This is the time of year when it starts to get hot, when the swimming pools fill up and

when so many students graduate from so many schools in so many caps and gowns.

Whether it's graduation episodes of our favorite series, high school songs or movies about

the last wild night of high school, we're here to commence a show about commencement.

I'm Stephen Thompson.

And I'm Linda Holmes and today we're talking about graduation and pop culture.

And pop culture happy hour from NPR.

Here with me and Stephen from his home studio is Glenn Weldon of NPR's Culture Desk.

Hi Glenn.

Hey, I'll bring the pump.

You bring the circumstance.

All right.

And also here from her home is Aisha Harris.

Hey Aisha.

Hey there here with the circumstance.

Well, it is always good to have everybody here together.

We are going to dive right in. We will each offer up two examples of graduation related

culture.

Aisha, let's start with you.

Well, I am not the type of person who cares much about the actual graduation ceremony.

I was part of five of them because our culture is obsessed with graduation.

So if you count elementary school, middle school, high school and then undergrad and grad,

...