Lifestyle

“RIP Robin Gibb” — what does that even mean on Twitter? Monica Hesse dissects the showy phenomenon of social media mourning: “When celebrities die, we become more aware of our ephemeral existence. Everyone dies, even a Bee Gee, and bleating out tweets is so much less about the musicians than it is about us. In one way or another, it always is.”

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief? Or Kenneth the page? Richard Cordray knows who you think he looks like, and he seems to be cool with it, reports In the Loop.

“We figured it out that Bryce was 8 when Adam [LaRoche] got married.”

— Ryan Zimmerman on talented-beyond-his-years teammate Bryce Harper, a 19-year-old who seems to be fitting in well with the grown men of the Nats, reports Adam Kilgore.

President Obama congratulates graduates of US Air Force class 2012 Wednesday during their graduation ceremony. (JEWEL SAMAD?AFP/Getty Images) It’s graduation season, which means commencement speakers trying so hard to be funny and memorable — and usually failing. (Remember your college grad address? Thought not.) Colleges fight for VIP speakers because they make headlines with their Life Lessons. And so we present the The Reliable Source’s annual, all-purpose keynote address (with input from our colleague Jenna Johnson) stitched together from the best lines of Commencement 2012.

Mitt Romney at Liberty University. (Jim Watson/Getty Images) “This is awesome. (1) We all dress up in medieval scholastic robes with their ecclesiastical overtones. The speaker struggles to say something memorable. Everyone else struggles to stay awake. The simultaneous attainment of these two goals is pathetically rare. Why even bother? (2)

“I told them when they called, I said, ‘You know, I dropped out of GW.’ It was my third and final attempt at college. And they said, ‘Oh, no, that’s cool. Come on ahead.’ (3) So I plan to slow jam the commencement address. (4)

“On this most auspicious of days, I want you to take a breath and reflect: Don’t blow through this day even if you’re overwhelmed with family or maybe you’re just a little bit drunk. (5)

Christian youths protesting Lady Gaga in Manila last week. (Bullit Marquez/Associated Press)

• More trouble for Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Ball Tour in Asia: The pop star managed to insult fans in Thailand with a tweet Wednesday night: “I just landed in Bangkok baby! Ready for 50,000 screaming Thai monsters. I wanna get lost in a lady market and buy fake Rolex.” Unclear if mentioning the ladies or the knockoffs was more offensive, but some fans are calling for a boycott of her concert Friday, reports the Associated Press. “Welcome to the land of counterfeit products, love,” Thai fan Nont Armarttasn posted on Facebook. “I’m sure there are plenty of fake Gaga CDs, too.”

• The Ukrainian reporter slapped by Will Smith at the Moscow premiere of “Men in Black 3” has apologized but says he wasn’t really trying to lock lips with the actor. “Now I understand it was too much,” Vitalii Sediuk told Hip Hollywood. “But I just tried to kiss him in cheek, and he moved his head so fast, so then it turned out as if I wanted to kiss him in the lip or in the ear. It was chaotic.” Sediuk says he “deeply” respects Smith and will stick to a handshake if there’s a next time.

• A former nanny for Sharon Stone filed suit Wednesday in L.A. Superior Court, claiming she was belittled for her religious beliefs and fired after Stone discovered the woman received overtime pay, reports the New York Post. Erlinda Elemen wants unpaid wages, damages and penalties; a rep for Stone called the suit “frivolous.”

(Video: Jennifer Miller’s “The Year of the Gadfly” book trailer)

So this is odd: Brian Williams, Christiane Amanpour and former Secretary of State James Baker in a YouTube video promoting a new coming-of-age novel.

Jennifer Miller (Diana Levine) Huh? Turns out that it’s a book trailer, the latest marketing tool for writers struggling for a foothold in the shrinking publishing business.

Jennifer Miller, author of “Year of the Gadfly,” spent a year getting VIPs to read the opening lines of her story. She then e-mailed the finished product “to every single journalist we knew.”

(What, based on the assumption that journalists can’t resist writing about other journalists? Grrr — we fell for it, didn’t we?)

(Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

• Buzz Aldrin dining with what looked like a multi-generational array of relatives at Proof in Penn Quarter Tuesday night. The second man on the moon, a frequent visitor to D.C., is back again this week for the International Space Development Conference.