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. "That's a good start. The song, written in 2006, is about how his whole family thinks he's gay, and the various conversations they're having trying to figure it out. He's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. Burnham is also the main character in the game, a character who is seen moving mechanically around a room. For those who are unaware, Bos real name is Robert Burnham. Or was it an elaborate callback to his earlier work, planted for fans seeking evidence that art is lie? 7 on the Top 200. It's not. It's a series of musical numbers and skits that are inherently about the creation of comedy itself. 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. 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. I mean, honestly, he's saying a lot right there. And I think that's what you're getting here. This line comes full circle by the end of the special, so keep it in mind. At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. I feel very close and intimate with him in this version. 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. Bo Burnham: Inside review this is a claustrophobic masterpiece. ", 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.". WebBo Burnham: Inside is a 2021 special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed by American comedian Bo Burnham. Each of the songs from the first half of the special are in line with Burnham's earlier Netflix specials and comedy albums. I cant say how Burnham thinks or feels with any authority, but as text and form-driven comedy, Inside urges the audience to reflect on how they interact with creators. With electro-pop social commentary, bleak humour and sock-puppet debates, the comics lockdown creation is astonishing. Burnham starts spiraling in a mental health crisis, mentioning suicidal ideation after lamenting his advance into his 30s. 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 uses vocal tuning often throughout all of his specials. One of the most encouraging developments in comedy over the past decade has been the growing directorial ambition of stand-up specials. our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. Now, you heard me struggling to describe what this is, so help me out. Good. The piece also highlights Bos anxieties with becoming older and his legacy as a comedian. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. At various points, the gamer is given the option to make the character cry. But unlike many of us, Burnham was also hard at work on a one-man show directed, written and performed all by himself. "And I spent that time trying to improve myself mentally. He slaps his leg in frustration, and eventually gives a mirthless laugh before he starts slamming objects around him. The result, a special titled "Inside," shows all of Burnham's brilliant instincts of parody and meta-commentary on the role of white, male entertainers in the world and of poisons found in internet culture that digital space that gave him a career and fostered a damaging anxiety disorder that led him to quit performing live comedy after 2015. 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. It's conscious of self. Burnham spoofs a PewDiePie-like figure a YouTuber who narrates his playing of a video game with a dead-eyed smugness, as shown in an image at the bottom-right corner of the screen. That quiet simplicity doesn't feel like a relief, but it is. "They say it's like the 'me' generation. 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. So when you get to the end of a song, it often just kind of cuts to something else. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared don't be shy come on in the water's fine."). Burnham was just 16 years old when he wrote a parody song ("My Whole Family") and filmed himself performing it in his bedroom. Its an uncanny, dystopian view of Burnham as an instrument in the soulless game of social media. "Got it? 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. 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." 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"). 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. When you're a kid and you're stuck in your room, you'll do any old s--- to get out of it.". NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. .] Its a stupid song, and, uh, it doesnt really mean anything. The video continues. 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. Then he moves into a new layer of reaction, where he responds to that previous comment. But then the music tells the audience that "he meant to play the track again" and that "art's still a lie, nothing's still real.". Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul. 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. Netflix did, however, post Facetime with My Mom (Tonight) on YouTube. Went out to look for a reason to hide again. Not in the traditional senseno music was released prior to the special other than a backing track from Content found in the trailer. Let's take a closer look at just a few of those bubbles, shall we? WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. In his new Netflix special, Inside, Bo Burnham sings about trying to be funny while stuck in a room. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. It's as if Burnham knows there are valid criticisms of him that haven't really stuck in the public discourse around his work. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared, don't be shy, come on in the water's fine."). 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. Similarly, Burnham often speaks to the audience by filming himself speaking to himself in a mirror. Burnham reacts to his reaction of the song, this time saying, Im being a little pretentious. begins with the question "Is it mean?" @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.". To save you the time freeze-framing, here's the complete message: "No pressure by the way at any point we can stop i just want to make sure ur comfortable all this and please dont feel obligated to send anything you dont want to just cuz i want things doesnt mean i should get them and its sometimes confusing because i think you enjoy it when i beg and express how much i want you but i dont ever want that to turn into you feeling pressured into doing something you don't want or feeling like youre disappointing me this is just meant to be fun and if at any point its not fun for you we can stop and im sorry if me saying this is killing the mood i just like ". That's what it is. The special is available exclusively on Netflix, while the album can be found on most streaming platforms. that shows this exact meta style. Likewise, the finale of Burnhams next special, Make Happy (2016) closes in a song called Handle This (Kanye Rant). The song starts as him venting his hyperbolically small problems, until the tone shifts, and he starts directly addressing the audience, singing: The truth is, my biggest problem is you / [. He takes it, and Burnham cries robotically as a tinny version of the song about being stuck in the room plays. "You say the ocean's rising, like I give a s---," he sings. Partway through the song, the battery icon switches to low and starts blinking in warning as if death is imminent. 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. Daddy made you your favorite. Whatever it is, NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, has reviewed it, and she liked it. Were complicated. 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. 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. Parasocial relationships are neutral, and how we interact with them is usually a mixed bag. Back in 2010, Burnham appeared on Showtime's "The Green Room," a comics round table hosted by Paul Provenza. My heart hurts with and for him. Even when confronted with works that criticize parasocial attachment, its difficult for fans not to feel emotionally connected to performers they admire. "Inside" feels like the creative culmination of Bo Burnham's career over the last 15 years, starting with his first viral YouTube video in 2006. And they're biting, but he's also very talented at these little catchy pop hooks. 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. 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. [1] Created in the guest house of Burnham's Los Angeles home during the COVID-19 pandemic without a crew or audience, it was released on Netflix on May 30, 2021. 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. Likewise. Its a lyrically dense song with camerawork that speeds up with its rhythm. The comedy special perfectly encapsulated the world's collective confusion, frustration, and exhaustion amid ongoing pandemic lockdowns, bringing a quirky spin to the ongoing existential terror that was the year 2020. Like he's parodying white people who think that by crucifying themselves first they're somehow freed from the consequences of their actions. Underneath the Steve Martin-like formal trickery has always beaten the heaving heart of a flamboyantly dramatic theater kid. The arrogance is taught or it was cultivated. And it portends and casts doubt on a later scene when his mental health frays and Burnham cries in earnest. And part of it is sometimes he's just in despair. I did! Is he content with its content? And it has a lot of very clever and very quick wordplay about the specific things you can get on the internet. Because there's also a little bit Bo Burnham the character in this almost. BURNHAM: (Singing) Could I interest you in everything all of the time, a little bit of everything all of the time? 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. Open wide.. An older Burnham sits at a stool in front of a clock, and he says into a microphone that he's been working on the special for six months now. WebOn a budget. Parasocial relationships can be positive too, as outlined in culture critic Stitchs essay On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity for Teen Vogue. In his first Netflix special (2013's "what. 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. But we weren't. Bo Burnhams Inside begs for our parasocial awareness The comedians lifetime online explains the heart of most of his new songs By Wil Williams @wilw_writes Jun 28, 2021, 11:01am EDT Bo Burnham: INSIDE | Trailer - YouTube 0:00 / 2:09 The following content may contain suicide or self-harm topics. Hes been addressing us the entire time. One of those is the internet itself. Simply smiling at the irony of watching his own movie come to life while he's still inside? 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. BURNHAM: (Singing) Does anybody want to joke when no one's laughing in the background? Most sources discuss fictional characters, news anchors, childrens show hosts, or celebrity culture as a whole. The performer, along with the record label and brand deals, encourage a parasocial relationship for increased profits. of the internet, welcoming everyone with a decadent menu of options while disco lights twirl. Toward the end, he appears completely naked behind his keyboard. The song made such a splash in its insight that it earned its own episode in Shannon Struccis seminal Fake Friends documentary series, which broke down what parasocial relationships are and how they work. All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. "You say the ocean's rising, like I give a s---, you say the whole world's ending, honey it already did, you're not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried," he sings. The reason he started making this special, he explains in the show, is to distract himself from shooting himself in the head, the first of several mentions of suicide (including one in which he tells viewers to just dont). Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. Burnhams eyes are sharply in focus; the rest of him faded out subtly, a detail you might not even notice with how striking his eyes are. 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. 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. Still terrified of that spotlight? 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). The special is hitting an emotional climax as Burnham shows us both intense anger and then immediately after, a deep and dark sadness. Entertainment correspondent Kim Renfro ranked them in ascending order of greatness. "A part of me loves you, part of me hates you," he sang to the crowd. Relieved to be done? It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. How does one know if the joke punches down? 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. 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. 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. When the song starts, the camera sitting in front of Burnham's mirror starts slowing zooming in, making the screen darker and darker until you (the audience member at home) are sitting in front of the black mirror of your screen. Burnham's growth is admirable, but also revealing of how little we expect from men in the industry. He has one where he's just sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar describing our modern world. Burnhams online success and an awareness of what kind of his audiences perceived closeness made the comedian key to one of the most prominent discussions in a creator- and influencer-driven era of media: the idea of parasocial relationships. I've been singing that song for about a week NOW. And the very format of it, as I said, it's very much this kind of sinister figure trying to get you interested. 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. MARTIN: And it's deep, too. 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. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. "Robert's been a little depressed," he sings (referring to himself by his birthname). 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. It's like Burnham's special has swallowed you whole, bringing you fully into his mind at last. Though it does have a twist. An existential dread creeps in, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. The title card appears in white, then changes to red, signaling that a camera is recording. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. 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.". He doesn't really bother with any kind of transitions. So let's dive into "Inside" and take a closer look at nearly every song and sketch in Burnham's special. 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? On the simplest level, Inside is the story of a comic struggling to make a funny show during quarantine and gradually losing his mind. And like those specials, Inside implores fans to think about deeper themes as well as how we think about comedy as a genre. I got so much better, in fact, that in January of 2020, I thought 'you know what I should start performing again. He was alone. The special was nominated for six Emmy Awards in 2021, of which it won three: Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special, Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, and Outstanding Music Direction. Bo Burnham defined an era when he created Inside. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. ", "On September 17, the clock began counting down from seven years, 103 days, 15 hours, 40 minutes and seven seconds, displayed in red," the Smithsonian reported. "I'm criticizing my initial reaction for being pretentious, which is honestly a defense mechanism," he says. A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio (John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris) onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. But also, it's clear that there's a lot on his mind. 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. 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. Still, its difficult not to be lulled back into, again, this absolute banger. On June 9, Burnham released the music from the special in an album titled Inside (The Songs), which hit 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? 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. ", "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? 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. He is not talking about it very much. LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Thank you, Michel. In recent years, he has begun directing other comics specials, staging stand-up sets by Chris Rock and Jerrod Carmichael with his signature extreme close-ups. ", Right as Burnham is straightening up, music begins blaring over the speakers and Burnham's own voice sings: "He meant to knock the water over, yeah yeah yeah, but you all thought it was an accident. Theres a nostalgic sweetness to this song, but parts of it return throughout the show, in darker forms, one of many variations on a theme. '", "Robert's been a little depressed, no!" Get up. WebA grieving woman magically travels through time to 1998, where she meets a man with an uncanny resemblance to her late love. "Part of me needs you, part of me fears you. As someone who has devoted time, energy, and years of research into parasocial relationships, I felt almost like this song was made for me, that Burnham and I do have so much in common. 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. And now depression has its grips in him. It's an emergence from the darkness. 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?". The song brings with it an existential dread, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. Hiding a mysterious past, a mother lives like a nameless fugitive with her daughter as they make hotels their home and see everyone else as a threat. MARTIN: Well, that being said, Lynda, like, what song do you want to go out on? But, like so many other plans and hopes people had in the early months of the pandemic, that goal proved unattainable. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. And I think that, 'Oh if I'm self-aware about being a douchebag it'll somehow make me less of a douchebag.' 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.