Harris-Perry closed her speech with a reference to Charlotte's Web, the children's book about the friendship between Wilbur the pig and Charlotte the spider. The metaphor worked on multiple levels: Wilbur is naive and vulnerable, facing his own mortality (his future as bacon), and Charlotte saves him not through power but through craft — literally, by weaving words into her web. The choice of Charlotte as the model was deliberate. Charlotte is 'fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty' — not the cuddly friend you'd expect. Harris-Perry told graduates that their Charlotte 'is probably not packaged neatly' and 'probably never nods and smiles or says declarative statements like a question.' The ideal friend and ally is not someone who makes you comfortable but someone who tells you the truth and fights for you. The deeper point was about the limits of individual courage. In a culture that celebrates solo heroism, Harris-Perry argued that bravery is not a solitary virtue. 'You're going to need for somebody to write in their web, "No, really, you are Some Pig,"' she said. Everyone needs someone who believes in them more fiercely than they believe in themselves.