Its a stupid song, and, uh, it doesnt really mean anything. The video continues. During the last 15 minutes of "Make Happy," Burnham turns the comedy switch down a bit and begins talking to the audience about how his comedy is almost always about performing itself because he thinks people are, at all times, doing a "performance" for one another. Went out to look for a reason to hide again. Some of the narrative of the show can be indulgently overheated, playing into clichs about the process of the brooding artist, but Burnham has anticipated this and other criticisms, and integrated them into the special, including the idea that drawing attention to potential flaws fixes them. Or was it an elaborate callback to his earlier work, planted for fans seeking evidence that art is lie? Burnham's career as a young, white, male comedian has often felt distinct from his peers because of the amount of public self-reflection and acknowledgment of his own privileges that he does on stage and off screen. Initially, this seems like a pretty standard takedown of the basic bitch stereotype co-opted from Black Twitter, until the aspect ratio widens and Burnham sings a shockingly personal, emotional caption from the same feed. You know, as silly as that one is, some of the other ones are more sedate. newsletter, On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness.. A college student navigates life and school while dealing with a unique predicament he's living with a beautiful former K-pop sensation. The whole song ping pongs between Burnham's singing character describing a very surface-level, pleasant definition of the world functioning as a cohesive ecosystem and his puppet, Socko, saying that the truth is the world functions at a much darker level of power imbalance and oppression. It's an instinct that I have where I need everything that I write to have some deeper meaning or something, but it's a stupid song and it doesn't really mean anything, and it's pretty unlikable that I feel this desperate need to be seen as intelligent.". He's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. I'm talking to you, get the f--- up.". Burnham then kicks back into song, still addressing his audience, who seem unsure of whether to laugh, applaud, or sit somberly in their chairs.
Bo Burnham's 'Inside Is he content with its content?
Bo Burnham Underneath the Steve Martin-like formal trickery has always beaten the heaving heart of a flamboyantly dramatic theater kid. This is especially true for Patreon campaigns that give fans direct access to creators on platforms like Discord.
Bo Burnham It's an emergence from the darkness. If we continue to look at it from the lens of a musical narrative, this is the point at which our protagonist realizes he's failed at his mission. Burnham makes it textual, too. Went out to look for a reason to hide again. So when you get to the end of a song, it often just kind of cuts to something else. He takes a break in the song to talk about how he was having panic attacks on stage while touring the "Make Happy" special, and so he decided to stop doing live shows. Burnham wrote out: "Does it target those who have been disenfranchised in a historical, political, social, economic and/or psychological context?". Burnham reacts to his reaction to his reaction to his reaction, focusing so intently on his body and image that he panics, stops the videoand then smiles at his audience, thanking them for watching. Maybe we'll call it isolation theater. That YouTube commenter might be understood by Burnham if they were to meet him. Now, hes come a long way since his previous specials titled What. and Make Happy, where his large audiences roared with laughter Copyright 2021 NPR. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment.
Bo Burnham's Netflix Special, 'Inside It's just Burnham, his room, the depressive-sound of his song, and us watching as his distorted voice tries to convince us to join him in that darkness. Might not help, but still, it couldn't hurt.". Also, Burnham's air conditioner is set to precisely 69 degrees throughout this whole faux music video. "The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all," is another of Burnham's lyrics in this song that seems to speak to the idea that civilization is nearing collapse, and also touches on suicidal ideation. "And I spent that time trying to improve myself mentally. WebBo's transcripts on Scraps From The Loft. Theres always been a tension in his comedy between an ironic, smarty-pants cleverness and an often melodramatic point of view. Toward the end, he appears completely naked behind his keyboard. The special is set almost entirely in one cluttered room. "Problematic" is a roller coaster of self-awareness, masochism, and parody. But on the other hand, it is lyrically so playful. It's conscious of self. "Goodbye sadness, hello jokes!". He's showing us how terrifying it can be to present something you've made to the world, or to hear laughter from an audience when what you were hoping for was a genuine connection. He's self-evaluating his own visual creation in the same way people will often go back to look at their Instagram stories or posts to see how it looks after they've shared it. Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. Come and watch the skinny kid with a / Steadily declining mental health, and laugh as he attempts / To give you what he cannot give himself. Like Struccis Fake Friends documentary, this song is highlighted in Anuska Dhars video essay, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness. Burnhams work consistently addresses his relationship with his audience, the ways he navigates those parasocial relationships, and how easy they can be to exploit. Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. And he's done virtually no press about it. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. The first comes when Burnham looks directly into the camera as he addresses the audience, singing, Are you feeling nervous? And I think that, 'Oh if I'm self-aware about being a douchebag it'll somehow make me less of a douchebag.' ", The Mayo Clinic defines depersonalization-derealization disorder as occurring "when you persistently or repeatedly have the feeling that you're observing yourself from outside your body or you have a sense that things around you aren't real, or both.
Review: Bo Burnham's 'Inside Bo Burnhams 2021 special, Inside. In the song, Burnham specifically mentions looking up "derealization," a disorder that may "feel like you're living in a dream. Burnham starts spiraling in a mental health crisis, mentioning suicidal ideation after lamenting his advance into his 30s. This sketch, like the "White Woman Instagram" song, shows one of Burnham's writing techniques of bringing a common Internet culture into a fictionalized bit. I like this song, Burnham says, before pointing out the the lack of modern songs about labor exploitation. Tapping on a synthesizer, he sings about the challenges of isolation as he sits on a cluttered floor, two striking squares of sunlight streaming in through the windows of a dark room. Accuracy and availability may vary. Bo Burnham; former YouTuber, iconic Viner, and acclaimed stand-up comedian has recently released a new Netflix special. Like most of Burnhams specials, it includes comedic songs and creative lighting effects. Fifteen years later, Burnham found himself sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to sit back down at his piano and see if he could once again entertain the world from the claustrophobic confines of a single room. I have a lot of material from back then that I'm not proud of and I think is offensive and I think is not helpful. Now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room, where he's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. So for our own little slice of the world, Burnham's two time spans seem to be referencing the start and end of an era in our civilization. Research and analysis of parasocial relationships usually revolves around genres of performers instead of individuals. And so I think he's always had that stubborn insistence on holding both of those things in his head at the same time. And I'm just wondering, like, how would you describe that? Transcript Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. HOLMES: Yeah. It's a heartbreaking chiding coming from his own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment. So this is how it ends. At the beginning of "Inside," Burnham is not only coming back to that same room, but he's wearing a very similar outfit: jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers picking up right back where he left off.
Bo Burnham Now, the term is applied to how viewers devote time, energy, and emotion to celebrities and content creators like YouTubers, podcasters, and Twitch streamers people who do not know they exist. It's like Burnham's special has swallowed you whole, bringing you fully into his mind at last. Burnham has said in interviews that his inspiration for the character came from real YouTube videos he had watched, most with just a handful of views, and saw the way young women expressed themselves online. And like those specials, Inside implores fans to think about deeper themes as well as how we think about comedy as a genre. The fun thing about this is he started writing it and recording it early on, so you get to see clips of him singing it both, you know, with the short hair and with the long hair - when he had just started this special and when he was finishing it. Yes, Bo Burnham posted a trailer via Twitter on April 28, 2021. The picturesque view of sun-soaked clouds was featured in "Comedy," during the section of the song when Burnham stood up and decided that the only thing he (or his character in the song) could do was "heal the world with comedy.". Not only has his musical range expanded his pastiche of styles includes bebop, synth-pop and peppy show tunes Burnham, who once published a book of poems, has also become as meticulous and creative with his visual vocabulary as his language. "And so today I'm gonna try just getting up, sitting down, going back to work. Mirroring the earlier scene where Burnham went to sleep, now Burnham is shown "waking up.". But we weren't. That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. . WebBo Burnham has been critical of his past self for the edgy, offensive comedy he used to make. In the song "That Funny Feeling," Burnham mentions these two year spans without further explanation, but it seems like he's referencing the "critical window for action to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible. HOLMES: That was NPR's Linda Holmes reviewing Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside." A harsh skepticism of digital life (a life the pandemic has only magnified) is the dominant subject of the special. It's so good to hear your voice. While the other songs have abrupt endings, or harsh transitions, "That Funny Feeling" simply fades quietly into darkness perhaps the way Burnham imagines the ending of it all will happen. Burnham quickly shifts from the song to a reaction video of the song itself in the style of a YouTuber or Twitch streamer. All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. Known as "Art is a Lie, Nothing is Real," there's a bit Burnham did at the start of his 2013 special "what."
Bo Burnham One of those is the internet itself. "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. By inserting that Twitch character in this earlier scene, Burnham was seemingly giving a peek into his daily routine. Self-awareness does not absolve anybody of anything.". Burnham is also the main character in the game, a character who is seen moving mechanically around a room. His new Netflix special Inside was directed, written and performed all inside one room. Well now the shots are reversed. The whole video is filmed like one big thirst trap as he sweats and works out. The battery is full, but no numbers are moving. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Oops. Were complicated. Thought modern humans have been around for much longer than 20,000 years, that's around how long ago people first migrated to North America. Once he's decided he's done with the special, Burnham brings back all the motifs from the earlier songs into "Goodbye," his finale of this musical movie. MARTIN: So as you can hear in that bit, he sounds something like other comedic songwriters who do these kind of parody or comedy songs, whether it's Tom Lehrer, Weird Al or whoever. But when reading songs like Dont Wanna Know and All Eyes On Me between the lines, Inside can help audiences better identify that funny feeling when they start feeling like a creator is their friend. Partway through the song, the battery icon switches to low and starts blinking in warning as if death is imminent. He uploaded it to YouTube, a then barely-known website that offered an easy way for people to share videos, so he could send it to his brother. Remember how Burnham's older, more-bearded self popped up at the beginning of "Inside" when we were watching footage of him setting up the cameras and lighting? Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "BO BURNHAM: INSIDE"). He is now back to where he was, making jokes alone in his room, an effort to escape his reality. Burnham uses vocal tuning often throughout all of his specials. WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. Now, you heard me struggling to describe what this is, so help me out. They Cloned Tyrone. Burnham's earlier Netflix specials and comedy albums. And maybe the rest of us are ready, too. I don't know exactly how it tracks his experience, Bo Burnham, the person, right? Inside doesnt give clear answers like parasocial relationships good or parasocial relationships bad, because those answers do not, and cannot, exist. The tropes he says you may find on a white woman's Instagram page are peppered with cultural appropriation ("a dreamcatcher bought from Urban Outfitters") and ignorant political takes ("a random quote from 'Lord of the Rings' misattributed to Martin Luther King"). this breakdown of 31 details you might have missed in "Inside,". I was not, you know, having these particular experiences. Inside takes topics discussed academically, analytically, and delivers them to a new audience through the form of a comedy special by a widely beloved performer. our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. MARTIN: So a lot of us, you know, artists, journalists have been trying to describe what this period has been like, what has it meant, what's been going on with us. Its called INSIDE, and it will undoubtedly strike your hearts forevermore. "Robert's been a little depressed," he sings (referring to himself by his birthname). He points it at himself as he sways, singing again: Get your fuckin hands up / Get on out of your seat / All eyes on me, all eyes on me.. The songs from the special were released on streaming platforms on June 10, 2021. And the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. The song begins with a fade in from back, the shot painfully close to Burnhams face as he looks off to the side. Many of his songs begin seriously, then shift into the joke, but this one doesnt. Some of this comes through in how scenes are shot and framed: its common for the special to be filmed, projected onto Burnhams wall (or, literally, himself), and then filmed again for the audience. ", "I do not think my intention was homophobic, but what is the implicit comedy of that song if you chase it all the way down? The frame is intimate, and after such an intense special, something about that intimacy feels almost dangerous, like you should be preparing for some kind of emotional jump scare. The final shot is of him looking positively orgasmic, eyes closed, on the cross.
Bo Burnham Viewer discretion is advised. His virtuosic new special, Inside (on Netflix), pushes this trend further, so far that it feels as if he has created something entirely new and unlikely, both sweepingly cinematic and claustrophobically intimate, a Zeitgeist-chasing musical comedy made alone to an audience of no one. See our analysis of the end of the special, and why Burnham's analogy for depression works so well. WebA Girl and an Astronaut. The first half is dominated by sharp, silly satires of the moment, like a visually precise and hilarious song about social media vanity, White Womans Instagram, and a commercial for a woke brand consultant. BURNHAM: (Singing) Does anybody want to joke when no one's laughing in the background? A weekly roundup of the best things from Polygon, By submitting your email, you agree to our, Bo Burnhams Inside begs for our parasocial awareness, Sign up for the And while its an ominous portrait of the isolation of the pandemic, theres hope in its existence: Written, designed and shot by Burnham over the last year inside a single room, it illustrates that theres no greater inspiration than limitations. I've been hiding from the world and I need to reenter.'
Inside That cloud scene was projected onto Burnham during the section of "Comedy" when Burnham stood up right after the God-like voice had given him his directive to "heal the world with comedy." The second emotional jump scare comes when Burnham monologues about how he stopped performing live because he started having panic attacks on stage, which is not a great place to have them. The monologue increases that sense of intimacy; Burnham is letting the audience in on the state of his mental health even before the global pandemic. And then the funniest thing happened.". This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. TikTok creator @TheWoodMother made a video about how Burnham's "Inside" is its own poioumenon thanks to the meta scenes of Burnham setting up lights and cameras, not to mention the musical numbers like "Content" and "Comedy" that all help to tell the story of Burnham making this new special. Under the TV section, he has "adults playing twister" (something he referenced in "Make Happy" when he said that celebrity lip-syncing battles were the "end of culture") and "9 season love letter to corporate labor" (which is likely referencing "The Office"). Years later, the comedian told NPR's Terry Gross that performing the special was so tough that he was having panic attacks on stage. While this special is the product of evolution, Burnham is pointing out its also a regression. Theyre complicated. All Eyes on Me also earned Bo his first Grammy win for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2022 Grammys. At the second level of the reaction video, Burnham says: "I'm being a little pretentious. Relieved to be done? But he knows how to do this. And did you have any favorites?
20. It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. Throughout the song and its accompanying visuals, Burnham is highlighting the "girlboss" aesthetic of many white women's Instagram accounts. Inside, a new Netflix special written, performed, directed, shot, and edited by comedian Bo Burnham, invokes and plays with many forms. "This show is called 'what.,' and I hope there are some surprises for you," he says as he goes to set down the water bottle. Here's a little bit of that. This is a heartbreaking chiding coming from Burnham's own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. "The world needs direction from a white guy like [you] who is healing the world with comedy. Burnham achieved a similar uncanny sense of realism in his movie "Eighth Grade," the protagonist of which is a 13-year-old girl with extreme social anxiety who makes self-help YouTube videos. "Got it? But I described it to a couple of people as, you know, this looks like what the inside of my head felt like because of his sort of restlessness, his desire to create, create, create. Most sources discuss fictional characters, news anchors, childrens show hosts, or celebrity culture as a whole. This plays almost like a glitch and goes unexplained until later in the special when a sketch plays out with Burnham as a Twitch streamer who is testing out a game called "INSIDE" (in which the player has to have a Bo Burnham video game character do things like cry, play the piano, and find a flashlight in order to complete their day). As he shows in this new sketch, he's aware at a meta level that simply trying to get ahead of the criticism that could be tossed his way is itself a performance sometimes. And then, of course, he had previous standup comedy specials. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. Bo Burnham also uploaded Welcome to the Internet and White Womans Instagram on his YouTube channel. When that future-Burnham appears, it's almost like a precursor to what he'll have shown us by the end of the special: That both he, and his audience, could never have known just how brutal the next year was about to be. It chronicles Burnhams life during the pandemic and his journey creating the special. HOLMES: I liked a bunch of the songs in this, and a lot of them are silly songs about the things that his comedy has already been concerned with for a long time, right? He was alone. On the other two sides of that question ("no" and "not sure") the flowchart asks if it could be "interpreted" as mean (if so, then it's "not funny") or if it "punches down.". Web9/10. He had a role in the film "Promising Young Woman." And it has a lot of very clever and very quick wordplay about the specific things you can get on the internet. It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. But then, just as Burnham is vowing to always stay inside, and lamenting that he'll be "fully irrelevant and totally broken" in the future, the spotlight turns on him and he's completely naked. Something went wrong. But unlike many of us, Burnham was also hard at work on a one-man show directed, written and performed all by himself. BURNHAM: (Singing) The live-action "Lion King," the Pepsi halftime show, 20,000 years of this, seven more to go. But he meant to knock the water over, yeah yeah yeah, art is a lie nothing is real.
Bo Burnham Please enter a valid email and try again. MARTIN: You know, about that, because it does move into a deeply serious place at some point. Depression acts like an outside force, one that is rather adept at convincing our minds to simply stay in bed, to not care, and to not try anymore. Likewise. Not only is this whiteboard a play on the classic comedy rule that "tragedy plus time equals comedy," but it's a callback to Burnham's older work. The arrogance is taught or it was cultivated. HOLMES: It felt very true to me, not in the literal sense. Well, well, buddy you found it, now come out with your hands up we've got you surrounded.". Other than Fred Rogers, Bo Burnham is one of the most cited single individual creators when discussing parasocial relationships. But he's largely been given a pass by his fans, who praise his self-awareness and new approach. Burnham's hair is shorter in those initial behind-the-scenes moments, but his future-self has a longer, unkempt beard and messy hair. But Burnham doesn't put the bottle down right, and it falls off the stool. He's freely admitting that self-awareness isn't enough while also clearly unable to move away from that self-aware comedic space he so brilliantly holds. His career evolved through YouTube, MTV, Vine, his movie "Eighth Grade," and now Netflix's "Inside." With menacing horror movie sound effects and hectic, dreamy camerawork, what becomes clear is Burnhams title has a double meaning: referring to being inside not just a room, but also his head.
Bo Burnham Its a feat, the work of a gifted experimentalist whose craft has caught up to his talent. Under stand up, Burnham wrote "Middle-aged men protecting free speech by humping stools and telling stories about edibles" and "podcasts. Coined in 1956 by researchers Donald Horton and Richard Wohl, the term initially was used to analyze relationships between news anchors who spoke directly to the audience and that audience itself. LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Thank you, Michel. Entertainment correspondent Kim Renfro ranked them in ascending order of greatness. On the simplest level, Inside is the story of a comic struggling to make a funny show during quarantine and gradually losing his mind. WebA biotech genius tries to bounce back from the depths of grief with help from his son, who works to escape his dads shadow and save the family business.
A Detailed Breakdown of How Bo Burnham BO BURNHAM: (Singing) If you'd have told me a year ago that I'd be locked inside of my home, I would have told you a year ago, interesting, now leave me alone. Burnham is especially aware as a creator constantly reflecting on his own life. Bo Burnham: Inside, was written, edited, and directed by the talent himself and the entire show is shot in one room. Just as often, Burnhams shot sequencing plays against the meaning of a song, like when he breaks out a glamorous split screen to complement a comic song about FaceTiming with his mom. The aesthetic telegraphs authenticity and vulnerability, but the specials stunning final shots reveal the misdirection at work, encouraging skepticism of the performativity of such realism. He takes it, and Burnham cries robotically as a tinny version of the song about being stuck in the room plays.