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. Viewer discretion is advised. The tropes he says you may find on a white woman's Instagram page are peppered with cultural appropriation ("a dreamcatcher bought from Urban Outfitters") and ignorant political takes ("a random quote from 'Lord of the Rings' misattributed to Martin Luther King"). That quiet simplicity doesn't feel like a relief, but it is. Back in 2010, Burnham appeared on Showtime's "The Green Room," a comics round table hosted by Paul Provenza. And we might. Now, five years later, Burnham's new parody song is digging even deeper at the philosophical question of whether or not it's appropriate to be creating comedy during a horrifyingly raw period of tragedy like the COVID-19 pandemic and the social reckoning that followed George Floyd's murder. When we see it again towards the end of the special, it's from a new camera angle. We see Burnham moving around in the daylight, a welcome contrast to the dark setting of "All Eyes on Me." Bo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. 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. But look, I made you some content. Its horrific.". But he knows how to do this. And like unpaid interns, most working artists cant afford a mortgage (and yeah, probably torrent a porn). Many of his songs begin seriously, then shift into the joke, but this one doesnt. Down to the second, the clock changes to midnight exactly halfway through the runtime of "Inside.". 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. BURNHAM: (Singing) Start a rumor, buy a broom or send a death threat to a Boomer. 1 on Billboards comedy albums chart and eventually climbed to No. 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. 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. But now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room where "Inside" was filmed. 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. 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. Bo Burnham While talking to the audience during the opening section, Burnham takes a sip out of a water bottle. 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? Something went wrong. This special spoke to me closer and clearer than Ive ever felt with another person. We're a long way from the days when he filmed "Comedy" and the contrast shows how fruitless this method of healing has been. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. So let's dive into "Inside" and take a closer look at nearly every song and sketch in Burnham's special. I hope to see you inside at some point. 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. HOLMES: Well, logically enough, let's go out on the closing song. He is not talking about it very much. HOLMES: Yeah. It's self-conscious. 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. 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. But by the end of the tune, his narrative changes into irreverence. of the internet, welcoming everyone with a decadent menu of options while disco lights twirl. MARTIN: So Bo Burnham has had a lot of different identities lately. "They say it's like the 'me' generation. But what is it exactly - a concert, a comedy special? Who Were We Running From? ", 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.". Burnham's hair is shorter in those initial behind-the-scenes moments, but his future-self has a longer, unkempt beard and messy hair. Bo It's like Burnham's special has swallowed you whole, bringing you fully into his mind at last. Its a stupid song, and, uh, it doesnt really mean anything. The video continues. It is set almost entirely within one room of his Los Angeles guest house, the same one shown in the closing song of the June 2016 Make Happy special, titled Are you happy?. Now get inside.". 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. He has one where he's just sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar describing our modern world. 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. The global pandemic and subsequent lockdown orders of March 2020 put a stop to these plans. 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. "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. He points it at himself as he sways, singing again: Get your fuckin hands up / Get on out of your seat / All eyes on me, all eyes on me.. Got it? Burnham quickly shifts from the song to a reaction video of the song itself in the style of a YouTuber or Twitch streamer. After more sung repetitions of get your fuckin hands up, Burnham says, Get up. One of those is the internet itself. MARTIN: Well, that being said, Lynda, like, what song do you want to go out on? He's the writer, director, editor, and star of this show. All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. Performing "Make Happy" was mentally taxing on Burnham. ", "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. 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. I've been hiding from the world and I need to reenter.' "The world needs direction from a white guy like [you] who is healing the world with comedy. Accuracy and availability may vary. The tension between creator and audience is a prominent theme in Burnhams work, likely because he got his start on YouTube. When the song starts, the camera sitting in front of Burnham's mirror starts slowing zooming in, making the screen darker and darker until you (the audience member at home) are sitting in front of the black mirror of your screen. 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. In the worst case, depression can convince a person to end their life. And did you have any favorites? For the album, Bo is credited as writer, performer, and producer on every song. 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. 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. Im talking to you. Transcript Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. "I'm so worried that criticism will be levied against me that I levy it against myself before anyone else can. I don't know exactly how it tracks his experience, Bo Burnham, the person, right? But we weren't. "You say the ocean's rising, like I give a s---, you say the whole world's ending, honey it already did, you're not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried," he sings. 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.". Self-awareness does not absolve anyone of anything, he says. The video is an hour-long edit of footage that was deleted from the making of Inside. On June 9, Burnham released the music from the special in an album titled Inside (The Songs), which hit No. The Volcano, which touched on labor rights. Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. 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. 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. "Got it? "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. "Robert's been a little depressed," he sings (referring to himself by his birthname). Come and watch the skinny kid with a / Steadily declining mental health, and laugh as he attempts / To give you what he cannot give himself. Like Struccis Fake Friends documentary, this song is highlighted in Anuska Dhars video essay, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness. Burnhams work consistently addresses his relationship with his audience, the ways he navigates those parasocial relationships, and how easy they can be to exploit.