At just 20 years old, Burnham was a guest alongside Judd Apatow, Marc Maron, Ray Romano, and Garry Shandling. 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. 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.". 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. that shows this exact meta style. The song begins with a fade in from back, the shot painfully close to Burnhams face as he looks off to the side. 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. The special is hitting an emotional climax as Burnham shows us both intense anger and then immediately after, a deep and dark sadness. Its horrific.". Parasocial relationships can be positive too, as outlined in culture critic Stitchs essay On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity for Teen Vogue. 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.. The title card appears in white, then changes to red, signaling that a camera is recording. It's a heartbreaking chiding coming from his own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. But now Burnham is back. begins with the question "Is it mean?" As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 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. And it has a lot of very clever and very quick wordplay about the specific things you can get on the internet. At the start of the special, Burnham sings "Content," setting the stage for his musical-comedy. And maybe the rest of us are ready, too. 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. MARTIN: You know, about that, because it does move into a deeply serious place at some point. The piece also highlights Bos anxieties with becoming older and his legacy as a comedian. Self-awareness does not absolve anybody of anything.". / 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. Open wide.. 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. Transcript Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. "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. In this case, it's likely some combination of depression/anxiety/any other mental disorder. Copyright 2021 NPR. Theyre complicated. I was not, you know, having these particular experiences. 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. The battery is full, but no numbers are moving. Maybe we'll call it isolation theater. 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. After more sung repetitions of get your fuckin hands up, Burnham says, Get up. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. It's a reminder, coming almost exactly halfway through the special, of the toll that this year is taking on Burnham. And then, of course, he had previous standup comedy specials. The tension between creator and audience is a prominent theme in Burnhams work, likely because he got his start on YouTube. Viewer discretion is advised. Years later, the comedian told NPR's Terry Gross that performing the special was so tough that he was having panic attacks on stage. Its an origin story of sorts. In Unpaid Intern, Burnham sings about how deeply unethical the position is to the workers in a pastiche of other labor-focused blues. 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. Bo Burnhams 2021 special, Inside. The arrogance is taught or it was cultivated. 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. I'm sitting down, writing jokes, singing silly songs, I'm sorry I was gone. But Burnham doesn't put the bottle down right, and it falls off the stool. His hair and beard were shorter, and he was full of inspired energy. 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. our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. "If greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate, then when the clock runs out, the average global temperature will be irreversibly on its way to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels.". But, like so many other plans and hopes people had in the early months of the pandemic, that goal proved unattainable. WebBo Burnham: Inside is a 2021 special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed by American comedian Bo Burnham. Audiences who might not read a 1956 essay by researchers about news anchors still see much of the same discussion in Inside. Bo Burnham It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. "The world needs direction from a white guy like [you] who is healing the world with comedy. 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. Yes, Bo Burnham posted a trailer via Twitter on April 28, 2021. On the other two sides of that question ("no" and "not sure") the flowchart asks if it could be "interpreted" as mean (if so, then it's "not funny") or if it "punches down.". Linda, thank you so much for joining us. 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. "And so, today, I'm gonna try just getting up, sitting down, going back to work. Burnham uses vocal tuning often throughout all of his specials. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. Mirroring the earlier scene where Burnham went to sleep, now Burnham is shown "waking up.". Something went wrong. Inside When we saw that projection the first time, Burnham's room was clean and orderly. 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. Bo Burnham Bo Burnham It chronicles Burnhams life during the pandemic and his journey creating the special. I've been hiding from the world and I need to reenter.' 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. Now get inside.". And you know what? "They say it's like the 'me' generation. 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. "That's a good start. Trying to grant his dying father's wish, a son discovers an epic love story buried in his family's distant past. Were complicated. I hope to see you inside at some point. But he knows how to do this. Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. WebBo Burnham: Inside (2021) 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. MARTIN: This special is titled, appropriately enough, "Inside," and it is streaming on Netflix now. But Burnham is of course the writer, director, editor, and star of this show. 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. 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. Might not help but still it couldn't hurt. Bo Burnham Performing "Make Happy" was mentally taxing on Burnham. Theres always been a tension in his comedy between an ironic, smarty-pants cleverness and an often melodramatic point of view. My heart hurts with and for him. Self-awareness does not absolve anyone of anything, he says. Bo Burnham: Inside review this is a claustrophobic masterpiece. 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. Long before the phrase parasocial relationship had entered the mainstream zeitgeist, Burnhams work discussed the phenomenon. But, of course, it tangles that right back up; this emotional post was, ultimately, still Content. Bo Burnham Burnham reacts to his reaction to his reaction: Im so afraid that this criticism will be levied against me that I levy it against myself before anyone else can. The video keeps going. Now, hes come a long way since his previous specials titled What. and Make Happy, where his large audiences roared with laughter Now get inside.". 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.". 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. You know, as silly as that one is, some of the other ones are more sedate. HOLMES: So, as you'll hear there, on the one hand, there's a lot of sadness in what he's talking about there. 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." 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. 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 meant to knock the water over, yeah yeah yeah, art is a lie nothing is real. It's so good to hear your voice. MARTIN: And I understand you were saying that it moves between genres. He's the writer, director, editor, and star of this show. Bo Burnham I mean, honestly, he's saying a lot right there. Here's a little bit of that. Simply smiling at the irony of watching his own movie come to life while he's still inside? Burnham's hair is shorter in those initial behind-the-scenes moments, but his future-self has a longer, unkempt beard and messy hair. That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. Parasocial relationships are neutral, and how we interact with them is usually a mixed bag. 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. But we weren't. "All Eyes On Me" starts right after Burnham's outburst of anger and sadness. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment. 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. Got it? Initially, this seems like a pretty standard takedown of the basic bitch stereotype co-opted from Black Twitter, until the aspect ratio widens and Burnham sings a shockingly personal, emotional caption from the same feed. 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. Not a comedy per se, but a masterpiece nonetheless. Only he knows. Bo Burnham's 'Inside Inside takes topics discussed academically, analytically, and delivers them to a new audience through the form of a comedy special by a widely beloved performer. The incentives of the web, those that reward outrage, excess and sentiment, are the villains of this show. Most of the comments talk about how visceral it is to hear Burnhams real voice singing the upsetting lyrics. Whatever it is, NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, has reviewed it, and she liked it. 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. Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. 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. 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.". 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.". Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. He doesn't really bother with any kind of transitions. All rights reserved. But look, I made you some content. 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. 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. ", "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. Bo Burnham: Inside On the Netflix special, however, Josh Senior is credited as a producer, Cooper Wehde is an assistant producer, and a number of people are credited for post-production, editing, and logistical coordinating. 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 He's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. When you're a kid and you're stuck in your room, you'll do any old s--- to get out of it.". HOLMES: That was NPR's Linda Holmes reviewing Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside." And so I think he's always had that stubborn insistence on holding both of those things in his head at the same time. WebBo Burnham has been critical of his past self for the edgy, offensive comedy he used to make. . Its an uncanny, dystopian view of Burnham as an instrument in the soulless game of social media. Then, the video keeps going past the runtime of the song and into that reaction itself. Because there's also a little bit Bo Burnham the character in this almost. Burnham skewers himself as a virtue-signaling ally with a white-savior complex, a bully and an egoist who draws a Venn diagram and locates himself in the overlap between Weird Al and Malcolm X. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. Netflix 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. Burnham then kicks back into song, still addressing his audience, who seem unsure of whether to laugh, applaud, or sit somberly in their chairs. Research and analysis of parasocial relationships usually revolves around genres of performers instead of individuals. "I'm so worried that criticism will be levied against me that I levy it against myself before anyone else can. HOLMES: It felt very true to me, not in the literal sense. 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. Is he content with its content? We're a long way from the days when he filmed "Comedy" and the contrast shows how fruitless this method of healing has been. WebBo Burnham is more than a comedian he's a writer-director-actor who first went viral in 2006. It's as if Burnham knows there are valid criticisms of him that haven't really stuck in the public discourse around his work. "Part of me needs you, part of me fears you. 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. You know, I was not, you know, I was alone, but I was not trapped in one room. He had a role in the film "Promising Young Woman." At the second level of the reaction video, Burnham says: "I'm being a little pretentious. His career evolved through YouTube, MTV, Vine, his movie "Eighth Grade," and now Netflix's "Inside." It's conscious of self. But now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room where "Inside" was filmed. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Review: Bo Burnham's 'Inside Known as "Art is a Lie, Nothing is Real," there's a bit Burnham did at the start of his 2013 special "what." It's a dangerously tempting invitation to stop caring, coming from the villain of this musical comedy (depression). 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.". Using cinematic tools other comics overlook, the star (who is also the director, editor and cameraman) trains a glaring spotlight on internet life mid-pandemic. 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? Teeuwen's performance shows a twisted, codependent relationship between him and the puppet on his hand, something Burnham is clearly channeling in his own sock puppet routine in "Inside.". "I didn't perform for five years," he says. Bo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. 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? 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. 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 ". The special is set almost entirely in one cluttered room. HOLMES: Thank you. 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. BURNHAM: (Singing) Does anybody want to joke when no one's laughing in the background? I actually felt true mutual empathy with someone for the first time, and with someone Ive never even met, its kinda funny.. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update.
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