Chloe Wright
Editor-in-Chief
Sewanee alumni and students, a former Vice Chancellor, and community members packed the Sewanee Bookstore on Oct. 10 to hear Saturday Night Live veteran and Smart Girls co-founder Meredith Walker (C ‘91) discuss her self-help book Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice with two of her closest classmates, two-time Pulitzer winner Jon Meacham (C ‘91) and Sewanee basketball hall of famer Kit Walsh (C ‘91).
Walker said the book’s message applies to Sewanee students and anyone 17 to 26 years old. “We feel like we know our values, but those might be more inherited from people around us than we’ve really taken the time to examine and make them our own,” she said. “Have you ever really stopped to think, what would that be for me? Is it more about how my life looks, or will it be how I feel in the life I’m living? So, introducing those concepts is what I will hope to do to students.”
Her message on that rainy Saturday afternoon was also a demonstration of the value of Sewanee friends. An enlarged graduation photo of Walker, Meacham, and Walsh in their academic gowns was displayed above the trio, bordered by the handwritten logo: Academic equals. Walsh told the crowd that he and Walker “received our gowns about an hour before graduation.” Prompting laughter, Walsh added, “Jon did the gowning.”
A journalist and former Purple writer, Walker began her media career on legendary journalist Linda Ellerbee’s award-winning educational news show for young viewers, Nick News. In addition to becoming head of talent at Saturday Night Live, Walker’s career has included serving as a journalism envoy for the U.S. Department of State; educating girls in Malawi, Syria, Haiti and Jordan; and working with women’s and gender initiatives for the United Nations. She and Golden Globe winner Amy Poehler also cofounded Smart Girls, an organization dedicated to supporting girls through a YouTube channel and online community, as well as educational opportunities and events.
Walker said that her inspiration for her book came from her activism and wide-ranging work. Meeting with young people and sharing memories from teen years with famous friends like Poehler taught her that they all worry about the same things as they move through adolescence and into their 20s. “It was the pressure that they were feeling to have their lives figured out, right off the bat, and be making these very serious decisions,” she said.
Walker added that her book’s title, Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice, refers to age-old advice that she believes misses the point: how do you find out who you are? So, she wrote chapters that Gen Z teenagers would relate to and included prompts and questions. “And that ends up being the most interesting part of the book,” she said. “It’s the thoughts that you were able to recognize about yourself and the opinions you form.”
Meacham and Walsh, both fathers of teen girls, asked how parenting and girlhood have changed over the decades. “The role of social media in transforming and exacerbating the problems you’re talking about is at a nuclear level,” said Meacham.
Social media has positive effects, Walker responded, but it also harms girls’ self-esteem on purpose. “And the more the girls were reminded of that and that they’re being manipulated, that kind of helped them see that maybe all of this isn’t the end all be all or all the truth.”
Walker told the crowd stories from her years as head of talent at Saturday Night Live, where she worked from 1999 to 2002. Those ranged from getting grilled by SNL creator Lorne Michaels on broadcasting terms to watching U2 lead singer Bono fly in the air. She talked about how all those experiences helped her get used to being outside her comfort zone. “You don’t just ‘have’ confidence,” she said. “It develops from putting yourself in situations and unfamiliar situations, or making mistakes, and knowing that you can, you have the capability to make it through over and over again, and that’s what builds confidence. So I built a lot of confidence when I was there.”
When Walker and Poehler founded Smart Girls, they were able to make small but noticeable changes in media culture. They asked celebrities on red carpets about their craft instead of their outfits. “It became known as Smart Girls Ask,” she said. “And that did kind of change the way red carpets were done from then on.”
Walker and two classmates interspersed serious exchanges with cracks about their Sewanee days. Walsh prompted the audience to roar with laughter when he asked Meacham if he remembered Walker’s “various vegetarian stages, where she would ask…to hand her the hamburger under the table.”
Meacham joked about Walker’s “semester abroad” — her temporary exile to Houston due to poor freshman grades. Walker told the crowd she had to take summer classes to be able to return to Sewanee.
Walsh said he and Meacham were impressed that Walker acknowledged such struggles in her book.“I read the book, and I thought, ‘you’re vulnerable.’ There were things I thought Meredith sucked it up and actually wrote that, and said, ‘You know, this was hard.’”
Walker told the crowd that such experiences were important parts of learning. “There’s a chapter about failure in the book because we start taking on a mistake, and it becomes our identity. Instead of ‘That happened,’ it becomes, ‘there’s something wrong with me.’” She added that she was inspired by reading stories in which her role models admitted failure. “And I knew that I would have to include something like that to earn the trust of readers. Because you gotta be legit.”
When Walker and her friends invited audience questions, the discussion included current events. Maryetta Anschutz (C ’97) asked what both young men and women need to understand to help change or “transition” the culture in the wake of a lawsuit recently filed against Cornell University and seven current and former male students by a female former student. The lawsuit alleges that the woman was gang raped at the men’s fraternity house on the Cornell campus.
“It starts from the top down, how people in leadership, and with a lot of power, how they talk about women,” Walker responded, drawing applause. She added that having male friends “of high character” like Meacham and Walsh “makes a big, big difference. And these were my besties, my senior year, especially, and I know that that really helped propel me into the world in a good place.”
Walker closed by reading from the final chapter of her book: “What comes next? Go live your life. Your real life isn’t waiting for you at the next milestone… It’s happening right now in small, surprising moments. The laugh-out-loud conversation with your best friend. The song you sing along with, the detour that turns into an adventure. Notice these moments and let them teach you something about yourself.
“Be curious about people whose lives are nothing like yours. Take risks, keep playing, and keep asking questions. Don’t ditch what you love just because someone else thinks it’s uncool. Liking what you like is cool. You don’t have to know exactly where you’re headed or what’s next. Plans will change. You will change. That’s okay.
“The world doesn’t need a perfect version of you. It just needs you. Your quirks, your ideas, your unique self. The life you want is built, one choice, one experience, and one step at a time. So take your time, trust yourself. And remember, you’re doing great. I’m rooting for you every step of the way. P.S. Be yourself.”