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. ", Right as Burnham is straightening up, music begins blaring over the speakers and Burnham's own voice sings: "He meant to knock the water over, yeah yeah yeah, but you all thought it was an accident. Gross asked Burnham if people "misinterpreted" the song and thought it was homophobic. The video is an hour-long edit of footage that was deleted from the making of Inside. "A part of me loves you, part of me hates you," he sang to the crowd. I actually felt true mutual empathy with someone for the first time, and with someone Ive never even met, its kinda funny.. Burnham's hair is shorter in those initial behind-the-scenes moments, but his future-self has a longer, unkempt beard and messy hair. He has one where he's just sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar describing our modern world. How does one know if the joke punches down? The first comes when Burnham looks directly into the camera as he addresses the audience, singing, Are you feeling nervous? "I didn't perform for five years," he says. "You say the whole world's ending, honey it already did, you're not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried. "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. Whatever it is, NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, has reviewed it, and she liked it. 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. Bo Might not help but still it couldn't hurt. 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. 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 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. 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. Good. 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. 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. Well, well, buddy you found it, now come out with your hands up we've got you surrounded.". And they're biting, but he's also very talented at these little catchy pop hooks. 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. The incentives of the web, those that reward outrage, excess and sentiment, are the villains of this show. HOLMES: That was NPR's Linda Holmes reviewing Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside." Is he content with its content? And maybe the rest of us are ready, too. And she's with us now to tell us more about it. 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. Bo Burnham 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. Its a lyrically dense song with camerawork that speeds up with its rhythm. The performer, along with the record label and brand deals, encourage a parasocial relationship for increased profits. newsletter, On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness.. 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. 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. Burnham is also the main character in the game, a character who is seen moving mechanically around a room. And now depression has its grips in him. Bo Burnham: Inside - The 10 Funniest Quotes From The Netflix Special Also, Burnham's air conditioner is set to precisely 69 degrees throughout this whole faux music video. Instead, thanks to his ultra-self-aware style, he seems to always get ahead of criticism by holding himself accountable first. 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. I have a funky memory and I sometimes can't remember things from something I've watched, even if it was just yesterday. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. 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. It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. .] And I don't think that I can handle this right now. 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. And I'm just wondering, like, how would you describe that? Is he content with its content? Bo Burnham "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. But on the other hand, it is lyrically so playful. Self-awareness does not absolve anyone of anything, he says. 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. Bo Burnham So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. Burnham is especially aware as a creator constantly reflecting on his own life. Bo Burnham, pictured here at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, wrote, directed and performed the entirety of his new Netflix special, Inside, by himself. Netflix I like this song, Burnham says, before pointing out the the lack of modern songs about labor exploitation. Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. On the simplest level, Inside is the story of a comic struggling to make a funny show during quarantine and gradually losing his mind. 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? The vocal key used in "All Eyes On Me" could be meant to represent depression, an outside force that is rather adept at convincing our minds to simply stay in bed, to not care, and to not try anymore. MARTIN: And I understand you were saying that it moves between genres. That's a really clever, fun little rhyme in this, you know, kind of heavy song. Now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room, where he's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. Bo Burnham 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 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. Likewise. True, but it can deepen and clarify art. 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? "), Burnham sang a parody song called "Sad" about, well, all the sad stuff in the world. They Cloned Tyrone. And then, of course, he had previous standup comedy specials. Its an origin story of sorts. "All Eyes On Me" starts right after Burnham's outburst of anger and sadness. 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. Burnham was just 16 years old when he wrote a parody song ("My Whole Family") and filmed himself performing it in his bedroom. 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. Inside It's like the mental despair of the last year has turned into a comfort. Bo Burnham's Netflix Special, 'Inside WebA grieving woman magically travels through time to 1998, where she meets a man with an uncanny resemblance to her late love. And I think that, 'Oh if I'm self-aware about being a douchebag it'll somehow make me less of a douchebag.' "I was a kid who was stuck in his room, there isn't much more to say about it. Bo Burnham Mirroring the earlier scene where Burnham went to sleep, now Burnham is shown "waking up.". Oops. 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. Its a feat, the work of a gifted experimentalist whose craft has caught up to his talent. One of the most encouraging developments in comedy over the past decade has been the growing directorial ambition of stand-up specials. Its horrific.". See our analysis of the end of the special, and why Burnham's analogy for depression works so well. 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. But by the end of the tune, his narrative changes into irreverence. Burnham is an extraordinary actor, and "Inside" often feels like we're watching the intimate, real interior life of an artist. With menacing horror movie sound effects and hectic, dreamy camerawork, what becomes clear is Burnhams title has a double meaning: referring to being inside not just a room, but also his head. It's a dangerously tempting invitation to stop caring, coming from the villain of this musical comedy (depression). Netflix did, however, post Facetime with My Mom (Tonight) on YouTube. 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? In the worst case, depression can convince a person to end their life. Theres always been a tension in his comedy between an ironic, smarty-pants cleverness and an often melodramatic point of view. 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. 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. 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. "Healing the world with comedy, the indescribable power of your comedy," the voice sings. 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?. The special is set almost entirely in one cluttered room. 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. And so I think he's always had that stubborn insistence on holding both of those things in his head at the same time. 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. @TheWoodMother made a video about how Burnham's "Inside" is its own poioumenon, which led to his first viral video on YouTube, written in 2006, is about how his whole family thinks he's gay, defines depersonalization-derealization disorder, "critical window for action to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible.". "I'm so worried that criticism will be levied against me that I levy it against myself before anyone else can. You know, I was not, you know, I was alone, but I was not trapped in one room. 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. I'm talking to you, get the f--- up.". 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. From the very beginning of "Inside," Burnham makes it clear that the narrative arc of the special will be self-referential. Bo Burnham He's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. It has extended versions of songs, cut songs, and alternate versions of songs that were eventually deleted; but is mainly comprised of outtakes. And it has a real feel of restlessness to it, almost like stream of consciousness. WebA Girl and an Astronaut. "The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all," is another of Burnham's lyrics in this song that seems to speak to the idea that civilization is nearing collapse, and also touches on suicidal ideation. "You say the ocean's rising, like I give a s---, you say the whole world's ending, honey it already did, you're not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried," he sings. Tell us a little bit more about that. 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. I'm sitting down, writing jokes, singing silly songs, I'm sorry I was gone. And it has a lot of very clever and very quick wordplay about the specific things you can get on the internet. Burnham lingers on his behind-the-scenes technical tinkering handling lights, editing, practicing lines. WebBo Burnham: Inside is a 2021 special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed by American comedian Bo Burnham. All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. Instead of working his muscles at open mics or in improv, Burnham uploaded joke songs to the platform in 2006. Throughout the song and its accompanying visuals, Burnham is highlighting the "girlboss" aesthetic of many white women's Instagram accounts. "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. Bo Burnham 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? 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?". 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. It's wonderful to be with you. Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. HOLMES: Well, logically enough, let's go out on the closing song. Daddy made you your favorite. All Eyes on Me also earned Bo his first Grammy win for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2022 Grammys. Its a visual that signifies a man exposing himself, until you realize hes in a spotlight. It's self-conscious. Im talking to you. I did! Finally doing basic care tasks for yourself like eating breakfast and starting work in the morning. Entertainment correspondent Kim Renfro ranked them in ascending order of greatness. 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. Transcript Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. I feel very close and intimate with him in this version. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Bo Burnham Inside doesnt give clear answers like parasocial relationships good or parasocial relationships bad, because those answers do not, and cannot, exist. So this is how it ends. Inside, a new Netflix special written, performed, directed, shot, and edited by comedian Bo Burnham, invokes and plays with many forms. ", He then pulls the same joke again, letting the song play after the audience's applause so it seems like a mistake. MARTIN: This special is titled, appropriately enough, "Inside," and it is streaming on Netflix now. The penultimate song, "All Eyes On Me," is the best in the whole special, in this writer's opinion. A college student navigates life and school while dealing with a unique predicament he's living with a beautiful former K-pop sensation. 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. At just 20 years old, Burnham was a guest alongside Judd Apatow, Marc Maron, Ray Romano, and Garry Shandling. The Volcano, which touched on labor rights. It's progress. Inside is the work of a comic with artistic tools most of his peers ignore or overlook. I hope to see you inside at some point. you might have missed in Bo Burnham The voices of the characters eventually blend together to tell the live Burnham on stage, We think we know you.. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "BO BURNHAM: INSIDE"). (The question is no longer, Do you want to buy Wheat Thins?, for example. The song begins with a fade in from back, the shot painfully close to Burnhams face as he looks off to the side. I was not, you know, having these particular experiences. Like he's parodying white people who think that by crucifying themselves first they're somehow freed from the consequences of their actions. 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. Let's take a closer look at just a few of those bubbles, shall we? our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. Burnham had no idea that his song would be seen more than 10 million times,nor that it would kick start his career in a niche brand of self-aware musical comedy. It's so good to hear your voice. Back in 2010, Burnham appeared on Showtime's "The Green Room," a comics round table hosted by Paul Provenza. It's a series of musical numbers and skits that are inherently about the creation of comedy itself. Burnham slaps his leg in frustration and eventually gives a mirthless laugh before he starts slamming objects around him. 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. 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. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. 20. That YouTube commenter might be understood by Burnham if they were to meet him. Theyre complicated. Well, well, buddy you found it, now come out with your hands up we've got you surrounded.". Viewer discretion is advised. The tension between creator and audience is a prominent theme in Burnhams work, likely because he got his start on YouTube. ", "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. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. And then the funniest thing happened.". That quiet simplicity doesn't feel like a relief, but it is. HOLMES: Thank you. That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. He uploaded it to YouTube, a then barely-known website that offered an easy way for people to share videos, so he could send it to his brother. 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: Inside Maybe we'll call it isolation theater. He is not talking about it very much. He's also giving us a visual representation of the way social media feeds can jarringly swing between shallow photos and emotional posts about trauma and loss. 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. He slaps his leg in frustration, and eventually gives a mirthless laugh before he starts slamming objects around him. The arrogance is taught or it was cultivated. 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. That's when the younger Burnham, the one from the beginning of his special-filming days, appears. WebBo Burnham's Netflix special "Inside" features 20 new original songs. My heart hurts with and for him. And the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. 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. But Burnham doesn't put the bottle down right, and it falls off the stool. I don't know exactly how it tracks his experience, Bo Burnham, the person, right? At the second level of the reaction video, Burnham says: "I'm being a little pretentious. "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.". But now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room where "Inside" was filmed. The reason he started making this special, he explains in the show, is to distract himself from shooting himself in the head, the first of several mentions of suicide (including one in which he tells viewers to just dont). There's no more time left to add to the camera's clock. "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. One of those is the internet itself. 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 special was nominated for six Emmy Awards in 2021, of which it won three: Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special, Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, and Outstanding Music Direction. Long before the phrase parasocial relationship had entered the mainstream zeitgeist, Burnhams work discussed the phenomenon. Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. See our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. I have a lot of material from back then that I'm not proud of and I think is offensive and I think is not helpful. If we continue to look at it from the lens of a musical narrative, this is the point at which our protagonist realizes he's failed at his mission. I don't think it's perfectly morally defendable.". You can tell that he's watched a ton of livestream gamers, and picked up on their intros, the way the talk with people in the chat, the cadence of their commentary on the game, everything. Burnham's creative background began with being a theater then he transitioned to musical-comedy. He was alone. 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. 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." The battery is full, but no numbers are moving. 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. 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. ", 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.". Years later, the comedian told NPR's Terry Gross that performing the special was so tough that he was having panic attacks on stage. Having this frame of reference may help viewers better understand the design of "Inside."