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. It is set almost entirely within one room of his Los Angeles guest house, the same one shown in the closing song of the June 2016 Make Happy special, titled Are you happy?. And I think that, 'Oh if I'm self-aware about being a douchebag it'll somehow make me less of a douchebag.' ", "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. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. It's prison. 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.". MARTIN: And it's deep, too. this breakdown of 31 details you might have missed in "Inside,". It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. 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. In this case, it's likely some combination of depression/anxiety/any other mental disorder. 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.". Bo Burnhams latest Netflix special, Inside, is a solo venture about the comedian and filmmakers difficult experience in quarantine thats earned enthusiastic critical acclaim. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared, don't be shy, come on in the water's fine."). Not putting a name on parasocial relationships makes the theme less didactic, more blurred while still being astutesuch sharp focus on the eyes, you dont notice the rest of the face fades into shades of blue. Instead, thanks to his ultra-self-aware style, he seems to always get ahead of criticism by holding himself accountable first. 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. 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. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Went out to look for a reason to hide again. MARTIN: And I understand you were saying that it moves between genres. "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. The global pandemic and subsequent lockdown orders of March 2020 put a stop to these plans. "Got it? Its a stupid song, and, uh, it doesnt really mean anything. The video continues. He's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. At various points, the gamer is given the option to make the character cry. But before that can register, Burnham's eyes have closed and the special transitions to the uncannily catchy song "S---," bopping about how he hasn't showered in nine days or done any laundry. MARTIN: You know, about that, because it does move into a deeply serious place at some point. Burnham's growth is admirable, but also revealing of how little we expect from men in the industry. He grabs the camera and swings it around in a circle as the song enters another chorus, and a fake audience cheers in the background. You know, I was not, you know, I was alone, but I was not trapped in one room. Daddy made you your favorite, open wide.". So he has, for example, a song in which he adopts the persona of a kind of horror movie carnival barker, you might call it, who is trying to sell people the internet. Like most of Burnhams specials, it includes comedic songs and creative lighting effects. Burnham is especially aware as a creator constantly reflecting on his own life. 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. 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. 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. our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. 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. I actually felt true mutual empathy with someone for the first time, and with someone Ive never even met, its kinda funny.. But on the other hand, it is lyrically so playful. And the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. Sitting in the meeting room, not making a sound becomes the perceived 24/7 access fans have to DM you, reply to you, ask you questions. While this special is the product of evolution, Burnham is pointing out its also a regression. 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. But look, I made you some content. A distorted voice is back again, mocking Burnham as he sits exposed on his fake stage: "Well, well, look who's inside again. "And I spent that time trying to improve myself mentally. ", 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. Who Were We Running From? Long before the phrase parasocial relationship had entered the mainstream zeitgeist, Burnhams work discussed the phenomenon. 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. It's not. Bo Burnham also uploaded Welcome to the Internet and White Womans Instagram on his YouTube channel. 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. 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. Linda, thank you so much for joining us. 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. But then the video keeps playing, and so he winds up reacting to his own reaction, and then reacting yet again to that reaction. Is he content with its content? And so I think he's always had that stubborn insistence on holding both of those things in his head at the same time. Burnham reacts to his reaction of the song, this time saying, Im being a little pretentious. 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. They Cloned Tyrone. 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. In his first Netflix special (2013's "what. By inserting that Twitch character in this earlier scene, Burnham was seemingly giving a peek into his daily routine. 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. Good. But now Burnham is back. I got better. Burnham's creative background began with being a theater then he transitioned to musical-comedy. Entertainment correspondent Kim Renfro ranked them in ascending order of greatness. 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. 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. Burnham slaps his leg in frustration and eventually gives a mirthless laugh before he starts slamming objects around him. Might not help, but still, it couldn't hurt.". "I don't know that it's not," he said. My heart hurts with and for him. "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.". / Are you having fun? The crowd directions are no longer stock pop song lyrics; now, the audience understands them as direct orders to them from Burnham. It's wonderful to be with you. But he meant to knock the water over, yeah yeah yeah, art is a lie nothing is real. HOLMES: Yeah. And part of it is sometimes he's just in despair. Anything and everything all of the time. He also costarred in the Oscar-winning movie "Promising Young Woman," filmed in 2019. Please enter a valid email and try again. I got so much better, in fact, that in January of 2020, I thought 'you know what I should start performing again. 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. 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.". The piece also highlights Bos anxieties with becoming older and his legacy as a comedian. Research and analysis of parasocial relationships usually revolves around genres of performers instead of individuals. 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. The tension between creator and audience is a prominent theme in Burnhams work, likely because he got his start on YouTube. The whole song sounds like you're having a religious experience with your own mental disorder, especially when new harmonies kick in. . If "All Eyes on Me" sounds disconcertingly comforting to you, it could be because you can recognize the mental symptoms of a mood disorder like depression. 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. 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. Instead of a live performance, he's recorded himself in isolation over the course of a year. And then, of course, he had previous standup comedy specials. And she's with us now to tell us more about it. ", He then pulls the same joke again, letting the song play after the audience's applause so it seems like a mistake. 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. Got it? 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. In Unpaid Intern, Burnham sings about how deeply unethical the position is to the workers in a pastiche of other labor-focused blues. Finally doing basic care tasks for yourself like eating breakfast and starting work in the morning. Inside, a new Netflix special written, performed, directed, shot, and edited by comedian Bo Burnham, invokes and plays with many forms. The songs from the special were released on streaming platforms on June 10, 2021. 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. Its a feat, the work of a gifted experimentalist whose craft has caught up to his talent. Still, its difficult not to be lulled back into, again, this absolute banger. 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. A harsh skepticism of digital life (a life the pandemic has only magnified) is the dominant subject of the special. 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. But he knows how to do this. 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. Netflix "That's a good start. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared don't be shy come on in the water's fine."). One comment stuck out to me: Theres something really powerful and painful about, hearing his actual voice singing and breaking at certain points. 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. And the very format of it, as I said, it's very much this kind of sinister figure trying to get you interested. 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. [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. Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. 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. 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. If the answer is yes, then it's not funny. 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.". Many of his songs begin seriously, then shift into the joke, but this one doesnt. So in "Inside," when we see Burnham recording himself doing lighting set up and then accidentally pull down his camera was that a real blooper he decided to edit in? "I didn't perform for five years," he says. I'm talking to you, get the f--- up.". WebBo Burnham: Inside is a 2021 special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed by American comedian Bo Burnham. He slaps his leg in frustration, and eventually gives a mirthless laugh before he starts slamming objects around him. Yes, Bo Burnham posted a trailer via Twitter on April 28, 2021. Likewise. Known as "Art is a Lie, Nothing is Real," there's a bit Burnham did at the start of his 2013 special "what." At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. The first comes when Burnham looks directly into the camera as he addresses the audience, singing, Are you feeling nervous? Burnham lingers on his behind-the-scenes technical tinkering handling lights, editing, practicing lines. Well now the shots are reversed. Most of the comments talk about how visceral it is to hear Burnhams real voice singing the upsetting lyrics. Even when confronted with works that criticize parasocial attachment, its difficult for fans not to feel emotionally connected to performers they admire. 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. 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. Still terrified of that spotlight? 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. I've been hiding from the world and I need to reenter.' Let's take a closer look at just a few of those bubbles, shall we? "I'm criticizing my initial reaction for being pretentious, which is honestly a defense mechanism," he says. 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. This is especially true for Patreon campaigns that give fans direct access to creators on platforms like Discord. Accuracy and availability may vary. During that taping, Burnham said his favorite comic at the time was Hans Teeuwen, a "Dutch absurdist," who has a routine with a sock puppet that eats a candy bar as Teeuwen sings. At first it seems to be just about life in the pandemic, but it becomes a reference to his past, when he made faces and jokes from his bedroom as a teenager and put that on the internet. and concludes that if it's mean, it's not funny. Thank you, Michel. Bo Burnhams 2021 special, Inside. 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. 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 / [. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. 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.". Underneath the Steve Martin-like formal trickery has always beaten the heaving heart of a flamboyantly dramatic theater kid. 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. 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. 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 Viewer discretion is advised. Each of the songs from the first half of the special are in line with Burnham's earlier Netflix specials and comedy albums. 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. It's as if Burnham knows there are valid criticisms of him that haven't really stuck in the public discourse around his work. "I was a kid who was stuck in his room, there isn't much more to say about it. Inside doesnt give clear answers like parasocial relationships good or parasocial relationships bad, because those answers do not, and cannot, exist. 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. Bo Burnham; former YouTuber, iconic Viner, and acclaimed stand-up comedian has recently released a new Netflix special. That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. that shows this exact meta style. Trying to grant his dying father's wish, a son discovers an epic love story buried in his family's distant past. The video is an hour-long edit of footage that was deleted from the making of Inside. 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. People experiencing depression often stop doing basic self-care tasks, like showering or laundry or brushing their teeth. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment. HOLMES: That was NPR's Linda Holmes reviewing Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside." Bo Burnham, pictured here at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, wrote, directed and performed the entirety of his new Netflix special, Inside, by himself. 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. HOLMES: Yeah. 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. But in both of those cases, similarity and connection would come from the way the art itself connects people, not any actual tie between Burnham and myself, Burnham and the commenter. BURNHAM: (Singing) Start a rumor, buy a broom or send a death threat to a Boomer. ", When asked about the inspiration for the song, like if people he knew thought he was gay, Burnham said, "A lot of my close friends were gay, and, you know, I wasn't certain I wasn't at that point.". 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. And it's important to remember, you know, this is a piece of theater. Only he knows. Today We'll Talk About That Day It's like the mental despair of the last year has turned into a comfort. And I'm just wondering, like, how would you describe that? The structured movements of the last hour and half fall away as Burnham snaps at the audience: "Get up. Then comes the third emotional jump scare. 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. You can stream "Inside" on Netflix now, and see our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. Burnham uses vocal tuning often throughout all of his specials. All Eyes on Me also earned Bo his first Grammy win for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2022 Grammys. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "BO BURNHAM: INSIDE"). Burnham wrote out: "Does it target those who have been disenfranchised in a historical, political, social, economic and/or psychological context?". 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. It's so good to hear your voice. Later in Inside, Burnham thanks the audience for their support while holding them at knifepoint. 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. 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. Its an uncanny, dystopian view of Burnham as an instrument in the soulless game of social media. Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. It's conscious of self. He is not talking about it very much. 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. The lead-in is Burnham thanking a nonexistent audience for being there with him for the last year. The special is set almost entirely in one cluttered room. The question is now, Will you support Wheat Thins in the fight against Lyme disease?). Now get inside.". Bo Burnham defined an era when he created Inside. Now we've come 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 brings back all the motifs from the earlier songs into his finale, revisiting all the stages of emotion he took us through for the last 90 minutes. Partway through the song, the battery icon switches to low and starts blinking in warning as if death is imminent. ", 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.". HOLMES: So before he was this celebrated filmmaker, Bo Burnham was himself a YouTube star. But what is it exactly - a concert, a comedy special?
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