Got it? He doesn't really bother with any kind of transitions. Mid-song, a spotlight turns on Burnham and shows him completely naked as a voice sings: "Well, well, look who's inside again. 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: (Singing) Does anybody want to joke when no one's laughing in the background? 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. Its called INSIDE, and it will undoubtedly strike your hearts forevermore. 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. 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 then the video keeps playing, and so he winds up reacting to his own reaction, and then reacting yet again to that reaction. It's a heartbreaking chiding coming from his own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. HOLMES: Right. 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. Most of the comments talk about how visceral it is to hear Burnhams real voice singing the upsetting lyrics. 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. He's freely admitting that self-awareness isn't enough while also clearly unable to move away from that self-aware comedic space he so brilliantly holds. "I didn't perform for five years," he says. Or was it an elaborate callback to his earlier work, planted for fans seeking evidence that art is lie? Netflix did, however, post Facetime with My Mom (Tonight) on YouTube. Please enter a valid email and try again. He's the writer, director, editor, and star of this show. I like this song, Burnham says, before pointing out the the lack of modern songs about labor exploitation. "All Eyes On Me" starts right after Burnham's outburst of anger and sadness. "Any Day Now" The ending credits. 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. But, like so many other plans and hopes people had in the early months of the pandemic, that goal proved unattainable. Whatever it is, NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, has reviewed it, and she liked it. Other than Fred Rogers, Bo Burnham is one of the most cited single individual creators when discussing parasocial relationships. I did! Then, the video keeps going past the runtime of the song and into that reaction itself. "You say the ocean's rising, like I give a s---," he sings. Daddy made you your favorite, open wide.". Soering New insights from various parties come to light that raise questions about Jens Sring's conviction of the 1985 murders of his then-girlfriend's parents. Trying to grant his dying father's wish, a son discovers an epic love story buried in his family's distant past. ", "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. 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. WebA Girl and an Astronaut. 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. And the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. MARTIN: Well, that being said, Lynda, like, what song do you want to go out on? I have a funky memory and I sometimes can't remember things from something I've watched, even if it was just yesterday. When you're a kid and you're stuck in your room, you'll do any old s--- to get out of it.". That's when the younger Burnham, the one from the beginning of his special-filming days, appears. 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. 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. The piece also highlights Bos anxieties with becoming older and his legacy as a comedian. LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Thank you, Michel. (For example, the song "Straight, White, Male" from the "Make Happy" special). "Goodbye sadness, hello jokes!". 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. / 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. He also costarred in the Oscar-winning movie "Promising Young Woman," filmed in 2019. 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. Bo Burnhams Inside: A Comedy Special and an Inspired Experiment, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/arts/television/bo-burnham-inside-comedy.html. '", "Robert's been a little depressed, no!" But look, I made you some content. Likewise, the finale of Burnhams next special, Make Happy (2016) closes in a song called Handle This (Kanye Rant). The song starts as him venting his hyperbolically small problems, until the tone shifts, and he starts directly addressing the audience, singing: The truth is, my biggest problem is you / [. And I don't think that I can handle this right now. If "All Eyes on Me" sounds disconcertingly comforting to you, it could be because you can recognize the mental symptoms of a mood disorder like depression. With electro-pop social commentary, bleak humour and sock-puppet debates, the comics lockdown creation is astonishing. In a giddy homage to Cabaret, Burnham, in sunglasses, plays the M.C. 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. And the very format of it, as I said, it's very much this kind of sinister figure trying to get you interested. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment. WebBo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. In the song, Burnham specifically mentions looking up "derealization," a disorder that may "feel like you're living in a dream. It feels like the ending of a show, a climax, but it's not. For fans who struggle with panic attacks (myself included) its a comfort to see yourself represented in an artist whose work you respect. Get the fuck up! Burnham walks towards the camera and grabs it like hes grabbing the viewer by the throat. Underneath the Steve Martin-like formal trickery has always beaten the heaving heart of a flamboyantly dramatic theater kid. Now, the term is applied to how viewers devote time, energy, and emotion to celebrities and content creators like YouTubers, podcasters, and Twitch streamers people who do not know they exist. 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. You can stream "Inside" on Netflix now, and see our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. 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. My heart hurts with and for him. HOLMES: Yeah. Here's a little bit of that. While sifting through fan reactions to Inside, the YouTube algorithm suggested I watch a fan-made video that pitch corrects All Eyes on Me to Burnhams actual voice. Bo Burnham, pictured here at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, wrote, directed and performed the entirety of his new Netflix special, Inside, by himself. 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. This is especially true for Patreon campaigns that give fans direct access to creators on platforms like Discord. 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. See our analysis of the end of the special, and why Burnham's analogy for depression works so well. Might not help, but still, it couldn't hurt.". But usually there is one particular voice that acts as a disembodied narrator character, some omniscient force that needles Burnham in the middle of his stand up (like the voice in "Make Happy" that interrupts Burnham's set to call him the f-slur). I've been singing that song for about a week NOW. After more sung repetitions of get your fuckin hands up, Burnham says, Get up. ", "I do not think my intention was homophobic, but what is the implicit comedy of that song if you chase it all the way down? 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. 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. 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? Tell us a little bit more about that. But we weren't. But before that can register, Burnham's eyes have closed and the special transitions to the uncannily catchy song "S---," bopping about how he hasn't showered in nine days or done any laundry. And like unpaid interns, most working artists cant afford a mortgage (and yeah, probably torrent a porn). Like he's parodying white people who think that by crucifying themselves first they're somehow freed from the consequences of their actions. 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. 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. It moves kind of all over the place. Likewise. Simply smiling at the irony of watching his own movie come to life while he's still inside? He is now back to where he was, making jokes alone in his room, an effort to escape his reality. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. See our analysis of the end of the special, and why Burnham's analogy for depression works so well. 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. So when you get to the end of a song, it often just kind of cuts to something else. In Inside, Burnham confronts parasocial relationships in his most direct way yet. Transcript Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. The result, a special titled "Inside," shows all of Burnham's brilliant instincts of parody and meta-commentary on the role of white, male entertainers in the world and of poisons found in internet culture that digital space that gave him a career and fostered a damaging anxiety disorder that led him to quit performing live comedy after 2015. That's what it is. "I'm so worried that criticism will be levied against me that I levy it against myself before anyone else can. The title card appears in white, then changes to red, signaling that a camera is recording. Finally doing basic care tasks for yourself like eating breakfast and starting work in the morning. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This is when the musical numbers (and in-between skits) become much more grim. Now get inside.". And like those specials, Inside implores fans to think about deeper themes as well as how we think about comedy as a genre. The album peaked at #7 on the Billboard 200 chart, #1 on the Comedy Albums chart, and #18 on the Independent Albums chart. The flow chat for "Is it funny?" @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.". 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. But he meant to knock the water over, yeah yeah yeah, art is a lie nothing is real. The performer, along with the record label and brand deals, encourage a parasocial relationship for increased profits. Doona! WebBo Burnham has been critical of his past self for the edgy, offensive comedy he used to make. Good. 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. 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. They may still be comical, but they have a different feel. Self-awareness does not absolve anyone of anything, he says. 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. The fun thing about this is he started writing it and recording it early on, so you get to see clips of him singing it both, you know, with the short hair and with the long hair - when he had just started this special and when he was finishing it. Relieved to be done? Gross asked Burnham if people "misinterpreted" the song and thought it was homophobic. The question is now, Will you support Wheat Thins in the fight against Lyme disease?). 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.". Later in Inside, Burnham thanks the audience for their support while holding them at knifepoint. Inside doesnt give clear answers like parasocial relationships good or parasocial relationships bad, because those answers do not, and cannot, exist. Went out to look for a reason to hide again. 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. WebBo Burnham is more than a comedian he's a writer-director-actor who first went viral in 2006. Thank you so much for joining us. Im talking to you. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. But Burnham doesn't put the bottle down right, and it falls off the stool. Maybe we'll call it isolation theater. Get up. 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. Its a feat, the work of a gifted experimentalist whose craft has caught up to his talent. "The world needs direction from a white guy like [you] who is healing the world with comedy. Down to the second, the clock changes to midnight exactly halfway through the runtime of "Inside.". Throughout the song and its accompanying visuals, Burnham is highlighting the "girlboss" aesthetic of many white women's Instagram accounts. 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. "A part of me loves you, part of me hates you," he sang to the crowd. Linda, thank you so much for joining us. But by using this meta-narrative throughout the whole special, Burnham messes with our ability to know when we're seeing a genuine struggle with artistic expression versus a meticulously staged fictional breakdown. 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. For the album, Bo is credited as writer, performer, and producer on every song. But also, it's clear that there's a lot on his mind. 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. 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. Research and analysis of parasocial relationships usually revolves around genres of performers instead of individuals. Right after the song ends, the shot of Burnham's guest house returns but this time it's filled with clutter. Oops. At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. Parasocial relationships can be positive too, as outlined in culture critic Stitchs essay On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity for Teen Vogue. Today We'll Talk About That Day Bo Burnham: Inside, was written, edited, and directed by the talent himself and the entire show is shot in one room. Well, well, buddy you found it, now come out with your hands up we've got you surrounded.". Comedian Bo Burnham recently a new comedy special for Netflix aptly titled Inside which was filmed entirely by himself while under lockdown during the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020. Not in the traditional senseno music was released prior to the special other than a backing track from Content found in the trailer. 1 on Billboards comedy albums chart and eventually climbed to No. Burnham's earlier Netflix specials and comedy albums. 20. [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. "And so today I'm gonna try just getting up, sitting down, going back to work. HOLMES: It felt very true to me, not in the literal sense. Toward the end, he appears completely naked behind his keyboard. 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. WebBo Burnham's Netflix special "Inside" features 20 new original songs. The clean, tidy interior that first connected "Inside" with "Make Happy" is gone in its place is a mess-riddled space. 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. Anything and everything all of the time. WebBo's transcripts on Scraps From The Loft. "Part of me needs you, part of me fears you. Burnham reacts to his reaction of the song, this time saying, Im being a little pretentious. And he's done virtually no press about it. 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? How does one know if the joke punches down? 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. At first it seems to be just about life in the pandemic, but it becomes a reference to his past, when he made faces and jokes from his bedroom as a teenager and put that on the internet. In his new Netflix special, Inside, Bo Burnham sings about trying to be funny while stuck in a room. And we might. The frame is intimate, and after such an intense special, something about that intimacy feels almost dangerous, like you should be preparing for some kind of emotional jump scare. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "BO BURNHAM: INSIDE"). Instead, thanks to his ultra-self-aware style, he seems to always get ahead of criticism by holding himself accountable first. Just as often, Burnhams shot sequencing plays against the meaning of a song, like when he breaks out a glamorous split screen to complement a comic song about FaceTiming with his mom. And did you have any favorites? WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. Having this frame of reference may help viewers better understand the design of "Inside." And I think that's what you're getting here. It's like Burnham's special has swallowed you whole, bringing you fully into his mind at last. 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. "This show is called 'what.,' and I hope there are some surprises for you," he says as he goes to set down the water bottle. ", When asked about the inspiration for the song, like if people he knew thought he was gay, Burnham said, "A lot of my close friends were gay, and, you know, I wasn't certain I wasn't at that point.". If the answer is yes, then it's not funny. And it has a real feel of restlessness to it, almost like stream of consciousness. Perform everything to each other, all the time for no reason. While the other songs have abrupt endings, or harsh transitions, "That Funny Feeling" simply fades quietly into darkness perhaps the way Burnham imagines the ending of it all will happen. But in recent years, theres been enough awareness of online behavior to see how parasocial relationships can have negative impacts on both the creator and the audience if left uninterrogated by both parties. 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. Most sources discuss fictional characters, news anchors, childrens show hosts, or celebrity culture as a whole. 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. Known as "Art is a Lie, Nothing is Real," there's a bit Burnham did at the start of his 2013 special "what." But on the other hand, it is lyrically so playful. All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. It's a reminder, coming almost exactly halfway through the special, of the toll that this year is taking on Burnham. Theres a nostalgic sweetness to this song, but parts of it return throughout the show, in darker forms, one of many variations on a theme. Thank you, Michel. Burnham is an extraordinary actor, and "Inside" often feels like we're watching the intimate, real interior life of an artist. jonnyewers 30 May 2021. Back in 2010, Burnham appeared on Showtime's "The Green Room," a comics round table hosted by Paul Provenza. From the very beginning of "Inside," Burnham makes it clear that the narrative arc of the special will be self-referential. 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. The song brings with it an existential dread, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. Burnham slaps his leg in frustration and eventually gives a mirthless laugh before he starts slamming objects around him. 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. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. When we see it again towards the end of the special, it's from a new camera angle. In this case, it's likely some combination of depression/anxiety/any other mental disorder. There's no more time left to add to the camera's clock. MARTIN: This special is titled, appropriately enough, "Inside," and it is streaming on Netflix now. It's like the mental despair of the last year has turned into a comfort. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. He is not talking about it very much. Is he content with its content? The whole song sounds like you're having a religious experience with your own mental disorder, especially when new harmonies kick in. Bo Burnham also uploaded Welcome to the Internet and White Womans Instagram on his YouTube channel. See our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. We're a long way from the days when he filmed "Comedy" and the contrast shows how fruitless this method of healing has been. WebA grieving woman magically travels through time to 1998, where she meets a man with an uncanny resemblance to her late love. According to the special, Bo decided he was ready to begin doing stand-up again in January 2020, after dealing with panic attacks onstage during his previous tour, the Make Happy Tour of 2015-2016. "Truly, it's like, for a 16-year-old kid in 2006, it's not bad. 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. But it doesn't. That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. "I was in a full body sweat, so I didn't hear most of that," Burnham said after the clip played. "You say the whole world's ending, honey it already did, you're not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried. His new Netflix special Inside was directed, written and performed all inside one room. 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. 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.
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