The special is available exclusively on Netflix, while the album can be found on most streaming platforms. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. Bo Burnham WebBo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. And so I think he's always had that stubborn insistence on holding both of those things in his head at the same time. "That's a good start. He uploaded it to YouTube, a then barely-known website that offered an easy way for people to share videos, so he could send it to his brother. An older Burnham sits at a stool in front of a clock, and he says into a microphone that he's been working on the special for six months now. Burnham 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. Bo Throughout the song and its accompanying visuals, Burnham is highlighting the "girlboss" aesthetic of many white women's Instagram accounts. 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.". In this case, it's likely some combination of depression/anxiety/any other mental disorder. 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 / [. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Bo Burnham defined an era when he created Inside. "I was a kid who was stuck in his room, there isn't much more to say about it. 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. Gross asked Burnham if people "misinterpreted" the song and thought it was homophobic. At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. [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 brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. But then the video keeps playing, and so he winds up reacting to his own reaction, and then reacting yet again to that reaction. WebStuck in a passionless marriage, a journalist must choose between her distant but loving husband and a younger ex-boyfriend who has reentered her life. 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 the cultural standards of what is appropriate comedy and also the inner standards of my own mind have changed rapidly since I was 16. Even when confronted with works that criticize parasocial attachment, its difficult for fans not to feel emotionally connected to performers they admire. And it has a real feel of restlessness to it, almost like stream of consciousness. 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. Bo Burnham But he's largely been given a pass by his fans, who praise his self-awareness and new approach. 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. Having this frame of reference may help viewers better understand the design of "Inside." Its a lyrically dense song with camerawork that speeds up with its rhythm. MARTIN: So as you can hear in that bit, he sounds something like other comedic songwriters who do these kind of parody or comedy songs, whether it's Tom Lehrer, Weird Al or whoever. At the start of the special, Burnham sings "Content," setting the stage for his musical-comedy. 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. Or was it an elaborate callback to his earlier work, planted for fans seeking evidence that art is lie? ", 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.". 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.". 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 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. Bo Burnham '", "Robert's been a little depressed, no!" But what is it exactly - a concert, a comedy special? 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. "Goodbye sadness, hello jokes!". 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 this breakdown of 31 details you might have missed in "Inside,". But now Burnham is back. / 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. Still terrified of that spotlight? It's as if Burnham knows there are valid criticisms of him that haven't really stuck in the public discourse around his work. Still terrified of that spotlight? Its an instinct I have for all my work to have some deeper meaning or something. I don't know exactly how it tracks his experience, Bo Burnham, the person, right? ", He then pulls the same joke again, letting the song play after the audience's applause so it seems like a mistake. A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio (John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris) onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy. This is especially true for Patreon campaigns that give fans direct access to creators on platforms like Discord. Inside His new Netflix special Inside was directed, written and performed all inside one room. "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. Now get inside.". So in "Inside," when we see Burnham recording himself doing lighting set up and then accidentally pull down his camera was that a real blooper he decided to edit in? And notably, Burnhams work focuses on parasocial relationships not from the perspective of the audience, but the perspective of the performer.Inside depicts how being a creator can feel: you are a cult leader, you are holding your audience hostage, your audience is holding you hostage, you are your audience, your audience can never be you, you need your audience, and you need to escape your audience. He takes it, and Burnham cries robotically as a tinny version of the song about being stuck in the room plays. . We're a long way from the days when he filmed "Comedy" and the contrast shows how fruitless this method of healing has been. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. WebOn a budget. One of the most encouraging developments in comedy over the past decade has been the growing directorial ambition of stand-up specials. The incentives of the web, those that reward outrage, excess and sentiment, are the villains of this show. Bo Burnham Linda, thank you so much for joining us. Bo Burnham; former YouTuber, iconic Viner, and acclaimed stand-up comedian has recently released a new Netflix special. Now get inside.". True, but it can deepen and clarify art. If the answer is yes, then it's not funny. WebA Girl and an Astronaut. Similarly, Burnham often speaks to the audience by filming himself speaking to himself in a mirror. His career evolved through YouTube, MTV, Vine, his movie "Eighth Grade," and now Netflix's "Inside." Burnhams 2013 special, what., culminates in Burnham, the performer, reacting to pre-recorded versions of himself playing people from his life reacting to his work and fame, trying to capitalize on their tenuous relationship with him. Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. 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. When you're a kid and you're stuck in your room, you'll do any old s--- to get out of it.". It's progress. Back in 2010, Burnham appeared on Showtime's "The Green Room," a comics round table hosted by Paul Provenza. ", From then on, the narrative of "Inside" follows Burnham returning to his standard comedic style and singing various parody songs like "FaceTime with My Mom" and "White Woman's Instagram.". Bo Burnham "), Burnham sang a parody song called "Sad" about, well, all the sad stuff in the world. WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. 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. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. 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. 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.