Toward the end, he appears completely naked behind his keyboard. While talking to the audience during the opening section, Burnham takes a sip out of a water bottle. All Eyes on Me also earned Bo his first Grammy win for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2022 Grammys. Good. When we see it again towards the end of the special, it's from a new camera angle. While sifting through fan reactions to Inside, the YouTube algorithm suggested I watch a fan-made video that pitch corrects All Eyes on Me to Burnhams actual voice. Instead, thanks to his ultra-self-aware style, he seems to always get ahead of criticism by holding himself accountable first. At various points, the gamer is given the option to make the character cry. A weekly roundup of the best things from Polygon, By submitting your email, you agree to our, Bo Burnhams Inside begs for our parasocial awareness, Sign up for the 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. 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. He had a role in the film "Promising Young Woman." A harsh skepticism of digital life (a life the pandemic has only magnified) is the dominant subject of the special. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. And the very format of it, as I said, it's very much this kind of sinister figure trying to get you interested. 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?". "Healing the world with comedy, the indescribable power of your comedy," the voice sings. LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Thank you, Michel. 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. 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. Social media; it's just the market's answer to a generation that demanded to perform so the market said, here, perform. Bo Burnham 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. Bo Burnham For the album, Bo is credited as writer, performer, and producer on every song. The comedians lifetime online explains the heart of most of his new songs, I made you some content, comedian Bo Burnham sings in the opening moments of his new Netflix special, Inside. See our analysis of the end of the special, and why Burnham's analogy for depression works so well. Down to the second, the clock changes to midnight exactly halfway through the runtime of "Inside.". One of those is the internet itself. In the same way that earlier vocal distortion represented God, the effect on his voice in "All Eyes on Me" seems to signal some omniscient force outside of Burnham. WebBo Burnham is more than a comedian he's a writer-director-actor who first went viral in 2006. Daddy made you your favorite. Under the movies section, there's a bubble that says "sequel to classic comedy that everyone watches and then pretends never happened" and "Thor's comebacks.". HOLMES: It felt very true to me, not in the literal sense. Partway through the song, the battery icon switches to low and starts blinking in warning as if death is imminent. Something went wrong. Burnham wrote out: "Does it target those who have been disenfranchised in a historical, political, social, economic and/or psychological context?". 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. At the start of the special, Burnham sings "Content," setting the stage for his musical-comedy. This special spoke to me closer and clearer than Ive ever felt with another person. 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. Bo Burnham also uploaded Welcome to the Internet and White Womans Instagram on his YouTube channel. "Truly, it's like, for a 16-year-old kid in 2006, it's not bad. 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. Burnham then kicks back into song, still addressing his audience, who seem unsure of whether to laugh, applaud, or sit somberly in their chairs. Now get inside.". Transcript Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. And then the funniest thing happened.". The songs from the special were released on streaming platforms on June 10, 2021. Having this frame of reference may help viewers better understand the design of "Inside." The incentives of the web, those that reward outrage, excess and sentiment, are the villains of this show. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. That quiet simplicity doesn't feel like a relief, but it is. Netflix did, however, post Facetime with My Mom (Tonight) on YouTube. 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. MARTIN: And it's deep, too. "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. that shows this exact meta style. .] Instead of working his muscles at open mics or in improv, Burnham uploaded joke songs to the platform in 2006. 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. 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. Instead of a live performance, he's recorded himself in isolation over the course of a year. 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 Burnham Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. 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.". The voices of the characters eventually blend together to tell the live Burnham on stage, We think we know you.. I'm talking to you, get the f--- up.". In the song, Burnham specifically mentions looking up "derealization," a disorder that may "feel like you're living in a dream. '", "Robert's been a little depressed, no!" Anyone can read what you share. 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. One comment stuck out to me: Theres something really powerful and painful about, hearing his actual voice singing and breaking at certain points. Because there's also a little bit Bo Burnham the character in this almost. 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 question is no longer, Do you want to buy Wheat Thins?, for example. 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? And the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. The whole song sounds like you're having a religious experience with your own mental disorder, especially when new harmonies kick in. I did! 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. 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. Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. 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. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment. But on the other hand, it is lyrically so playful. 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. But he's largely been given a pass by his fans, who praise his self-awareness and new approach. / 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. 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. ", 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.". In Unpaid Intern, Burnham sings about how deeply unethical the position is to the workers in a pastiche of other labor-focused blues. Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. And I think that's what you're getting here. Inside Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared, don't be shy, come on in the water's fine."). Performing "Make Happy" was mentally taxing on Burnham. ", "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. He decided to stop doing live performances, and instead set out to write and direct his first feature film, the critically-acclaimed 2018 movie "Eighth Grade." I don't know exactly how it tracks his experience, Bo Burnham, the person, right? WebBo Burnham: Inside is a 2021 special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed by American comedian Bo Burnham. Bo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. "And so today I'm gonna try just getting up, sitting down, going back to work. But unlike many of us, Burnham was also hard at work on a one-man show directed, written and performed all by himself. A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio (John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris) onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy. Its called INSIDE, and it will undoubtedly strike your hearts forevermore. When that future-Burnham appears, it's almost like a precursor to what he'll have shown us by the end of the special: That both he, and his audience, could never have known just how brutal the next year was about to be. Burnham's earlier Netflix specials and comedy albums. Bo Burnham: Inside - The 10 Funniest Quotes From The Netflix 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? 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. I've been hiding from the world and I need to reenter.' jonnyewers 30 May 2021. An existential dread creeps in, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. 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"). The structured movements of the last hour and half fall away as Burnham snaps at the audience: "Get up. Yes, Amazon has a pre-order set up for the album on Vinyl. HOLMES: Yeah. He is not talking about it very much. And if you go back and you look at a film like "Eighth Grade," he's always been really consumed by sort of the positive and the negative of social media and the internet and the life of of young kids. That YouTube commenter might be understood by Burnham if they were to meet him. My heart hurts with and for him. Bo Burnham's 'Inside But then, just as Burnham is vowing to always stay inside, and lamenting that he'll be "fully irrelevant and totally broken" in the future, the spotlight turns on him and he's completely naked. Bo Burnham Research and analysis of parasocial relationships usually revolves around genres of performers instead of individuals. While this special is the product of evolution, Burnham is pointing out its also a regression. Good. "Any Day Now" The ending credits. It's progress. At the second level of the reaction video, Burnham says: "I'm being a little pretentious. And like unpaid interns, most working artists cant afford a mortgage (and yeah, probably torrent a porn). Accuracy and availability may vary. 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. He also costarred in the Oscar-winning movie "Promising Young Woman," filmed in 2019. While platforms like Patreon mean creators can make their own works independently without studio influence, they also mean that the creator is directly beholden to their audience. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. Bo Burnham: Inside, was written, edited, and directed by the talent himself and the entire show is shot in one room. WebBo Burnham: Inside is by far one of the riskiest and original comedy specials to come out in years. "Part of me needs you, part of me fears you. our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. WebBo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. 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. He's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. If the answer is yes, then it's not funny. Were complicated. 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. Bo Burnham Burnham quickly shifts from the song to a reaction video of the song itself in the style of a YouTuber or Twitch streamer. 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. Bo Burnham He has one where he's just sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar describing our modern world. You know, as silly as that one is, some of the other ones are more sedate. Today We'll Talk About That Day The label of parasocial relationship is meant to be neutral, being as natural and normal and, frankly, inescapable as familial or platonic relationships. The question is now, Will you support Wheat Thins in the fight against Lyme disease?). You can stream "Inside" on Netflix now, and see our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. "I'm criticizing my initial reaction for being pretentious, which is honestly a defense mechanism," he says. All rights reserved. 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. Oops. Burnham may also be trying to parody the hollow, PR-scripted apologies that celebrities will trot out before they've possibly had the time to self-reflect and really understand what people are trying to hold them accountable for. Throughout "Inside," there's a huge variety of light and background set-ups used, so it seems unlikely that this particular cloud-scape was just randomly chosen twice. It's prison. Long before the phrase parasocial relationship had entered the mainstream zeitgeist, Burnhams work discussed the phenomenon. 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? "That's a good start. Linda, thank you so much for joining us. "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. this breakdown of 31 details you might have missed in "Inside,". ", "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? 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. Trying to grant his dying father's wish, a son discovers an epic love story buried in his family's distant past. 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. "Inside" kicks off with Burnham reentering the same small studio space he used for the end of "Make Happy," when the 2016 Netflix special transitioned from the live stage to Burnham suddenly sitting down at his piano by himself to sing one final song for the at-home audience. 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. In his first Netflix special (2013's "what. It's like the mental despair of the last year has turned into a comfort. The special is hitting an emotional climax as Burnham shows us both intense anger and then immediately after, a deep and dark sadness. Bo Burnhams Inside: A Comedy Special and an Inspired Experiment, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/arts/television/bo-burnham-inside-comedy.html. Now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room, where he's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. And they're biting, but he's also very talented at these little catchy pop hooks. Not a comedy per se, but a masterpiece nonetheless. So when you get to the end of a song, it often just kind of cuts to something else. 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. In Inside, Burnham confronts parasocial relationships in his most direct way yet. HOLMES: Yeah. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment. Is he content with its content? Other than Fred Rogers, Bo Burnham is one of the most cited single individual creators when discussing parasocial relationships. And many people will probably remember his 2018 movie, "Eighth Grade." Bo Burnham: INSIDE | Trailer - YouTube 0:00 / 2:09 The following content may contain suicide or self-harm topics. The video is an hour-long edit of footage that was deleted from the making of Inside. In the worst case, depression can convince a person to end their life. Maybe we'll call it isolation theater. The scene cuts to black and we see Burnham waking up in his small pull-out couch bed, bookending the section of the special that started when him going to sleep. Parasocial relationships are neutral, and how we interact with them is usually a mixed bag. Bo Burnham It's a series of musical numbers and skits that are inherently about the creation of comedy itself. 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? 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. A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall. Burnham is also the main character in the game, a character who is seen moving mechanically around a room. The tension between creator and audience is a prominent theme in Burnhams work, likely because he got his start on YouTube. We see Burnham moving around in the daylight, a welcome contrast to the dark setting of "All Eyes on Me."
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