and unpredictable as my life has been, [10:12] the one thing that has remained consistent [10:15] is the group of like-minded collaborators that I'm surrounded by. [10:21] People who are willing to believe and commit to a dumb idea [10:25] just as much as I did, for dramatic effect. [10:31] My producers, Dom and Victoria, [10:36] who showed up for me when the show was nothing, [10:40] to my brother Gavin, [10:41] who's done more research on celebrities [10:43] than any human being on Earth, [10:45] to our editor, Colin, who we discovered [10:47] making Hot Ones meme edits for fun, [10:50] and then uploading them to Reddit, [10:52] Sarah Honda, who runs my entire life, [10:55] and my partner, Chris Schoenberger, [10:57] who gave me the best dumb idea ever. [10:59] To interview celebrities while eating [11:01] increasingly spicy chicken wings, [11:03] which has since become a media company that we now run, [11:07] with more than 60 full-time employees, [11:09] including my camera and sound guys, [11:11] many of them have been with me since day one. [11:14] In fact, some of them are with me today, literally. [11:19] Hi, Dom. [11:20] Hi, Sarah. [11:21] What's up, Gavin? [11:22] Hi, Victoria. [11:23] Eleven years in, I don't do this show because of the wings. [11:29] Believe me, trust me, it is not the wings. [11:31] I show up because of who's on the other side of the camera [11:35] when I'm eating them. [11:36] The spark of an idea ultimately means nothing [11:40] if there's not a team to nurture and sustain it. [11:43] So if you find those people, don't let them go. [11:45] I'm going to wrap up here in just a second, [11:48] but before I go any further, [11:50] I want to acknowledge someone who is not here today, [11:53] but if I know her at all, she is absolutely watching. [11:58] My mom was an Illini. [12:00] This was her school. [12:03] And when I was a teenager, [12:14] before we lost her to a battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, [12:17] one of the last conversations that we ever had [12:20] was her curiosity about where I was going to go to college. [12:24] I chose Illinois. [12:25] I've thought about that conversation a thousand times since, [12:31] whether she knew what she was doing, [12:33] if she was planting a seed, [12:35] if going here was her way of keeping me close. [12:40] So mom, I don't know if you can see this. [12:42] The sea of orange and blue, [12:44] the families in the stands, [12:46] these extraordinary students in their caps and gowns. [12:51] But if you can look at us, [12:55] who would have thought not me, [12:57] but I know that you did. [12:58] Thank you. [13:00] Don't worry. I'm going to make it. [13:08] I'll get to the finish line [13:11] because I'm here on the proverbial wing 10 [13:14] of this commencement speech class of 2026. [13:17] This is your moment. [13:18] I don't care if the last couple of years didn't exactly go to plan. [13:22] This is for the 2 a.m. panic that you had the night before the final, [13:27] the class that you had to take three times, [13:29] the semester that nearly broke you. [13:32] It's all in the past because you're sitting here [13:34] in Gee's Memorial Stadium with a degree from the University of Illinois, [13:39] the best university in the world, [13:42] and no one can take that away from you. [13:46] So for right now, just right now, [13:51] don't worry about what happens next. [13:53] Savor the flavor of this wing. [13:56] Through hard work, you've discovered something important about yourself. [14:01] You learn to be a student and to always stay curious. [14:04] The person to your left, the person to your right. [14:07] You battled through the trenches. [14:09] You've made it to the other side. [14:11] You've learned something about yourself, [14:13] and you don't need to know what happens next. [14:16] You just need to be ready for the heat. [14:18] And as you celebrate graduation today, [14:21] remember what that really means. [14:23] You are prepared, and now there's nothing left to do [14:27] but roll out the red carpet for you. [14:29] This camera, this camera, this camera. [14:31] Congratulations, class of 2026, and thank you very much. [14:35] That's pretty good. [14:59] Not bad, Sean.