The hustle to be a working artist usually means delivering an unending churn of content curated specifically for the demands of an audience that can tell you directly why they are upset with you because they did not actually like the content you gave them, and then they can take away some of your revenue for it. It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. Accuracy and availability may vary. Likewise. The special is hitting an emotional climax as Burnham shows us both intense anger and then immediately after, a deep and dark sadness. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "BO BURNHAM: INSIDE"). He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. This is when the musical numbers (and in-between skits) become much more grim. And that can be a really - if you're not very good at it, that kind of thing, where there's a balance between sort of the sarcastic and ironic versus the very sincere can be really exhausting. It's as if Burnham is showing how wholesale judgments about the way people choose to use social media can gloss over earnest, genuine expressions of love and grief being shared online. Viewer discretion is advised. 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. 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. Likewise. Some of the narrative of the show can be indulgently overheated, playing into clichs about the process of the brooding artist, but Burnham has anticipated this and other criticisms, and integrated them into the special, including the idea that drawing attention to potential flaws fixes them. Or was it an elaborate callback to his earlier work, planted for fans seeking evidence that art is lie? Bo Burnham Inside doesnt give clear answers like parasocial relationships good or parasocial relationships bad, because those answers do not, and cannot, exist. 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. 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. 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 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. Bo Burnham: Inside, was written, edited, and directed by the talent himself and the entire show is shot in one room. Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. Oops. Bo Burnham Might not help, but still, it couldn't hurt.". Today We'll Talk About That Day 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. 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. HOLMES: Thank you. His career evolved through YouTube, MTV, Vine, his movie "Eighth Grade," and now Netflix's "Inside." Bo Burnhams 2021 special, Inside. Audiences who might not read a 1956 essay by researchers about news anchors still see much of the same discussion in Inside. 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. I did! 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. In this case, it's likely some combination of depression/anxiety/any other mental disorder. (For example, the song "Straight, White, Male" from the "Make Happy" special). The second emotional jump scare comes when Burnham monologues about how he stopped performing live because he started having panic attacks on stage, which is not a great place to have them. The monologue increases that sense of intimacy; Burnham is letting the audience in on the state of his mental health even before the global pandemic. The piece also highlights Bos anxieties with becoming older and his legacy as a comedian. Long before the phrase parasocial relationship had entered the mainstream zeitgeist, Burnhams work discussed the phenomenon. 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. MARTIN: And it's deep, too. Inside 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. Bo My heart hurts with and for him. 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. 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. Bo Burnham It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. 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. 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.". Bo Burnham And the very format of it, as I said, it's very much this kind of sinister figure trying to get you interested. An astronaut's return after a 30-year disappearance rekindles a lost love and sparks interest from a corporation determined to learn why he hasn't aged. "I was a kid who was stuck in his room, there isn't much more to say about it. BURNHAM: (Singing) Does anybody want to joke when no one's laughing in the background? But now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room where "Inside" was filmed. 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. But on the other hand, it is lyrically so playful. And its easier to relax when the video focuses on a separate take of Burnham singing from farther away, the frame now showing the entire room. And it has a real feel of restlessness to it, almost like stream of consciousness. Social media; it's just the market's answer to a generation that demanded to perform so the market said, here, perform. But look, I made you some content. There's no more time left to add to the camera's clock. Linda, thank you so much for joining us. TikTok creator @TheWoodMother made a video about how Burnham's "Inside" is its own poioumenon thanks to the meta scenes of Burnham setting up lights and cameras, not to mention the musical numbers like "Content" and "Comedy" that all help to tell the story of Burnham making this new special. That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. Coined in 1956 by researchers Donald Horton and Richard Wohl, the term initially was used to analyze relationships between news anchors who spoke directly to the audience and that audience itself. begins with the question "Is it mean?" In the song, Burnham specifically mentions looking up "derealization," a disorder that may "feel like you're living in a dream. Bo Burnham, pictured here at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, wrote, directed and performed the entirety of his new Netflix special, Inside, by himself. "They say it's like the 'me' generation. Its an origin story of sorts. Bo Burnham 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. 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. 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 we might. 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. Netflix Burnham is especially aware as a creator constantly reflecting on his own life. 7 on the Top 200. WebBo Burnham: Inside is a 2021 special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed by American comedian Bo Burnham. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. MARTIN: You know, about that, because it does move into a deeply serious place at some point. The question is now, Will you support Wheat Thins in the fight against Lyme disease?). The title card appears in white, then changes to red, signaling that a camera is recording. Also, Burnham's air conditioner is set to precisely 69 degrees throughout this whole faux music video. Bo Burnham: Inside Good. The whole song sounds like you're having a religious experience with your own mental disorder, especially when new harmonies kick in. Bo Burnham: INSIDE | Trailer - YouTube 0:00 / 2:09 The following content may contain suicide or self-harm topics. And maybe the rest of us are ready, too. MARTIN: And I understand you were saying that it moves between genres. Though it does have a twist. 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. A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall. Anything and everything all of the time. Then, the video keeps going past the runtime of the song and into that reaction itself. 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. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Anyone can read what you share. 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. At the start of the special, Burnham sings "Content," setting the stage for his musical-comedy. Underneath the Steve Martin-like formal trickery has always beaten the heaving heart of a flamboyantly dramatic theater kid. Bo Burnham: Inside MARTIN: This special is titled, appropriately enough, "Inside," and it is streaming on Netflix now. [1] Created in the guest house of Burnham's Los Angeles home during the COVID-19 pandemic without a crew or audience, it was released on Netflix on May 30, 2021. He takes it, and Burnham cries robotically as a tinny version of the song about being stuck in the room plays. BURNHAM: (Singing) Could I interest you in everything all of the time, a little bit of everything all of the time? @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.". And part of it is sometimes he's just in despair. I mean, honestly, he's saying a lot right there. And I think that, 'Oh if I'm self-aware about being a douchebag it'll somehow make me less of a douchebag.' He is now back to where he was, making jokes alone in his room, an effort to escape his reality. Bo Burnham Were complicated. 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. At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. A harsh skepticism of digital life (a life the pandemic has only magnified) is the dominant subject of the special. Now get inside.". Burnham wrote out: "Does it target those who have been disenfranchised in a historical, political, social, economic and/or psychological context?". 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. Still, its difficult not to be lulled back into, again, this absolute banger. WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. While talking to the audience during the opening section, Burnham takes a sip out of a water bottle. His new Netflix special Inside was directed, written and performed all inside one room. Whatever it is, NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, has reviewed it, and she liked it. 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. He is not talking about it very much. In his new Netflix special, Inside, Bo Burnham sings about trying to be funny while stuck in a room. In the song Problematic, Burnham sings about his past problematic behavior, asking the audience, Isnt anyone going to hold me accountable? The specials intermission looks like a clear view into Burnhams room, until Burnham washes a window between himself and the viewer an explicit, but invisible, boundary between creator and audience. 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 It's like the mental despair of the last year has turned into a comfort. I got better. 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. And she's with us now to tell us more about it. Most sources discuss fictional characters, news anchors, childrens show hosts, or celebrity culture as a whole. Thank you, Michel. Bo Burnham also uploaded Welcome to the Internet and White Womans Instagram on his YouTube channel. Most of the comments talk about how visceral it is to hear Burnhams real voice singing the upsetting lyrics. At the second level of the reaction video, Burnham says: "I'm being a little pretentious. 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). 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. 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. "I didn't perform for five years," he says. And then the funniest thing happened.". People experiencing depression often stop doing basic self-care tasks, like showering or laundry or brushing their teeth. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Toward the end, he appears completely naked behind his keyboard. We see Burnham moving around in the daylight, a welcome contrast to the dark setting of "All Eyes on Me." One comment stuck out to me: Theres something really powerful and painful about, hearing his actual voice singing and breaking at certain points. The first comes when Burnham looks directly into the camera as he addresses the audience, singing, Are you feeling nervous? I'm sitting down, writing jokes, singing silly songs, I'm sorry I was gone. The lead-in is Burnham thanking a nonexistent audience for being there with him for the last year. This is a heartbreaking chiding coming from Burnham's own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. The song begins with a fade in from back, the shot painfully close to Burnhams face as he looks off to the side. For those who are unaware, Bos real name is Robert Burnham. A distorted voice is back again, mocking Burnham as he sits exposed on his fake stage: "Well, well, look who's inside again. "I was in a full body sweat, so I didn't hear most of that," Burnham said after the clip played. 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. He grabs the camera and swings it around in a circle as the song enters another chorus, and a fake audience cheers in the background. 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). Bo Burnham On the simplest level, Inside is the story of a comic struggling to make a funny show during quarantine and gradually losing his mind. "Problematic" is a roller coaster of self-awareness, masochism, and parody. WebBo Burnham: Inside is by far one of the riskiest and original comedy specials to come out in years. Performing "Make Happy" was mentally taxing on Burnham. our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. "Robert's been a little depressed," he sings (referring to himself by his birthname). HOLMES: That was NPR's Linda Holmes reviewing Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside." Burnham is also the main character in the game, a character who is seen moving mechanically around a room.