It's prison. Like, what is it? 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. At the second level of the reaction video, Burnham says: "I'm being a little pretentious. All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. Its a feat, the work of a gifted experimentalist whose craft has caught up to his talent. 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. But now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room where "Inside" was filmed. Not a comedy per se, but a masterpiece nonetheless. . 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. I feel very close and intimate with him in this version. According to a May 2021 Slate article, the piece was filmed at Bo Burnhams Los Angeles guest housethe same room used for June 2016s Are You Happy? and the closing shots of the Make Happy special. The whole video is filmed like one big thirst trap as he sweats and works out. 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. That's when the younger Burnham, the one from the beginning of his special-filming days, appears. "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.". Mirroring the earlier scene where Burnham went to sleep, now Burnham is shown "waking up.". ", "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. MARTIN: So a lot of us, you know, artists, journalists have been trying to describe what this period has been like, what has it meant, what's been going on with us. BURNHAM: (Singing) The live-action "Lion King," the Pepsi halftime show, 20,000 years of this, seven more to go. Simply smiling at the irony of watching his own movie come to life while he's still inside? A harsh skepticism of digital life (a life the pandemic has only magnified) is the dominant subject of the special. 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). "The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all," is another of Burnham's lyrics in this song that seems to speak to the idea that civilization is nearing collapse, and also touches on suicidal ideation. Its a lyrically dense song with camerawork that speeds up with its rhythm. our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. People experiencing depression often stop doing basic self-care tasks, like showering or laundry or brushing their teeth. He has one where he's just sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar describing our modern world. Still terrified of that spotlight? jonnyewers 30 May 2021. Like he's parodying white people who think that by crucifying themselves first they're somehow freed from the consequences of their actions. Might not help but still it couldn't hurt. It's an emergence from the darkness. A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall. That YouTube commenter might be understood by Burnham if they were to meet him. 7 on the Top 200. Bo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. Netflix. Relieved to be done? That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. 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 The song is like having a religious experience with your own mental disorder. At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. He is now back to where he was, making jokes alone in his room, an effort to escape his reality. But the lyrics Burnham sings seem to imply that he wants to be held accountable for thoughtless and offensive jokes of his past: "Father please forgive me for I did not realize what I did, or that I'd live to regret it, times are changing and I'm getting old, are you gonna hold me accountable?". Under stand up, Burnham wrote "Middle-aged men protecting free speech by humping stools and telling stories about edibles" and "podcasts. 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. It moves kind of all over the place. 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. In this time-jumping dramedy, a workaholic who's always in a rush now wants life to slow down when he finds himself leaping ahead a year every few hours. Whatever it is, NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, has reviewed it, and she liked it. But it doesn't. I mean, honestly, he's saying a lot right there. 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. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. .] I actually felt true mutual empathy with someone for the first time, and with someone Ive never even met, its kinda funny.. Its called INSIDE, and it will undoubtedly strike your hearts forevermore. Please check your email to find a confirmation email, and follow the steps to confirm your humanity. BURNHAM: (Singing) Could I interest you in everything all of the time, a little bit of everything all of the time? I don't know exactly how it tracks his experience, Bo Burnham, the person, right? 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. All Eyes on Me also earned Bo his first Grammy win for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2022 Grammys. And she's with us now to tell us more about it. It also seems noteworthy that this is one of the only sketches in "Inside" that fades to black. 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. The special is hitting an emotional climax as Burnham shows us both intense anger and then immediately after, a deep and dark sadness. And the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. And I think the pandemic was a time when a lot of people were in this do I laugh or cry space in their own minds. Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul. I'm talking to you, get the f--- up.". Photograph: Netflix Its a measure of the quality of Inside 1.0 that this stuff could end up on the cutting-room floor. 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. It's wonderful to be with you. But what is it exactly - a concert, a comedy special? The battery is full, but no numbers are moving. The reason he started making this special, he explains in the show, is to distract himself from shooting himself in the head, the first of several mentions of suicide (including one in which he tells viewers to just dont). The special is available exclusively on Netflix, while the album can be found on most streaming platforms. Something went wrong. Well now the shots are reversed. Just wanted to make sure everybody knew about Bo's comedy special transcripts on Scraps. 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? Not only is this whiteboard a play on the classic comedy rule that "tragedy plus time equals comedy," but it's a callback to Burnham's older work. 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. He was only 16. In a giddy homage to Cabaret, Burnham, in sunglasses, plays the M.C. Its an origin story of sorts. And it has a real feel of restlessness to it, almost like stream of consciousness. "The world needs direction from a white guy like [you] who is healing the world with comedy. But now Burnham is back. "I was a kid who was stuck in his room, there isn't much more to say about it. 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. 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. 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. The whole song sounds like you're having a religious experience with your own mental disorder, especially when new harmonies kick in. of the internet, welcoming everyone with a decadent menu of options while disco lights twirl. 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. 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. Entertainment correspondent Kim Renfro ranked them in ascending order of greatness. 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 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. Also, Burnham's air conditioner is set to precisely 69 degrees throughout this whole faux music video. [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. newsletter, On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness.. Linda Holmes, welcome. 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. At various points, the gamer is given the option to make the character cry. In one interpretation, maybe the smile means he's ready to be outside again. 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. 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. and concludes that if it's mean, it's not funny. 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. Transcript Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. ", Right as Burnham is straightening up, music begins blaring over the speakers and Burnham's own voice sings: "He meant to knock the water over, yeah yeah yeah, but you all thought it was an accident. I hope to see you inside at some point. In another scene, Burnham gives a retroactive disclaimer to discussions of his suicidal ideation by telling the audience, And if youre out there and youre struggling with suicidal thoughts and you want to kill yourself, I just wanna tell you Dont! Look Whos Inside Again is largely a song about being creative during quarantine, but ends with Now come out with your hands up, weve got you surrounded, a reflection on police violence but also being mobbed by his fans. 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. From the very beginning of "Inside," Burnham makes it clear that the narrative arc of the special will be self-referential. 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. It's 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. You know, I was not, you know, I was alone, but I was not trapped in one room. Not putting a name on parasocial relationships makes the theme less didactic, more blurred while still being astutesuch sharp focus on the eyes, you dont notice the rest of the face fades into shades of blue. Now get inside.". And finally today, like many of us, writer, comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham found himself isolated for much of last year - home alone, growing a beard, trying his best to stay sane. With menacing horror movie sound effects and hectic, dreamy camerawork, what becomes clear is Burnhams title has a double meaning: referring to being inside not just a room, but also his head. Burnham lingers on his behind-the-scenes technical tinkering handling lights, editing, practicing lines. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "BO BURNHAM: INSIDE"). Because there's also a little bit Bo Burnham the character in this almost. WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. It chronicles Burnhams life during the pandemic and his journey creating the special. Known as "Art is a Lie, Nothing is Real," there's a bit Burnham did at the start of his 2013 special "what." "I didn't perform for five years," he says. And I think that's what you're getting here. Get up. Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. dave bayley relationship,