"And so, today, I'm gonna try just getting up, sitting down, going back to work. Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul. Instead of working his muscles at open mics or in improv, Burnham uploaded joke songs to the platform in 2006. Most creator-made content online is available for free, meaning creators usually have to rely on their fans for income via crowdfunding like Patreon. Mid-song, a spotlight turns on Burnham and shows him completely naked as a voice sings: "Well, well, look who's inside again. BURNHAM: (Singing) Could I interest you in everything all of the time, a little bit of everything all of the time? "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. This sketch, like the "White Woman Instagram" song, shows one of Burnham's writing techniques of bringing a common Internet culture into a fictionalized bit. At the beginning of "Inside," Burnham is not only coming back to that same room, but he's wearing a very similar outfit: jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers picking up right back where he left off. "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. 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. "The world needs direction from a white guy like [you] who is healing the world with comedy. You know, I was not, you know, I was alone, but I was not trapped in one room. Inside is a tricky work that for all its boundary-crossing remains in the end a comedy in the spirit of neurotic, self-loathing stand-up. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. HOLMES: It felt very true to me, not in the literal sense. "Goodbye sadness, hello jokes!". The song begins with a fade in from back, the shot painfully close to Burnhams face as he looks off to the side. Bo Burnham, pictured here at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, wrote, directed and performed the entirety of his new Netflix special, Inside, by himself. And finally today, like many of us, writer, comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham found himself isolated for much of last year - home alone, growing a beard, trying his best to stay sane. Photograph: Netflix Its a measure of the quality of Inside 1.0 that this stuff could end up on the cutting-room floor. His hair and beard were shorter, and he was full of inspired energy. And so I think he's always had that stubborn insistence on holding both of those things in his head at the same time. I was not, you know, having these particular experiences. That's what it is. Next in his special, Burnham performs a sketch song about being an unpaid intern, and then says he's going to do a "reaction" video to the song in classic YouTube format. HOLMES: So, as you'll hear there, on the one hand, there's a lot of sadness in what he's talking about there. It chronicles Burnhams life during the pandemic and his journey creating the special. The clearest inspiration is Merle Traviss 16 Tons, a song about the unethical working conditions of coal miners also used in weird Tom Hanks film Joe vs. It's not. MARTIN: And I understand you were saying that it moves between genres. 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. "You say the ocean's rising, like I give a s---," he sings. On May 30, 2022, Burnham uploaded the video Inside: The Outtakes, to his YouTube channel, marking a rare original upload, similar to how he used his YouTube channel when he was a teenager. A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall. WebBo Burnham's Netflix special "Inside" features 20 new original songs. And I'm just wondering, like, how would you describe that? 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. My heart hurts with and for him. "Everything that once was sad is somehow funny now, the Holocaust and 9/11, that s---'s funny, 24-7, 'cause tragedy will be exclusively joked about, because my empathy iss bumming me out," he sang. 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. Linda, thank you so much for joining us. Burnham makes it textual, too. BURNHAM: (Singing) Does anybody want to joke when no one's laughing in the background? Now get inside.". Im talking to you. I'm sitting down, writing jokes, singing silly songs, I'm sorry I was gone. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. When we see it again towards the end of the special, it's from a new camera angle. "Problematic" is a roller coaster of self-awareness, masochism, and parody. It's an emergence from the darkness. Got it? Now, hes come a long way since his previous specials titled What. and Make Happy, where his large audiences roared with laughter 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. But, of course, it tangles that right back up; this emotional post was, ultimately, still Content. And the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "BO BURNHAM: INSIDE"). 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. 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. Now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room, where he's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. But Burnham doesn't put the bottle down right, and it falls off the stool. 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 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.". Other than Fred Rogers, Bo Burnham is one of the most cited single individual creators when discussing parasocial relationships. This line comes full circle by the end of the special, so keep it in mind. HOLMES: So before he was this celebrated filmmaker, Bo Burnham was himself a YouTube star. He is leaving it to speak for itself in terms of what it says about isolation and sadness. Not only has his musical range expanded his pastiche of styles includes bebop, synth-pop and peppy show tunes Burnham, who once published a book of poems, has also become as meticulous and creative with his visual vocabulary as his language. Thank you so much for joining us. Burnhams 2013 special, what., culminates in Burnham, the performer, reacting to pre-recorded versions of himself playing people from his life reacting to his work and fame, trying to capitalize on their tenuous relationship with him. Bo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. 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 Because there's also a little bit Bo Burnham the character in this almost. 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. HOLMES: Yeah. When you're a kid and you're stuck in your room, you'll do any old s--- to get out of it.". 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 like unpaid interns, most working artists cant afford a mortgage (and yeah, probably torrent a porn). 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. Theyre complicated. Viewer discretion is advised. Hes been addressing us the entire time. But then the video keeps playing, and so he winds up reacting to his own reaction, and then reacting yet again to that reaction. And then the funniest thing happened.". But now Burnham is back. Bo Burnham: INSIDE | Trailer - YouTube 0:00 / 2:09 The following content may contain suicide or self-harm topics. Inside, a new Netflix special written, performed, directed, shot, and edited by comedian Bo Burnham, invokes and plays with many forms. Likewise. 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. In the song, Burnham specifically mentions looking up "derealization," a disorder that may "feel like you're living in a dream. "I didn't perform for five years," he says. 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). WebBo Burnham: Inside is a 2021 special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed by American comedian Bo Burnham. 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. The lead-in is Burnham thanking a nonexistent audience for being there with him for the last year. 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. The tension between creator and audience is a prominent theme in Burnhams work, likely because he got his start on YouTube. While this special is the product of evolution, Burnham is pointing out its also a regression. 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 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. The final shot is of him looking positively orgasmic, eyes closed, on the cross. Netflix 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. But also, it's clear that there's a lot on his mind. I hope to see you inside at some point. True, but it can deepen and clarify art. And I think that's what you're getting here. In Unpaid Intern, Burnham sings about how deeply unethical the position is to the workers in a pastiche of other labor-focused blues. Inside has been making waves for comedy fans, similar to the ways previous landmark comedy specials like Hannah Gadsbys Nanette or Tig Notaros Live (aka Hello, I Have Cancer) have. Thought modern humans have been around for much longer than 20,000 years, that's around how long ago people first migrated to North America. 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. And he's done virtually no press about it. 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. Linda Holmes, welcome. Though it does have a twist. Burnham reacts to his reaction of the song, this time saying, Im being a little pretentious. The incentives of the web, those that reward outrage, excess and sentiment, are the villains of this show. 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. 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. / 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. WebBo Burnham is more than a comedian he's a writer-director-actor who first went viral in 2006. 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 ". ", He then pulls the same joke again, letting the song play after the audience's applause so it seems like a mistake. I have a funky memory and I sometimes can't remember things from something I've watched, even if it was just yesterday. In this case, it's likely some combination of depression/anxiety/any other mental disorder. That's when the younger Burnham, the one from the beginning of his special-filming days, appears. Burnham spent his teen years doing theater and songwriting, which led to his first viral video on YouTube a song he now likely categorizes as "offensive.". But it doesn't. His new Netflix special Inside was directed, written and performed all inside one room. Underneath the Steve Martin-like formal trickery has always beaten the heaving heart of a flamboyantly dramatic theater kid. Yes, Bo Burnham posted a trailer via Twitter on April 28, 2021. Accuracy and availability may vary. 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. 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 Bo Burnham has had a lot of different identities lately. WebBo Burnham: Inside is by far one of the riskiest and original comedy specials to come out in years. Only he knows. 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. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared, don't be shy, come on in the water's fine."). 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. 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." ", "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. Most sources discuss fictional characters, news anchors, childrens show hosts, or celebrity culture as a whole. 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. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Burnham uses vocal tuning often throughout all of his specials. Burnham starts spiraling in a mental health crisis, mentioning suicidal ideation after lamenting his advance into his 30s. Like he's parodying white people who think that by crucifying themselves first they're somehow freed from the consequences of their actions. Here's a little bit of that. our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. 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 it's important to remember, you know, this is a piece of theater. 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. Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. Likewise. That's a really clever, fun little rhyme in this, you know, kind of heavy song. HOLMES: Yeah. 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. 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. On June 9, Burnham released the music from the special in an album titled Inside (The Songs), which hit No. People experiencing depression often stop doing basic self-care tasks, like showering or laundry or brushing their teeth. WebBo Burnham has been critical of his past self for the edgy, offensive comedy he used to make. 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. He also revealed an official poster, a single frame from the special, and the cover art prior to its release. In the worst case, depression can convince a person to end their life. From the very beginning of "Inside," Burnham makes it clear that the narrative arc of the special will be self-referential. And part of it is sometimes he's just in despair. Partway through the song, the battery icon switches to low and starts blinking in warning as if death is imminent. Having this frame of reference may help viewers better understand the design of "Inside." "All Eyes On Me" starts right after Burnham's outburst of anger and sadness. 20. I don't know exactly how it tracks his experience, Bo Burnham, the person, right? Burnham then kicks back into song, still addressing his audience, who seem unsure of whether to laugh, applaud, or sit somberly in their chairs. Some of the things he mentions that give him "that funny feeling" include discount Etsy agitprop (aka communist-themed merchandise) and the Pepsi halftime show. "), Burnham sang a parody song called "Sad" about, well, all the sad stuff in the world. Inside is the work of a comic with artistic tools most of his peers ignore or overlook. In a giddy homage to Cabaret, Burnham, in sunglasses, plays the M.C. He doesn't really bother with any kind of transitions. Relieved to be done? Social media; it's just the market's answer to a generation that demanded to perform so the market said, here, perform. 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. He had a role in the film "Promising Young Woman." I got so much better, in fact, that in January of 2020, I thought 'you know what I should start performing again. Its an instinct I have for all my work to have some deeper meaning or something. But he's largely been given a pass by his fans, who praise his self-awareness and new approach. 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. 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. 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. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. As energetic as the song "S---" is, it's really just another clear message about the mental disorder that has its grips in Burnham (or at least the version of him we're seeing in this special). 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. You can stream "Inside" on Netflix now, and see our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. It's like Burnham's special has swallowed you whole, bringing you fully into his mind at last. I like this song, Burnham says, before pointing out the the lack of modern songs about labor exploitation. Transcript Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. Then comes the third emotional jump scare. Later in Inside, Burnham thanks the audience for their support while holding them at knifepoint. 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. One of the most encouraging developments in comedy over the past decade has been the growing directorial ambition of stand-up specials. Similarly, Burnham often speaks to the audience by filming himself speaking to himself in a mirror. 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.". Please enter a valid email and try again. A harsh skepticism of digital life (a life the pandemic has only magnified) is the dominant subject of the special. It feels like the ending of a show, a climax, but it's not. 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. Burnham can't get through his words in the update as he admits he's been working on the special much longer than he'd anticipated. 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. Burnham wrote out: "Does it target those who have been disenfranchised in a historical, political, social, economic and/or psychological context?". 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. A part of me loves you, part of me hates you / Part of me needs you, part of me fears you / [. 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.". At first hearing, this is a simple set of lyrics about the way kids deal with struggles throughout adolescence, particularly things like anxiety and depression. "I'm criticizing my initial reaction for being pretentious, which is honestly a defense mechanism," he says. Like most of Burnhams specials, it includes comedic songs and creative lighting effects. We're a long way from the days when he filmed "Comedy" and the contrast shows how fruitless this method of healing has been. I feel very close and intimate with him in this version. The video is an hour-long edit of footage that was deleted from the making of Inside. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. I mean, honestly, he's saying a lot right there. 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. The label of parasocial relationship is meant to be neutral, being as natural and normal and, frankly, inescapable as familial or platonic relationships. But what is it exactly - a concert, a comedy special? Might not help, but still, it couldn't hurt.". So when you get to the end of a song, it often just kind of cuts to something else. And maybe the rest of us are ready, too.