The song's melody is oddly soothing, and the lyrics are a sly manifestation of the way depression convinces you to stay in its abyss ("It's almost over, it's just begun. Bo Burnham MARTIN: And I understand you were saying that it moves between genres. But the lyrics Burnham sings seem to imply that he wants to be held accountable for thoughtless and offensive jokes of his past: "Father please forgive me for I did not realize what I did, or that I'd live to regret it, times are changing and I'm getting old, are you gonna hold me accountable?". At the forefront of this shift has been Bo Burnham, one of YouTubes earliest stars, who went on to make his own innovative specials with satirical songs backed by theatrical lighting and disembodied voices. Burnhams 2013 special, what., culminates in Burnham, the performer, reacting to pre-recorded versions of himself playing people from his life reacting to his work and fame, trying to capitalize on their tenuous relationship with him. ", He then pulls the same joke again, letting the song play after the audience's applause so it seems like a mistake. HOLMES: Yeah. Bo Burnham, pictured here at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, wrote, directed and performed the entirety of his new Netflix special, Inside, by himself. Though it does have a twist. Not a comedy per se, but a masterpiece nonetheless. Bo Burnham; former YouTuber, iconic Viner, and acclaimed stand-up comedian has recently released a new Netflix special. 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. Some of the things he mentions that give him "that funny feeling" include discount Etsy agitprop (aka communist-themed merchandise) and the Pepsi halftime show. Simply smiling at the irony of watching his own movie come to life while he's still inside? "They say it's like the 'me' generation. In this time-jumping dramedy, a workaholic who's always in a rush now wants life to slow down when he finds himself leaping ahead a year every few hours. And its easier to relax when the video focuses on a separate take of Burnham singing from farther away, the frame now showing the entire room. He is now back to where he was, making jokes alone in his room, an effort to escape his reality. Its a stupid song, and, uh, it doesnt really mean anything. The video continues. Theres always been a tension in his comedy between an ironic, smarty-pants cleverness and an often melodramatic point of view. "Healing the world with comedy, the indescribable power of your comedy," the voice sings. "You say the whole world's ending, honey it already did, you're not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried. Its a lyrically dense song with camerawork that speeds up with its rhythm. And he's done virtually no press about it. Then he moves into a new layer of reaction, where he responds to that previous comment. It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. Teeuwen's performance shows a twisted, codependent relationship between him and the puppet on his hand, something Burnham is clearly channeling in his own sock puppet routine in "Inside.". The label of parasocial relationship is meant to be neutral, being as natural and normal and, frankly, inescapable as familial or platonic relationships. It's a series of musical numbers and skits that are inherently about the creation of comedy itself. They Cloned Tyrone. And many of them discuss their personal connection to the show and their analysis of how Burnham must have been thinking and feeling when he made it. The performer, along with the record label and brand deals, encourage a parasocial relationship for increased profits. that shows this exact meta style. I'm sitting down, writing jokes, singing silly songs, I'm sorry I was gone. 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. Review: Bo Burnham's 'Inside It's full circle from the start of the special, when Burnham sang about how he's been depressed and decided to try just getting up, sitting down, and going back to work. Burnham starts spiraling in a mental health crisis, mentioning suicidal ideation after lamenting his advance into his 30s. The song brings with it an existential dread, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. Likewise. "Got it? of the internet, welcoming everyone with a decadent menu of options while disco lights twirl. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. The hustle to be a working artist usually means delivering an unending churn of content curated specifically for the demands of an audience that can tell you directly why they are upset with you because they did not actually like the content you gave them, and then they can take away some of your revenue for it. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared don't be shy come on in the water's fine."). By keeping that reveal until the end of the special, Burnham is dropping a hammer on the actual at-home audience, letting us know why his mental health has hit an ATL, as he calls it ("all time low"). ", From then on, the narrative of "Inside" follows Burnham returning to his standard comedic style and singing various parody songs like "FaceTime with My Mom" and "White Woman's Instagram.". "And so today I'm gonna try just getting up, sitting down, going back to work. According to a May 2021 Slate article, the piece was filmed at Bo Burnhams Los Angeles guest housethe same room used for June 2016s Are You Happy? and the closing shots of the Make Happy special. He, for example, it starts off with him rhyming carpool karaoke, which is a segment on James Corden's show, with Steve Aoki, who's a DJ. And the very format of it, as I said, it's very much this kind of sinister figure trying to get you interested. And part of it is sometimes he's just in despair. 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. And it's important to remember, you know, this is a piece of theater. MARTIN: You know, about that, because it does move into a deeply serious place at some point. Finally doing basic care tasks for yourself like eating breakfast and starting work in the morning. In Unpaid Intern, Burnham sings about how deeply unethical the position is to the workers in a pastiche of other labor-focused blues. An ethereal voice (which is really just Burnham's own voice with effects over it) responds to Burnham's question while a bright light suddenly shines on his face, as if he's receiving a message from God. But unlike many of us, Burnham was also hard at work on a one-man show directed, written and performed all by himself. Were complicated. 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. If the answer is yes, then it's not funny. For fans who struggle with panic attacks (myself included) its a comfort to see yourself represented in an artist whose work you respect. The incentives of the web, those that reward outrage, excess and sentiment, are the villains of this show. 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. BURNHAM: (Singing) Does anybody want to joke when no one's laughing in the background? When he appeared on NPR's radio show "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross in 2018, the host played a clip of "My Whole Family" and Burnham took his headphones off so he didn't have to relisten to the song. 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. For the song "Comedy," Burnham adopts a persona adjacent to his real life self a white male comedian who is driven to try and help make the world a better place. His hair and beard were shorter, and he was full of inspired energy. Bo Burnham's Netflix Special, 'Inside In the song, Burnham specifically mentions looking up "derealization," a disorder that may "feel like you're living in a dream. 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. After more sung repetitions of get your fuckin hands up, Burnham says, Get up. BURNHAM: (Singing) Start a rumor, buy a broom or send a death threat to a Boomer. MARTIN: And it's deep, too. Get up. 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. Relieved to be done? HOLMES: Thank you. Im talking to you. The first comes when Burnham looks directly into the camera as he addresses the audience, singing, Are you feeling nervous? Mid-song, a spotlight turns on Burnham and shows him completely naked as a voice sings: "Well, well, look who's inside again. .] The whole video is filmed like one big thirst trap as he sweats and works out. Other artists have made works on the wavelength of Repeat Stuff, but few creators with a platform as large as Burnhams return to the topic over and over, touching on it in almost all of their works. It's prison. WebStuck in a passionless marriage, a journalist must choose between her distant but loving husband and a younger ex-boyfriend who has reentered her life. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. His new Netflix special Inside was directed, written and performed all inside one room. Bo Burnham It's progress. Comedian Bo Burnham recently a new comedy special for Netflix aptly titled Inside which was filmed entirely by himself while under lockdown during the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020. And you can roughly think about this, I think, as a series of short videos that are mostly of him singing songs and that are sewn together with a little bit of other material, whether it's shots of him lying in bed or setting up the cameras. WebOn a budget. I think you're getting from him, you know, the entertainment element. See our analysis of the end of the special, and why Burnham's analogy for depression works so well. 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. People experiencing depression often stop doing basic self-care tasks, like showering or laundry or brushing their teeth. Its an origin story of sorts. HOLMES: It felt very true to me, not in the literal sense. At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. "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. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "BO BURNHAM: INSIDE"). I did! Self-awareness does not absolve anybody of anything.". 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. I don't know exactly how it tracks his experience, Bo Burnham, the person, right? ", And last but not least, for social media he put "sexually pranking unsuspecting women at public beaches" and "psychologically abusive parents making rube goldberg machines" alongside "white people using GIFs of Black people widening their eyes.". Like most of Burnhams specials, it includes comedic songs and creative lighting effects. @TheWoodMother made a video about how Burnham's "Inside" is its own poioumenon, which led to his first viral video on YouTube, written in 2006, is about how his whole family thinks he's gay, defines depersonalization-derealization disorder, "critical window for action to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible.". Linda, thank you so much for joining us. Bo Burnham Instead of a live performance, he's recorded himself in isolation over the course of a year. I don't think it's perfectly morally defendable.". Self-awareness does not absolve anyone of anything, he says. As energetic as the song "S---" is, it's really just another clear message about the mental disorder that has its grips in Burnham (or at least the version of him we're seeing in this special). Bo Burnham also uploaded Welcome to the Internet and White Womans Instagram on his YouTube channel. But, of course, it tangles that right back up; this emotional post was, ultimately, still Content. Please check your email to find a confirmation email, and follow the steps to confirm your humanity. This is when the musical numbers (and in-between skits) become much more grim. Social media; it's just the market's answer to a generation that demanded to perform so the market said, here, perform. jonnyewers 30 May 2021. and concludes that if it's mean, it's not funny. Then, of course, the aspect ratio shrinks again as the white woman goes back to posting typical content. The song untangles the way we view peoples social media output as the complete vision of who they are, when really, we cannot know the full extent of someones inner world, especially not just through social media. Who Were We Running From? The whole song sounds like you're having a religious experience with your own mental disorder, especially when new harmonies kick in. The global pandemic and subsequent lockdown orders of March 2020 put a stop to these plans. One comment stuck out to me: Theres something really powerful and painful about, hearing his actual voice singing and breaking at certain points. I'm talking to you, get the f--- up.". Inside is the work of a comic with artistic tools most of his peers ignore or overlook. The voices of the characters eventually blend together to tell the live Burnham on stage, We think we know you.. This is especially true for Patreon campaigns that give fans direct access to creators on platforms like Discord. A college student navigates life and school while dealing with a unique predicament he's living with a beautiful former K-pop sensation. Good. There's no more time left to add to the camera's clock. 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. 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. Bo Burnham He was alone. And notably, Burnhams work focuses on parasocial relationships not from the perspective of the audience, but the perspective of the performer.Inside depicts how being a creator can feel: you are a cult leader, you are holding your audience hostage, your audience is holding you hostage, you are your audience, your audience can never be you, you need your audience, and you need to escape your audience. (For example, the song "Straight, White, Male" from the "Make Happy" special). "And so, today, I'm gonna try just getting up, sitting down, going back to work. And it portends and casts doubt on a later scene when his mental health frays and Burnham cries in earnest. 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. That YouTube commenter might be understood by Burnham if they were to meet him. WebBo Burnham: Inside is a 2021 special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed by American comedian Bo Burnham. At just 20 years old, Burnham was a guest alongside Judd Apatow, Marc Maron, Ray Romano, and Garry Shandling. Its called INSIDE, and it will undoubtedly strike your hearts forevermore. Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. Is he content with its content? Now get inside.". "Problematic" is a roller coaster of self-awareness, masochism, and parody. Burnham's hair is shorter in those initial behind-the-scenes moments, but his future-self has a longer, unkempt beard and messy hair. "Trying to be funny and stuck in a room, there isn't much more to say about it," he starts in a new song after fumbling a first take. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. 20. Bo Burnham: Inside is a devastating portrait of the actor-director-singer-comedian's dysfunctional interiority and 2020's unyielding assault on mental and social health. Burnham skewers himself as a virtue-signaling ally with a white-savior complex, a bully and an egoist who draws a Venn diagram and locates himself in the overlap between Weird Al and Malcolm X. It's a heartbreaking chiding coming from his own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. So this is how it ends. And that can be a really - if you're not very good at it, that kind of thing, where there's a balance between sort of the sarcastic and ironic versus the very sincere can be really exhausting. Likewise. . HOLMES: So, as you'll hear there, on the one hand, there's a lot of sadness in what he's talking about there. While this special is the product of evolution, Burnham is pointing out its also a regression. 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. 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. An astronaut's return after a 30-year disappearance rekindles a lost love and sparks interest from a corporation determined to learn why he hasn't aged. Maybe we'll call it isolation theater. Here's a little bit of that. WebBo Burnham has been critical of his past self for the edgy, offensive comedy he used to make. "The poioumenon is calculated to offer opportunities to explore the boundaries of fiction and reality the limits of narrative truth," Fowler wrote in his book "A History of English Literature.". At various points, the gamer is given the option to make the character cry. MARTIN: This special is titled, appropriately enough, "Inside," and it is streaming on Netflix now. Burnham is especially aware as a creator constantly reflecting on his own life. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. Parasocial relationships are neutral, and how we interact with them is usually a mixed bag. 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. you might have missed in Bo Burnham "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. And then the funniest thing happened.". Burnham watching the end of his special on a projector also brings the poioumenon full circle the artist has finished their work and is showing you the end of the process it took to create it. Down to the second, the clock changes to midnight exactly halfway through the runtime of "Inside.". He's the writer, director, editor, and star of this show. Known as "Art is a Lie, Nothing is Real," there's a bit Burnham did at the start of his 2013 special "what." 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. Right after the song ends, the shot of Burnham's guest house returns but this time it's filled with clutter. Oops. Inside (2021) opens with Bo Burnham sitting alone in a room singing what will be the first of many musical comedy numbers, Content. In the song, Burnham expresses, Roberts been a little depressed ii. Bo Burnham Burnham uses vocal tuning often throughout all of his specials. After about 35 minutes of candy-colored, slickly designed sketch comedy, the tone shifts with Burnhams first completely earnest song, a lovely indie-rock tune with an ear worm of a hook about trying to be funny and stuck in a room. This is the shows hinge. Like he's parodying white people who think that by crucifying themselves first they're somehow freed from the consequences of their actions. How how successful do you think is "Inside" at addressing, describing kind of confronting the experience that a lot of people have had over the past year? 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. It's so good to hear your voice. begins with the question "Is it mean?" How does one know if the joke punches down? 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 unpaid interns, most working artists cant afford a mortgage (and yeah, probably torrent a porn). Bo Burnham That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. Throughout the song and its accompanying visuals, Burnham is highlighting the "girlboss" aesthetic of many white women's Instagram accounts. 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. It also seems noteworthy that this is one of the only sketches in "Inside" that fades to black. 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. Most creator-made content online is available for free, meaning creators usually have to rely on their fans for income via crowdfunding like Patreon. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Now, five years later, Burnham's new parody song is digging even deeper at the philosophical question of whether or not it's appropriate to be creating comedy during a horrifyingly raw period of tragedy like the COVID-19 pandemic and the social reckoning that followed George Floyd's murder. A distorted voice is back again, mocking Burnham as he sits exposed on his fake stage: "Well, well, look who's inside again. Its easy to see Unpaid Intern as one scene and the reaction videos as another, but in the lens of parasocial relationships, digital media, and workers rights, the song and the reactions work as an analysis for another sort of labor exploitation: content creation. Burnham makes it textual, too. But he meant to knock the water over, yeah yeah yeah, art is a lie nothing is real. It has extended versions of songs, cut songs, and alternate versions of songs that were eventually deleted; but is mainly comprised of outtakes. This line comes full circle by the end of the special, so keep it in mind. His 2014 song Repeat Stuff and its music video parodies how boy bands and other corporately-owned pop stars prey on young fans desire to feel loved by writing songs with lyrics vague enough anyone can feel like it was written specifically about them. Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. Its horrific.". He is leaving it to speak for itself in terms of what it says about isolation and sadness. That's a really clever, fun little rhyme in this, you know, kind of heavy song. And she's with us now to tell us more about it. 1 on Billboards comedy albums chart and eventually climbed to No. Its folly to duplicate the feel of a live set, so why not fully adjust to the screen and try to make something as visually ambitious as a feature? In one interpretation, maybe the smile means he's ready to be outside again. 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. Thank you, Michel. Burnham's earlier Netflix specials and comedy albums. 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. HOLMES: That was NPR's Linda Holmes reviewing Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside." According to the special, Bo decided he was ready to begin doing stand-up again in January 2020, after dealing with panic attacks onstage during his previous tour, the Make Happy Tour of 2015-2016. But the cultural standards of what is appropriate comedy and also the inner standards of my own mind have changed rapidly since I was 16. So let's dive into "Inside" and take a closer look at nearly every song and sketch in Burnham's special. At the start of the special, Burnham sings "Content," setting the stage for his musical-comedy. "If greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate, then when the clock runs out, the average global temperature will be irreversibly on its way to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels.". 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. In the worst case, depression can convince a person to end their life. He also costarred in the Oscar-winning movie "Promising Young Woman," filmed in 2019. And maybe the rest of us are ready, too. In another scene, Burnham gives a retroactive disclaimer to discussions of his suicidal ideation by telling the audience, And if youre out there and youre struggling with suicidal thoughts and you want to kill yourself, I just wanna tell you Dont! Look Whos Inside Again is largely a song about being creative during quarantine, but ends with Now come out with your hands up, weve got you surrounded, a reflection on police violence but also being mobbed by his fans.