I have a funky memory and I sometimes can't remember things from something I've watched, even if it was just yesterday. The label of parasocial relationship is meant to be neutral, being as natural and normal and, frankly, inescapable as familial or platonic relationships. Web9/10. He is not talking about it very much. On May 30, 2022, Burnham uploaded the video Inside: The Outtakes, to his YouTube channel, marking a rare original upload, similar to how he used his YouTube channel when he was a teenager. 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. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room, where he's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. Bo Burnham, pictured here at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, wrote, directed and performed the entirety of his new Netflix special, Inside, by himself. In this case, it's likely some combination of depression/anxiety/any other mental disorder. 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. 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. It chronicles Burnhams life during the pandemic and his journey creating the special. jonnyewers 30 May 2021. Relieved to be done? He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. Each of the songs from the first half of the special are in line with Burnham's earlier Netflix specials and comedy albums. ", 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.". The songs from the special were released on streaming platforms on June 10, 2021. Research and analysis of parasocial relationships usually revolves around genres of performers instead of individuals. 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. Whatever it is, NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, has reviewed it, and she liked it. An existential dread creeps in, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. It's not. Photograph: Netflix Its a measure of the quality of Inside 1.0 that this stuff could end up on the cutting-room floor. The vocal key used in "All Eyes On Me" could be meant to represent depression, an outside force that is rather adept at convincing our minds to simply stay in bed, to not care, and to not try anymore. A part of me loves you, part of me hates you / Part of me needs you, part of me fears you / [. [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 concludes that if it's mean, it's not funny. In Inside, Burnham confronts parasocial relationships in his most direct way yet. One of those is the internet itself. At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. 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. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared, don't be shy, come on in the water's fine."). 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. 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. And we might. Depression acts like an outside force, one that is rather adept at convincing our minds to simply stay in bed, to not care, and to not try anymore. Similarly, Burnham often speaks to the audience by filming himself speaking to himself in a mirror. HOLMES: It felt very true to me, not in the literal sense. At first hearing, this is a simple set of lyrics about the way kids deal with struggles throughout adolescence, particularly things like anxiety and depression. 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. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Inside doesnt give clear answers like parasocial relationships good or parasocial relationships bad, because those answers do not, and cannot, exist. 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"). Now get inside.". But he's largely been given a pass by his fans, who praise his self-awareness and new approach. To save you the time freeze-framing, here's the complete message: "No pressure by the way at any point we can stop i just want to make sure ur comfortable all this and please dont feel obligated to send anything you dont want to just cuz i want things doesnt mean i should get them and its sometimes confusing because i think you enjoy it when i beg and express how much i want you but i dont ever want that to turn into you feeling pressured into doing something you don't want or feeling like youre disappointing me this is just meant to be fun and if at any point its not fun for you we can stop and im sorry if me saying this is killing the mood i just like ". WebOn a budget. 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. All rights reserved. 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. 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'm criticizing my initial reaction for being pretentious, which is honestly a defense mechanism," he says. 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. Please check your email to find a confirmation email, and follow the steps to confirm your humanity. Its an origin story of sorts. By keeping that reveal until the end of the special, Burnham is dropping a hammer on the actual at-home audience, letting us know why his mental health has hit an ATL, as he calls it ("all time low"). 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? And maybe the rest of us are ready, too. Here's a little bit of that. The whole video is filmed like one big thirst trap as he sweats and works out. Years later, the comedian told NPR's Terry Gross that performing the special was so tough that he was having panic attacks on stage. 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. Even when confronted with works that criticize parasocial attachment, its difficult for fans not to feel emotionally connected to performers they admire. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. 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. One of the most encouraging developments in comedy over the past decade has been the growing directorial ambition of stand-up specials. And part of it is sometimes he's just in despair. 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. I did! 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.. 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. Self-awareness does not absolve anyone of anything, he says. 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 clean, tidy interior that first connected "Inside" with "Make Happy" is gone in its place is a mess-riddled space. Bo Burnham: INSIDE | Trailer - YouTube 0:00 / 2:09 The following content may contain suicide or self-harm topics. He slaps his leg in frustration, and eventually gives a mirthless laugh before he starts slamming objects around him. It's a heartbreaking chiding coming from his own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. 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. 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 look, I made you some content. True, but it can deepen and clarify art. Not in the traditional senseno music was released prior to the special other than a backing track from Content found in the trailer. 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. Once he's decided he's done with the special, Burnham brings back all the motifs from the earlier songs into "Goodbye," his finale of this musical movie. 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. 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?. And then the funniest thing happened.". Let's take a closer look at just a few of those bubbles, shall we? And then, of course, he had previous standup comedy specials. that shows this exact meta style. A harsh skepticism of digital life (a life the pandemic has only magnified) is the dominant subject of the special. Might not help but still it couldn't hurt. 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. How does one know if the joke punches down? 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. 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. 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. "A part of me loves you, part of me hates you," he sang to the crowd. There's no more time left to add to the camera's clock. Something went wrong. Throughout the song and its accompanying visuals, Burnham is highlighting the "girlboss" aesthetic of many white women's Instagram accounts. HOLMES: Yeah. Theyre complicated. In a giddy homage to Cabaret, Burnham, in sunglasses, plays the M.C. He had a role in the film "Promising Young Woman." Only he knows. But by the end of the tune, his narrative changes into irreverence. Entertainment correspondent Kim Renfro ranked them in ascending order of greatness. Social media; it's just the market's answer to a generation that demanded to perform so the market said, here, perform. Its horrific.". And it's important to remember, you know, this is a piece of theater. It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. He puts himself on a cross using his projector, and the whole video is him exercising, like he's training for when he's inevitably "canceled.". Copyright 2021 NPR. 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. Well now the shots are reversed. I was not, you know, having these particular experiences. Burnham makes it textual, too. At various points, the gamer is given the option to make the character cry. "), Burnham sang a parody song called "Sad" about, well, all the sad stuff in the world. Open wide.. Well, well, buddy you found it, now come out with your hands up we've got you surrounded.". A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio (John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris) onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy. 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. "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.". It's an instinct that I have where I need everything that I write to have some deeper meaning or something, but it's a stupid song and it doesn't really mean anything, and it's pretty unlikable that I feel this desperate need to be seen as intelligent.". 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. Burnham starts spiraling in a mental health crisis, mentioning suicidal ideation after lamenting his advance into his 30s. 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. In his first Netflix special (2013's "what. Burnham's creative background began with being a theater then he transitioned to musical-comedy. I've been singing that song for about a week NOW. And they're biting, but he's also very talented at these little catchy pop hooks. Oops. "And I spent that time trying to improve myself mentally. 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.. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. At the second level of the reaction video, Burnham says: "I'm being a little pretentious. Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul. And so I think he's always had that stubborn insistence on holding both of those things in his head at the same time. Feelings of depersonalization and derealization can be very disturbing and may feel like you're living in a dream.". 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. It's wonderful to be with you. of the internet, welcoming everyone with a decadent menu of options while disco lights twirl. 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. People experiencing depression often stop doing basic self-care tasks, like showering or laundry or brushing their teeth. 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. "Got it? After more sung repetitions of get your fuckin hands up, Burnham says, Get up. The voices of the characters eventually blend together to tell the live Burnham on stage, We think we know you.. 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. "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. ", 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. When we saw that projection the first time, Burnham's room was clean and orderly. 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. The tension between creator and audience is a prominent theme in Burnhams work, likely because he got his start on YouTube. 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. He has one where he's just sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar describing our modern world. He's also giving us a visual representation of the way social media feeds can jarringly swing between shallow photos and emotional posts about trauma and loss. Got it? It's a reminder, coming almost exactly halfway through the special, of the toll that this year is taking on Burnham. 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. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. MARTIN: And it's deep, too. (For example, the song "Straight, White, Male" from the "Make Happy" special). His career evolved through YouTube, MTV, Vine, his movie "Eighth Grade," and now Netflix's "Inside." And like those specials, Inside implores fans to think about deeper themes as well as how we think about comedy as a genre. It's as if Burnham knows there are valid criticisms of him that haven't really stuck in the public discourse around his work. "Goodbye sadness, hello jokes!". Get up. 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. You can stream "Inside" on Netflix now, and see our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. I don't know exactly how it tracks his experience, Bo Burnham, the person, right? This sketch, like the "White Woman Instagram" song, shows one of Burnham's writing techniques of bringing a common Internet culture into a fictionalized bit. Likewise. And it has a lot of very clever and very quick wordplay about the specific things you can get on the internet. 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. 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. 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. At just 20 years old, Burnham was a guest alongside Judd Apatow, Marc Maron, Ray Romano, and Garry Shandling. But Burnham doesn't put the bottle down right, and it falls off the stool. 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. That's what it is. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. After about 35 minutes of candy-colored, slickly designed sketch comedy, the tone shifts with Burnhams first completely earnest song, a lovely indie-rock tune with an ear worm of a hook about trying to be funny and stuck in a room. This is the shows hinge. The song is like having a religious experience with your own mental disorder. 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. Who Were We Running From? ", "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? Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. HOLMES: Thank you. I got so much better, in fact, that in January of 2020, I thought 'you know what I should start performing again. So when you get to the end of a song, it often just kind of cuts to something else. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 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). Im talking to you. . Many of his songs begin seriously, then shift into the joke, but this one doesnt. 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. Went out to look for a reason to hide again. He doesn't really bother with any kind of transitions. Please enter a valid email and try again. begins with the question "Is it mean?" 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. "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. 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. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. Its a feat, the work of a gifted experimentalist whose craft has caught up to his talent. The song brings with it an existential dread, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. Later in Inside, Burnham thanks the audience for their support while holding them at knifepoint. 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. Burnham uses vocal tuning often throughout all of his specials. 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. But, of course, it tangles that right back up; this emotional post was, ultimately, still Content. And the biggest risk Burnham takes in the show is letting his emotional side loose, but not before cracking a ton of jokes. 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. Hes been addressing us the entire time.