TEDxCornell Unveils 2023 Theme: “Shut Up Oh My God Just Shut Up Please”

STATLER AUDITORIUM— In an effort to streamline TEDxCornell’s 2023 event and increase ticket sales, organizers have unveiled the overarching theme of this year’s conference: telling presenters to stop talking.

“About ten minutes into every TED talk, we all have the same thought: ‘is this ever going to end?’” explained event coordinator Alex Thompson ‘23. “At some point between the fifth and sixth subpoint about procrastination, it’s inevitable that most of the audience just wants you to get to the point already. To really dig into that feeling, every speech this year will have one common connection: they will all take about ten full minutes longer than they have any right to take.”

While the precise time limits of each speech will not be known until the speakers leave the stage, TEDxCornell staff are confident each speech will perform as advertised, with each speaker adding at least three unrelated personal anecdotes or dubious scientific claims to their existing ideas they have deemed worth sharing.

Audiences have demonstrated extreme excitement for the new theme.

“I absolutely cannot wait for this.” remarked John Mash ‘27. “My favorite part of TED talks are the run-on sentences, the never ending lists of deep universal truths, life advice, or personal stories that only vaguely tie into the speaker’s central thesis. Honestly, if I gave a TED talk, it would be twenty minutes of anecdotes about my dog given in the form of a list of ways to improve your mental health or some shit like that.”

At press time, TEDx event staff have instituted a new policy where any speakers coming in under time will be expected to ad-lib until their talks reach at least fifteen minutes in length.