I went to my nephew’s college graduation yesterday—a fact that makes me feel ancient.  I used to carry this kid on my shoulders and, for a brief period, I even drove two hours every day down to Orange County to pick him up and tutor him after classes. He was kind of failing out of his very expensive private school—a school that charged 40K a year–and I was enlisted to put him back on the right path.

“Don’t worry if you can’t help him.  You’re my last ditch effort.”  My sister–his mother–thought he needed to be medicated, thought he might have ADHD.  I agreed because I’m easily guilted, but it turned out to be a bad idea:  My sister got kind of pissy when he started getting straight A’s immediately.  It turned out he just needed to be supervised.

My nephew ended up graduating from USC Marshall School of Business and it was a brilliant ceremony.  USC is in the heart of Los Angeles, minutes away from Downtown, and it knows how to put on a display in that way that only a Hollywood Industry heavy-hitter with lots of money can.

I’m no stranger to graduations.  I spent almost half my life in academia and I’ve done my fair share of pomp and circumstance.  I’ve donned the funny robes and waited to throw my cap into the air.  I’ve also put on the regalia as faculty, too.

What was interesting for me was that the commencement speaker for the Marshall School graduation was the founder of Tinder—a dating website that has become incredibly popular among young people.  Tinder is one of the kinkier apps—part hook-up app, part dating app—it’s one of these social platforms that is transforming the way that we mate.  Swipe to the left, Swipe to the right—you can unlock a database of images.  For the harshest critics, Tinder is kind of douchey.

I’m used to graduations at institutions with slightly more august speakers.  My own undergrad ceremony featured the accomplished Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes—the man who wrote the classic Terra Nostra.  And the last graduation at my small liberal arts college featured the radical philosopher and activist Angela Davis, the woman with the crazy frizz of signature Afro, who asked the question that upset all the parents:  How does it feel to be graduating in the middle of the war?

Sean Rad, the CEO of Tinder, never graduated from USC.  He dropped out.  But he went on to found the company along with his undergrad friends—a company that “is among the fastest-growing social platforms in history.  Tinder has tens of millions of active users and has created over 11 billion new connections to date”–this, according to the digest on the commencement program.  Perhaps it is the way of the new generation.  Or perhaps it is the way of the business school.  But the choice of Sean Rad made me think  that I am an errant planet floating among space debris–dislodged from the ellipses of my trajectory, becoming increasingly remote from this new generation of interplanetary travelers.

As soon as I saw my nephew on the jumbotron, I headed out to the free food.  There was a nice display of fanciness put out on a fenced in green lawn in that way that only a school with a heavy-hitting endowment musters:  fancy sandwiches on fancy bread with veggie options and the profusion of fruit that is the pride of Southern California.  Strawberries so big and thick and scarlet, you might think they were irradiated with plutonium.

I arrived early to the reception and hogged a prime table.  But I shared it with a nice Japanese American family—three generations—waiting for their man-child.  They carried a huge blown up image of the young boy’s head, wrapped in one of those Macy’s shopping bags you get when you buy bedding.  We all agreed that the ceremony was so impressive.  We dwelled upon a particular moment:  that moment at the beginning of his speech when the CEO of Tinder mentioned that he had never graduated from USC.  “My mom would never believe that this drop-out would be here to address students who have something I don’t.”  That was the moment Dean of the College—James Ellis—rushed up and gave him one of those plastic diploma holders to the hoots and applause of the audience.  There was something so magnanimous and spontaneous about the gesture.

We exchanged our pleasantries—where we were from, who we were waiting for—and the conversation veered toward our own upbringings, the things that are so intimately related to our professional careers:  our colleges, our parents, our neighborhoods, our extracurricular activities as young people.  “I went to Cal State Dominguez Hills,” said the aunt.  “You probably don’t know where that is.”

“I do.  I played piano competitions there every summer.”  I played piano from the age of six to seventeen.  Nothing is more impressive to Asian people than accomplishment in the arena of classical music.

“That’s a long time.  Do you still keep it up?”

“No, that was my mom’s thing,” I said.

“Well, did you get anything out of it?”

“I learned how to size people up in a room as soon as I walked into a competition.   And I learned how to find pleasure in things that I don’t really enjoy.”

Their man-child showed up after a half hour and wanted to leave.  “I’ve been drinking since six o’clock in the morning,” he immediately announced.  He didn’t want to eat the fancy sandwiches.  He said it would be disappointing to eat this food.  “C’mon I just graduated.  I want to eat something really nice.  I feel like I’m going to barf if I don’t.”  The boy was wearing one of those red and gold sashes that had embroidered upon it his various extracurriculars.  I could see he was in a fraternity and I could imagine the lead-up to the graduation.  The Greek lettering was the biggest embroidery—“Let’s get out of here.  I have to return this ugly robe, so if you want pictures, we need to take them now.”

“Of course we want pictures with you in your robes.”

“Then, let’s do it.  Traffic is going to be a bitch if we don’t do it now.”

The mother took a quick bite of her veggie sandwich.  It was already almost 2 and the party was probably starving.  “Well, let me see your diploma first,” said the grandmother.

“There’s nothing inside.”  He opened the little rectangle of brown that looked just like the finish of leather.  “Just a note that says you’ll receive your diploma in three weeks.”