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. I got so much better, in fact, that in January of 2020, I thought 'you know what I should start performing again. Daddy made you your favorite. 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. Like, what is it? True, but it can deepen and clarify art. "I don't know that it's not," he said. Years later, the comedian told NPR's Terry Gross that performing the special was so tough that he was having panic attacks on stage. Also, Burnham's air conditioner is set to precisely 69 degrees throughout this whole faux music video. Burnham uses vocal tuning often throughout all of his specials. Its a visual that signifies a man exposing himself, until you realize hes in a spotlight. Burnham was just 16 years old when he wrote a parody song ("My Whole Family") and filmed himself performing it in his bedroom. Soering New insights from various parties come to light that raise questions about Jens Sring's conviction of the 1985 murders of his then-girlfriend's parents. But on the other hand, it is lyrically so playful. It chronicles Burnhams life during the pandemic and his journey creating the special. I hope to see you inside at some point. 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. Throughout the song and its accompanying visuals, Burnham is highlighting the "girlboss" aesthetic of many white women's Instagram accounts. 20. All rights reserved. "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. Linda, thank you so much for joining us. The album peaked at #7 on the Billboard 200 chart, #1 on the Comedy Albums chart, and #18 on the Independent Albums chart. Simply smiling at the irony of watching his own movie come to life while he's still inside? The voices of the characters eventually blend together to tell the live Burnham on stage, We think we know you.. 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. 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. 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 the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. Now, hes come a long way since his previous specials titled What. and Make Happy, where his large audiences roared with laughter As we explained in this breakdown of 31 details you might have missed in "Inside," Bo Burnham's newest special is a poioumenon a type of artistic work that tells the story of its own creation. 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. 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. 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. 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. Burnham is also the main character in the game, a character who is seen moving mechanically around a room. Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. I'm sitting down, writing jokes, singing silly songs, I'm sorry I was gone. begins with the question "Is it mean?" I've been hiding from the world and I need to reenter.' And like unpaid interns, most working artists cant afford a mortgage (and yeah, probably torrent a porn). He doesn't really bother with any kind of transitions. Its an instinct I have for all my work to have some deeper meaning or something. Unpaid Intern isnt just about unpaid internships; when your livelihood as an artist depends on your perceived closeness with each individual fan, fetching a coffee becomes telling someone theyre valid when they vent to you like they would a friend (or a therapist). Now get inside.". "Got it? And maybe the rest of us are ready, too. While talking to the audience during the opening section, Burnham takes a sip out of a water bottle. We're a long way from the days when he filmed "Comedy" and the contrast shows how fruitless this method of healing has been. He also costarred in the Oscar-winning movie "Promising Young Woman," filmed in 2019. 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. Look at them, they're just staring at me, like '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. They Cloned Tyrone. 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. One of those is the internet itself. Copyright 2021 NPR. Now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room, where he's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. "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.". Inside doesnt give clear answers like parasocial relationships good or parasocial relationships bad, because those answers do not, and cannot, exist. The global pandemic and subsequent lockdown orders of March 2020 put a stop to these plans. Theyre complicated. "Truly, it's like, for a 16-year-old kid in 2006, it's not bad. It's like the mental despair of the last year has turned into a comfort. It's an emergence from the darkness. MARTIN: And it's deep, too. Yes, Bo Burnham posted a trailer via Twitter on April 28, 2021. It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. Even when confronted with works that criticize parasocial attachment, its difficult for fans not to feel emotionally connected to performers they admire. If the answer is yes, then it's not funny. So this is how it ends. 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.". Perform everything to each other, all the time for no reason. Bo Burnham defined an era when he created Inside. "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. . Thematically, it deals with the events of 2020, rising wealth inequality, racial injustice, isolation, mental health, social media, and technologys role in our lives. Exploring mental health decline over 2020, the constant challenges our world faces, and the struggles of life itself, Bo Burnham creates a wonderful masterpiece to explain each of these, both from general view and personal experience. Still terrified of that spotlight? And I don't think that I can handle this right now. At the second level of the reaction video, Burnham says: "I'm being a little pretentious. For all the ways Burnham had been desperate to leave the confines of his studio, now that he's able to go back out into the world (and onto a real stage), he's terrified. 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. But by using this meta-narrative throughout the whole special, Burnham messes with our ability to know when we're seeing a genuine struggle with artistic expression versus a meticulously staged fictional breakdown. Burnham is especially aware as a creator constantly reflecting on his own life. But usually there is one particular voice that acts as a disembodied narrator character, some omniscient force that needles Burnham in the middle of his stand up (like the voice in "Make Happy" that interrupts Burnham's set to call him the f-slur). Then comes the third emotional jump scare. There's also another little joke baked into this bit, because the game is made by a company called SSRI interactive the most common form of antidepressant drugs are called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, aka SSRIs. "You say the ocean's rising, like I give a s---," he sings. And I'm just wondering, like, how would you describe that? BURNHAM: (Singing) Start a rumor, buy a broom or send a death threat to a Boomer. Because there's also a little bit Bo Burnham the character in this almost. The label of parasocial relationship is meant to be neutral, being as natural and normal and, frankly, inescapable as familial or platonic relationships. The song is a pitched-down Charli XCX-styled banger of a ballad has minimal lyrics that are mostly just standard crowd instructions: put your hands up, get on your feet. and concludes that if it's mean, it's not funny. When we see it again towards the end of the special, it's from a new camera angle. On June 9, Burnham released the music from the special in an album titled Inside (The Songs), which hit No. ", "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. Netflix. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. Please enter a valid email and try again. Web9/10. "They say it's like the 'me' generation. MARTIN: So Bo Burnham has had a lot of different identities lately. At various points, the gamer is given the option to make the character cry. 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." Netflix did, however, post Facetime with My Mom (Tonight) on YouTube. The whole video is filmed like one big thirst trap as he sweats and works out. 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. He is now back to where he was, making jokes alone in his room, an effort to escape his reality. 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? We see Burnham moving around in the daylight, a welcome contrast to the dark setting of "All Eyes on Me." 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. 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. One of the most encouraging developments in comedy over the past decade has been the growing directorial ambition of stand-up specials. He is leaving it to speak for itself in terms of what it says about isolation and sadness. 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. That's a really clever, fun little rhyme in this, you know, kind of heavy song. Get up. BURNHAM: (Singing) Does anybody want to joke when no one's laughing in the background? The structured movements of the last hour and half fall away as Burnham snaps at the audience: "Get up. 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. Feelings of depersonalization and derealization can be very disturbing and may feel like you're living in a dream.". It's not. And you know what? After more sung repetitions of get your fuckin hands up, Burnham says, Get up. MARTIN: Well, that being said, Lynda, like, what song do you want to go out on? Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul. 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. WebBo Burnham: Inside is by far one of the riskiest and original comedy specials to come out in years. And they're biting, but he's also very talented at these little catchy pop hooks. BURNHAM: (Singing) The live-action "Lion King," the Pepsi halftime show, 20,000 years of this, seven more to go. 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 now depression has its grips in him. Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. 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. At the start of the special, Burnham sings "Content," setting the stage for his musical-comedy. 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. our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. But by the end of the tune, his narrative changes into irreverence. The special is available exclusively on Netflix, while the album can be found on most streaming platforms. 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. 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. Instead of working his muscles at open mics or in improv, Burnham uploaded joke songs to the platform in 2006. MARTIN: This special is titled, appropriately enough, "Inside," and it is streaming on Netflix now. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared don't be shy come on in the water's fine."). His new Netflix special Inside was directed, written and performed all inside one room. Bo Burnham: INSIDE | Trailer - YouTube 0:00 / 2:09 The following content may contain suicide or self-harm topics. Burnham reacts to his reaction of the song, this time saying, Im being a little pretentious. It's a reprieve of the lyrics Burnham sang earlier in the special when he was reminiscing about being a kid stuck in his room. Burnham says he had quit live comedy several years ago because of panic attacks and returned in January 2020 before, as he puts it in typical perverse irony, the funniest thing happened. I did! The video is an hour-long edit of footage that was deleted from the making of Inside. At just 20 years old, Burnham was a guest alongside Judd Apatow, Marc Maron, Ray Romano, and Garry Shandling. And part of it is sometimes he's just in despair. He puts himself on a cross using his projector, and the whole video is him exercising, like he's training for when he's inevitably "canceled.". WebBo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. "I didn't perform for five years," he says. 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. Long before the phrase parasocial relationship had entered the mainstream zeitgeist, Burnhams work discussed the phenomenon. Let's take a closer look at just a few of those bubbles, shall we? And I think that's what you're getting here. The title card appears in white, then changes to red, signaling that a camera is recording. It's a heartbreaking chiding coming from his own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. It's so good to hear your voice. It's conscious of self. 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. They may still be comical, but they have a different feel. 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. ", 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.". It's as if Burnham is showing how wholesale judgments about the way people choose to use social media can gloss over earnest, genuine expressions of love and grief being shared online. An existential dread creeps in, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. Then he moves into a new layer of reaction, where he responds to that previous comment. 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. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment. Like he's parodying white people who think that by crucifying themselves first they're somehow freed from the consequences of their actions. When Burnham's character decides he doesn't want to actually hear criticism from Socko, he threatens to remove him, prompting Socko's subservience once again, because "that's how the world works.". I don't think it's perfectly morally defendable.". Later in Inside, Burnham thanks the audience for their support while holding them at knifepoint. "And I spent that time trying to improve myself mentally. jonnyewers 30 May 2021. Most creator-made content online is available for free, meaning creators usually have to rely on their fans for income via crowdfunding like Patreon. But during the bridge of the song, he imagines a post from a woman dedicated to her dead mother, and the aspect ratio on the video widens. 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 / [. ", 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.". 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. Self-awareness does not absolve anybody of anything.". It's as if Burnham knows there are valid criticisms of him that haven't really stuck in the public discourse around his work. 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.". And he's done virtually no press about it. 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. 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. Now, you heard me struggling to describe what this is, so help me out. When we saw that projection the first time, Burnham's room was clean and orderly. HOLMES: Yeah. Bo Burnham: Inside, was written, edited, and directed by the talent himself and the entire show is shot in one room. Having this frame of reference may help viewers better understand the design of "Inside." WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. He was alone. Underneath the Steve Martin-like formal trickery has always beaten the heaving heart of a flamboyantly dramatic theater kid. By inserting that Twitch character in this earlier scene, Burnham was seemingly giving a peek into his daily routine. 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. I mean, honestly, he's saying a lot right there. 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