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. "I'm so worried that criticism will be levied against me that I levy it against myself before anyone else can. 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. "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. The title card appears in white, then changes to red, signaling that a camera is recording. 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. They may still be comical, but they have a different feel. Get the fuck up! Burnham walks towards the camera and grabs it like hes grabbing the viewer by the throat. Burnham's career as a young, white, male comedian has often felt distinct from his peers because of the amount of public self-reflection and acknowledgment of his own privileges that he does on stage and off screen. I was not, you know, having these particular experiences. 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. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment. The song is like having a religious experience with your own mental disorder. And the very format of it, as I said, it's very much this kind of sinister figure trying to get you interested. That YouTube commenter might be understood by Burnham if they were to meet him. 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. HOLMES: That was NPR's Linda Holmes reviewing Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside." '", "Robert's been a little depressed, no!" .] I'm talking to you, get the f--- up.". 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. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared, don't be shy, come on in the water's fine."). They Cloned Tyrone. The voices of the characters eventually blend together to tell the live Burnham on stage, We think we know you.. 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. 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. Trying to grant his dying father's wish, a son discovers an epic love story buried in his family's distant past. 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 we might. It's a heartbreaking chiding coming from his own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. Its horrific.". Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. 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. 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. "I was in a full body sweat, so I didn't hear most of that," Burnham said after the clip played. Please enter a valid email and try again. A part of me loves you, part of me hates you / Part of me needs you, part of me fears you / [. Later in Inside, Burnham thanks the audience for their support while holding them at knifepoint. Its an uncanny, dystopian view of Burnham as an instrument in the soulless game of social media. Finally doing basic care tasks for yourself like eating breakfast and starting work in the morning. That cloud scene was projected onto Burnham during the section of "Comedy" when Burnham stood up right after the God-like voice had given him his directive to "heal the world with comedy." I actually felt true mutual empathy with someone for the first time, and with someone Ive never even met, its kinda funny.. The battery is full, but no numbers are moving. Netflix. But then the music tells the audience that "he meant to play the track again" and that "art's still a lie, nothing's still real.". "Got it? I got better. See our analysis of the end of the special, and why Burnham's analogy for depression works so well. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. 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. Relieved to be done? In his first Netflix special (2013's "what. That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. ", "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? I have a funky memory and I sometimes can't remember things from something I've watched, even if it was just yesterday. 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. 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. 20. It's progress. The piece also highlights Bos anxieties with becoming older and his legacy as a comedian. "Goodbye sadness, hello jokes!". 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. But, like so many other plans and hopes people had in the early months of the pandemic, that goal proved unattainable. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Photograph: Netflix Its a measure of the quality of Inside 1.0 that this stuff could end up on the cutting-room floor. "I don't know that it's not," he said. Bo Burnhams Inside: A Comedy Special and an Inspired Experiment, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/arts/television/bo-burnham-inside-comedy.html. 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. But during the bridge of the song, he imagines a post from a woman dedicated to her dead mother, and the aspect ratio on the video widens. ", The Mayo Clinic defines depersonalization-derealization disorder as occurring "when you persistently or repeatedly have the feeling that you're observing yourself from outside your body or you have a sense that things around you aren't real, or both. . "All Eyes On Me" starts right after Burnham's outburst of anger and sadness. Long before the phrase parasocial relationship had entered the mainstream zeitgeist, Burnhams work discussed the phenomenon. So let's dive into "Inside" and take a closer look at nearly every song and sketch in Burnham's special. HOLMES: Well, logically enough, let's go out on the closing song. The special is available exclusively on Netflix, while the album can be found on most streaming platforms. 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? Other artists have made works on the wavelength of Repeat Stuff, but few creators with a platform as large as Burnhams return to the topic over and over, touching on it in almost all of their works. It also seems noteworthy that this is one of the only sketches in "Inside" that fades to black. He takes it, and Burnham cries robotically as a tinny version of the song about being stuck in the room plays. Most of the comments talk about how visceral it is to hear Burnhams real voice singing the upsetting lyrics. Bo Burnham: Inside review this is a claustrophobic masterpiece. Self-awareness does not absolve anyone of anything, he says. 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. 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. Then he moves into a new layer of reaction, where he responds to that previous comment. Yes, Bo Burnham posted a trailer via Twitter on April 28, 2021. For the song "Comedy," Burnham adopts a persona adjacent to his real life self a white male comedian who is driven to try and help make the world a better place. The clean, tidy interior that first connected "Inside" with "Make Happy" is gone in its place is a mess-riddled space. 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. 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. 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. 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. Mid-song, a spotlight turns on Burnham and shows him completely naked as a voice sings: "Well, well, look who's inside again. 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. 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. All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. And I think that's what you're getting here. 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. An existential dread creeps in, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. Bo Burnhams 2021 special, Inside. 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. Instead, thanks to his ultra-self-aware style, he seems to always get ahead of criticism by holding himself accountable first. Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. 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. A distorted voice is back again, mocking Burnham as he sits exposed on his fake stage: "Well, well, look who's inside again. Accuracy and availability may vary. 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. In White Womans Instagram, the comedian assumes the role of a white woman and sings a list of common white lady Instagram posts (Latte foam art / Tiny pumpkins / Fuzzy, comfy socks) while acting out even more cliched photos in the video with wild accuracy. He takes a break in the song to talk about how he was having panic attacks on stage while touring the "Make Happy" special, and so he decided to stop doing live shows. One comment stuck out to me: Theres something really powerful and painful about, hearing his actual voice singing and breaking at certain points. 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.". 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 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. 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. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. 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. For the album, Bo is credited as writer, performer, and producer on every song. Not in the traditional senseno music was released prior to the special other than a backing track from Content found in the trailer. And I think that, 'Oh if I'm self-aware about being a douchebag it'll somehow make me less of a douchebag.' Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared don't be shy come on in the water's fine."). He is now back to where he was, making jokes alone in his room, an effort to escape his reality. 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. 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. I'm sitting down, writing jokes, singing silly songs, I'm sorry I was gone. 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 the cultural standards of what is appropriate comedy and also the inner standards of my own mind have changed rapidly since I was 16. Get up. In Unpaid Intern, Burnham sings about how deeply unethical the position is to the workers in a pastiche of other labor-focused blues. I think this is something we've all been thinking about. Mirroring the earlier scene where Burnham went to sleep, now Burnham is shown "waking up.". 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. Under stand up, Burnham wrote "Middle-aged men protecting free speech by humping stools and telling stories about edibles" and "podcasts. And maybe the rest of us are ready, too. 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. And I don't think that I can handle this right now. 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.". And the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. Burnham is also the main character in the game, a character who is seen moving mechanically around a room. We see Burnham moving around in the daylight, a welcome contrast to the dark setting of "All Eyes on Me." He was alone. Burnham is especially aware as a creator constantly reflecting on his own life. It's a dangerously tempting invitation to stop caring, coming from the villain of this musical comedy (depression). 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. Burnham makes it textual, too. Well now the shots are reversed. I feel very close and intimate with him in this version. But it doesn't. The song begins with a fade in from back, the shot painfully close to Burnhams face as he looks off to the side. . Bo Burnhams latest Netflix special, Inside, is a solo venture about the comedian and filmmakers difficult experience in quarantine thats earned enthusiastic critical acclaim. Burnham starts spiraling in a mental health crisis, mentioning suicidal ideation after lamenting his advance into his 30s. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. You can stream "Inside" on Netflix now, and see our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. 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. Burnhams online success and an awareness of what kind of his audiences perceived closeness made the comedian key to one of the most prominent discussions in a creator- and influencer-driven era of media: the idea of parasocial relationships. Copyright 2021 NPR. It's like the mental despair of the last year has turned into a comfort. I cant say how Burnham thinks or feels with any authority, but as text and form-driven comedy, Inside urges the audience to reflect on how they interact with creators. 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. From the very beginning of "Inside," Burnham makes it clear that the narrative arc of the special will be self-referential. WebBo Burnham is more than a comedian he's a writer-director-actor who first went viral in 2006. Open wide.. Linda, thank you so much for joining us. And it has a lot of very clever and very quick wordplay about the specific things you can get on the internet. "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. 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 prison. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Now get inside.". and concludes that if it's mean, it's not funny. this breakdown of 31 details you might have missed in "Inside,". 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). 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. 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. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. "I'm criticizing my initial reaction for being pretentious, which is honestly a defense mechanism," he says. While talking to the audience during the opening section, Burnham takes a sip out of a water bottle. 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. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. "That's a good start. HOLMES: Yeah. Might not help but still it couldn't hurt. I like this song, Burnham says, before pointing out the the lack of modern songs about labor exploitation. 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. He had a role in the film "Promising Young Woman." 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. Its a lyrically dense song with camerawork that speeds up with its rhythm. 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. ", 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.". [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. In his new Netflix special, Inside, Bo Burnham sings about trying to be funny while stuck in a room. 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. 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. "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. How does one know if the joke punches down? "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.". Here's a little bit of that. 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. A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall. 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. But by the end of the tune, his narrative changes into irreverence. Hiding a mysterious past, a mother lives like a nameless fugitive with her daughter as they make hotels their home and see everyone else as a threat. Burnham wrote out: "Does it target those who have been disenfranchised in a historical, political, social, economic and/or psychological context?". I think you're getting from him, you know, the entertainment element. And she's with us now to tell us more about it. As we explained in this breakdown of 31 details you might have missed in "Inside," Bo Burnham's newest special is a poioumenon a type of artistic work that tells the story of its own creation. Inside is the work of a comic with artistic tools most of his peers ignore or overlook. It's an emergence from the darkness. Sitting in the meeting room, not making a sound becomes the perceived 24/7 access fans have to DM you, reply to you, ask you questions. 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.
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