Bo Burnham: Inside (2021)
May 31, 2021 2:43 PM - Subscribe
Stuck in COVID-19 lockdown, US comedian and musician Bo Burnham attempts to stay happy by writing, shooting and performing a one-man comedy special whilst going through struggles within his personal life.
"Shot over many months during 2020, Burnham’s hair and beard grow longer and shaggier with time, turning Inside into something like a captain’s log, with Burnham on a solo voyage through his own pandemic anguish." - Vulture review
"When your show’s premise is tap dancing over an abyss, you have to be a spectacular tap dancer, and fortunately, Burnham is." - Slate review
"The pandemic has created a strange limbo, a place of overstimulated boredom and mental decay, and Burnham somehow captures that inexplicable sensation, through a blend of meticulous performance and raw moments of grief, caught on camera, the all-seeing machine that seems to be his sole companion." - Forbes
"Burnham is hardly the Jesus figure he looks like, but he’s certainly some kind of mad prophet for crazy times. " - IndieWire
"Shot over many months during 2020, Burnham’s hair and beard grow longer and shaggier with time, turning Inside into something like a captain’s log, with Burnham on a solo voyage through his own pandemic anguish." - Vulture review
"When your show’s premise is tap dancing over an abyss, you have to be a spectacular tap dancer, and fortunately, Burnham is." - Slate review
"The pandemic has created a strange limbo, a place of overstimulated boredom and mental decay, and Burnham somehow captures that inexplicable sensation, through a blend of meticulous performance and raw moments of grief, caught on camera, the all-seeing machine that seems to be his sole companion." - Forbes
"Burnham is hardly the Jesus figure he looks like, but he’s certainly some kind of mad prophet for crazy times. " - IndieWire
Just finished, and jotted down my thoughts before reading any other criticism.
- it feels a lot like binging a YouTube channel—intentionally so. Besides the YouTube/twitch tropes he employs, there’s an editing technique where a lot of songs or bits are cut short, as though jumping to the next video in a playlist.
- the direction/production is IMPRESSIVE. His use of light and projection is impressive. The craft and choreography are top notch.
- one bit, where he’s acting like a brand consultant, was the one piece of satire that felt really insightful to me. It made me realize how we as consumers, act complicit in the personification of companies, when we ask corporations to perform certain values in certain ways, even when those values have little to do with the operations of the company.
- I did a certain amount of looking for “real” moments, and thinking about how comedic, performative vulnerability is different on stage or on film. There were a few, but I was largely guarded/distant and didn’t feel an open flow of empathy very often. Some segments were casual, but only 3 or 4 felt truly candid. It kept the performer/audience boundary in place more than I expected.
the songs were good and catchy. Maybe more topical/trendy/of the moment than I expected. I usually dismiss headline humor pretty quickly, as it will severely date a comedy special after a few years. In this context, however, it felt right and important. This special *is* a time capsule, and it’s context—claustrophobia and all—is critical to it.
Because I’ve spent so much time on the internet in the past year, especially with memes and YouTube, I didn’t find much of the content to be fresh or original. This was slightly disappointing... but also it feels like a yearbook of 2020. Like the book you get at the end of a school year, it just recaps a lot of events you were there for, but does it on glossy pages.
Related to that, the timing of the release is interesting, possibly perfect, and perhaps intentional. Here in LA, numbers are good and restrictions are lifting quickly, though masks are still required in public buildings. There’s movement in communities around me to resume pre-pandemic life (and parts of pandemic life are ending) so those images at the end of the special of leaving isolation are spot on—but I also personally relate to the impulse to be back inside. (I wonder how much was true and how much was story craft for Bo.) watching this would feel different if lockdown rules were still in place. Instead, it feels like a retrospective of 2020, but not an ongoing concern.
Highly recommended. Watch it now while the pandemic is fresh, or several months from now, when your pandemic wounds are healed, but maybe not when they’re only half-closed.
posted by itesser at 6:50 PM on May 31, 2021 [5 favorites]
- it feels a lot like binging a YouTube channel—intentionally so. Besides the YouTube/twitch tropes he employs, there’s an editing technique where a lot of songs or bits are cut short, as though jumping to the next video in a playlist.
- the direction/production is IMPRESSIVE. His use of light and projection is impressive. The craft and choreography are top notch.
- one bit, where he’s acting like a brand consultant, was the one piece of satire that felt really insightful to me. It made me realize how we as consumers, act complicit in the personification of companies, when we ask corporations to perform certain values in certain ways, even when those values have little to do with the operations of the company.
- I did a certain amount of looking for “real” moments, and thinking about how comedic, performative vulnerability is different on stage or on film. There were a few, but I was largely guarded/distant and didn’t feel an open flow of empathy very often. Some segments were casual, but only 3 or 4 felt truly candid. It kept the performer/audience boundary in place more than I expected.
the songs were good and catchy. Maybe more topical/trendy/of the moment than I expected. I usually dismiss headline humor pretty quickly, as it will severely date a comedy special after a few years. In this context, however, it felt right and important. This special *is* a time capsule, and it’s context—claustrophobia and all—is critical to it.
Because I’ve spent so much time on the internet in the past year, especially with memes and YouTube, I didn’t find much of the content to be fresh or original. This was slightly disappointing... but also it feels like a yearbook of 2020. Like the book you get at the end of a school year, it just recaps a lot of events you were there for, but does it on glossy pages.
Related to that, the timing of the release is interesting, possibly perfect, and perhaps intentional. Here in LA, numbers are good and restrictions are lifting quickly, though masks are still required in public buildings. There’s movement in communities around me to resume pre-pandemic life (and parts of pandemic life are ending) so those images at the end of the special of leaving isolation are spot on—but I also personally relate to the impulse to be back inside. (I wonder how much was true and how much was story craft for Bo.) watching this would feel different if lockdown rules were still in place. Instead, it feels like a retrospective of 2020, but not an ongoing concern.
Highly recommended. Watch it now while the pandemic is fresh, or several months from now, when your pandemic wounds are healed, but maybe not when they’re only half-closed.
posted by itesser at 6:50 PM on May 31, 2021 [5 favorites]
My god the song “Funny Feeling” wrecked me.
“The whole world at your fingertips / the oceans at your door” and “a gift shop at the gun range / a mass shooting at the mall” came out of nowhere.
Also, “discount Etsy agitprop” should be a band name
posted by lattiboy at 9:27 PM on May 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
“The whole world at your fingertips / the oceans at your door” and “a gift shop at the gun range / a mass shooting at the mall” came out of nowhere.
Also, “discount Etsy agitprop” should be a band name
posted by lattiboy at 9:27 PM on May 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
It was brilliant! I'd probably mention a suicide trigger warning though.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:14 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Pronoiac at 11:14 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
Saw it Sunday, and still thinking about it. I would kind of rather not think about it, so this is unfortunate, and I'm going to try to get in and out as quickly as possible:
• I am now sincerely worried about Bo Burnham.
• I am sincerely worried about myself. (Not new, but the intensity's been bumped up a few notches.)
• "All of the Time" (lyrics) is the second thing I've seen that perfectly captures what being on the internet feels like to me (the first being
Patricia Lockwood's The Communal Mind). Which is good, insofar as it reminded me that being on the internet is optional, and I could do it less.
• The recursive reaction video is very funny.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 7:22 AM on June 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
• I am now sincerely worried about Bo Burnham.
• I am sincerely worried about myself. (Not new, but the intensity's been bumped up a few notches.)
• "All of the Time" (lyrics) is the second thing I've seen that perfectly captures what being on the internet feels like to me (the first being
Patricia Lockwood's The Communal Mind). Which is good, insofar as it reminded me that being on the internet is optional, and I could do it less.
• The recursive reaction video is very funny.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 7:22 AM on June 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
There's a quiet consensus that people don't really want to see 2020 as a movie setting, so this special might be as close as we get. It feels a lot like the worst of 2020 felt -- claustrophobic, agoraphobic, helpless -- an artifact already. The world isn't hugely improved from when Burnham recorded this, but the (US) audience is already different. I mean, we're busier. We're outside. From a mental health perspective, that's not nothing.
Inside is weird in a way comedians rarely do in front of a big live audience. Even comedians who are beloved for a dark sense of humor have to balance tone well enough that their audience remembers to laugh! This special has as many darkly unsettling bits as deeply funny ones, and sometimes the point is how they crash into each other (e.g., How the World Works). It was sort of difficult for me. I don't think of myself as particularly depressed or anxious, but I am one of those much-lamented folks who spirals into doomsday talk whenever climate change is mentioned. Slate noted Burnham's apocalypticism here, culminating in Funny Feeling's the tossed-off line about 20,000 years of this/7 more to go. But Inside is good, and very funny, and interesting, too. So...I cautiously recommend this content.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:55 AM on June 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
Inside is weird in a way comedians rarely do in front of a big live audience. Even comedians who are beloved for a dark sense of humor have to balance tone well enough that their audience remembers to laugh! This special has as many darkly unsettling bits as deeply funny ones, and sometimes the point is how they crash into each other (e.g., How the World Works). It was sort of difficult for me. I don't think of myself as particularly depressed or anxious, but I am one of those much-lamented folks who spirals into doomsday talk whenever climate change is mentioned. Slate noted Burnham's apocalypticism here, culminating in Funny Feeling's the tossed-off line about 20,000 years of this/7 more to go. But Inside is good, and very funny, and interesting, too. So...I cautiously recommend this content.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:55 AM on June 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
I... feel seen. Heard. Understood. Bo, don't kill yourself. Me, don't kill yourself.
This feels like an incredible piece of work that I don't know if it'll ever completely leave my brain.
It's funny that I was just back from a walk with my partner between the first and second parts, and we were talking about having kids. And I was expressing that while I hadn't felt particularly called to it, I'd never been opposed. And I kept trying to sort out of if the... funny feeling... I had was because I couldn't see the world going on or if I was using that as an excuse. I had told her right before we watched the second half that I would be grateful for 10 good years with her, I just wasn't sure the world would cooperate was the unsaid part.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:55 AM on June 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
This feels like an incredible piece of work that I don't know if it'll ever completely leave my brain.
It's funny that I was just back from a walk with my partner between the first and second parts, and we were talking about having kids. And I was expressing that while I hadn't felt particularly called to it, I'd never been opposed. And I kept trying to sort out of if the... funny feeling... I had was because I couldn't see the world going on or if I was using that as an excuse. I had told her right before we watched the second half that I would be grateful for 10 good years with her, I just wasn't sure the world would cooperate was the unsaid part.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:55 AM on June 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
I felt like a lot of the time it was too guarded, but not being clever enough. I guess I feel that it did not go very far down the road it created. But I guess it can't it is about being stuck, not being able to build, not being able to be sincere.
posted by fleacircus at 3:35 PM on June 5, 2021
posted by fleacircus at 3:35 PM on June 5, 2021
This made me cry numerous times, especially Funny Feeling and the unexpected bit in the middle of White Woman's Instagram about her missing her mother. I'm both glad I saw it, because I felt it was a good important piece of art to witness, but also feel very sad; and also, concerned for Bo Burnham. I hope he feels better.
posted by unicorn chaser at 4:12 PM on June 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by unicorn chaser at 4:12 PM on June 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
Oh yeah the little undercutting of humanization in the middle of the white woman instagram was maybe the best thing.
posted by fleacircus at 4:25 PM on June 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by fleacircus at 4:25 PM on June 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
Someday, my grandchildren* will ask, what was it like living through 2020? And I'll show them this, and I'll tell them that everything that doesn't make sense is exactly how it was for us, too. And they'll say, this isn't funny, this is uncomfortable and a little scary, and I'll say: yeah.
(* Or someone's grandchildren, since I probably won't have any, myself)
posted by meese at 7:10 PM on June 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
(* Or someone's grandchildren, since I probably won't have any, myself)
posted by meese at 7:10 PM on June 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
I sincerely hope he will be okay with how people will love this.
posted by ipe at 8:39 PM on June 5, 2021
posted by ipe at 8:39 PM on June 5, 2021
this isn’t funny, it’s uncomfortable and a little scary
It was excellent, but the above is a good encapsulation. The shift in tone and style from beginning to end is really interesting, it started off as a very quirky “special” but felt much more like experimental cinema the further along it went.
posted by skewed at 9:39 PM on June 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
It was excellent, but the above is a good encapsulation. The shift in tone and style from beginning to end is really interesting, it started off as a very quirky “special” but felt much more like experimental cinema the further along it went.
posted by skewed at 9:39 PM on June 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’m halfway trough my second watch in two days. meese, I had the same reaction, this is what I’ll show the kids of the future when they ask. If they ask. I never asked my parents about the Cold War. I should have.
I watched his previous Netflix special immediately after my first watch of Inside (we’re back in lockdown here in Melbourne, I’ve been watching a lot of tv) and it was amazing to see the time warp of a younger Bo’s cocky masking of his anxiety. It ends right there in the room, which gave me shivers. We couldn’t ever have imagined this.
The YouTube vibe is funnier if you know it’s intensely self-referential.
posted by third word on a random page at 3:51 AM on June 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I watched his previous Netflix special immediately after my first watch of Inside (we’re back in lockdown here in Melbourne, I’ve been watching a lot of tv) and it was amazing to see the time warp of a younger Bo’s cocky masking of his anxiety. It ends right there in the room, which gave me shivers. We couldn’t ever have imagined this.
The YouTube vibe is funnier if you know it’s intensely self-referential.
posted by third word on a random page at 3:51 AM on June 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Immediately upon finishing this I wanted to watch it again. It's so dense, and I'm sure there's more to pick up on with a second viewing. It's like a razor blade hidden inside a candy bar; cutting social commentary and painful introspection wrapped in catchy tunes and shiny lights.
posted by Rora at 11:24 AM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Rora at 11:24 AM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
As someone who’s been inside, alone, for almost every one of the past 445 days, this felt... er... relatable.
Has Bo Burnham now made the Pink Floyd’s The Wall of confessional, solipsistic indie comedy? Maybe so. (Is it indie if it’s Netflix? I guess not.) Anyway, it’s really something. I laughed, I cried, I watched it twice.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 3:05 PM on June 6, 2021
Has Bo Burnham now made the Pink Floyd’s The Wall of confessional, solipsistic indie comedy? Maybe so. (Is it indie if it’s Netflix? I guess not.) Anyway, it’s really something. I laughed, I cried, I watched it twice.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 3:05 PM on June 6, 2021
I don't know what to make of this, but it was interesting.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:29 PM on June 6, 2021
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:29 PM on June 6, 2021
Halfway through, and Socko is far and away my favorite.
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:20 PM on June 8, 2021
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:20 PM on June 8, 2021
Bo Burnham tweeted: "inside (the songs) is out as an album on thursday. sorry for the delay."
posted by Pronoiac at 3:14 PM on June 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Pronoiac at 3:14 PM on June 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yeah, this is brilliant. Also, it is funny. The world is ending perhaps, that’s pretty hilarious all things considered.
Certainly, brains have been irrevocably snapped. He highlights that physically yeah we’re maybe doomed but also the Internet has done it no matter what.
Check back in 5, 10, 20 years. Pay attention to that funny feeling next time you see those wascally wabbits pushing our US election was stolen, vaccines are microchips and mmm martial law. You think this will get better because each crisis has a breath after.
Call me and I’ll tell you a joke.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:27 PM on June 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Certainly, brains have been irrevocably snapped. He highlights that physically yeah we’re maybe doomed but also the Internet has done it no matter what.
Check back in 5, 10, 20 years. Pay attention to that funny feeling next time you see those wascally wabbits pushing our US election was stolen, vaccines are microchips and mmm martial law. You think this will get better because each crisis has a breath after.
Call me and I’ll tell you a joke.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:27 PM on June 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I watched his previous Netflix special immediately after my first watch of Inside (we’re back in lockdown here in Melbourne, I’ve been watching a lot of tv) and it was amazing to see the time warp of a younger Bo’s cocky masking of his anxiety. It ends right there in the room, which gave me shivers.
I did almost the exact same thing. I'd never seen his "Make Happy" special, and after seeing how much the lighting worked into his stage show, it informs a lot of what he's doing in "Inside." I feel like the first half-ish of the special might have been intended for his canceled tour, but then it takes that turn into something else.
Oh yeah the little undercutting of humanization in the middle of the white woman instagram was maybe the best thing.
Now that I've watched it a bunch, I finally noticed that the aspect ratio changes during that verse, widening from the Instagram square, and then shrinks back. Love that detail.
I love "All Eyes on Me" in an unironic, unfunny way. I love the entire special but I especially love watching him swaying in the room to that song and then kind of laughing when he goes and gets the camera.
posted by gladly at 6:49 AM on June 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
I did almost the exact same thing. I'd never seen his "Make Happy" special, and after seeing how much the lighting worked into his stage show, it informs a lot of what he's doing in "Inside." I feel like the first half-ish of the special might have been intended for his canceled tour, but then it takes that turn into something else.
Oh yeah the little undercutting of humanization in the middle of the white woman instagram was maybe the best thing.
Now that I've watched it a bunch, I finally noticed that the aspect ratio changes during that verse, widening from the Instagram square, and then shrinks back. Love that detail.
I love "All Eyes on Me" in an unironic, unfunny way. I love the entire special but I especially love watching him swaying in the room to that song and then kind of laughing when he goes and gets the camera.
posted by gladly at 6:49 AM on June 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
Charlie Warzel (Substack): Bo Burnham And The Online Condition. "The Bezos interlude feels similar: the product of a overstimulated mind — one that’s so used to processing endless random morsels of tantalizingly packaged information that one’s synaptic connections start to scramble. To live in this state is to feel like your neurons are firing indiscriminately, constantly cycling both extremely important and totally worthless shit into your consciousness....All of it blurs into some kind of exhausting cognitive slurry. This is all happening inside your head but it somehow feels beyond your control."
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:55 AM on June 9, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:55 AM on June 9, 2021 [7 favorites]
Finished, and I think I appreciated this without liking it (excepting the terrific Socko and "Can I Interest You in Everything All of the Time?"). So technically accomplished, given the constraints; great highlighting of artifice and the physical making of the thing; good self-awareness and meta-commentary (and at the end, was he really contemplating his own navel? Or just hanging his head in defeat? Both?). I think I found his moments of vulnerability and struggle indistinguishable from his simulation of it, and from the rug-pulling aspect of it; if I felt empathy, I was answered by irony, and if I chose to see all of it as ironic, I was left feeling hollow toward what I was watching. The Boy Who Cried "Look at Me" Wolf is emotionally exhausting to watch, and post-intermission I was increasingly reluctant to connect with it. I felt trolled? Manipulated? He's so good at admiring the problem that there was no reliable way for me to connect with anything sincere on his part other than his technical skill. It pushed me out of his navel entirely by the end. The house has been on fire for more than a year, and the whiplash of "look at me/made you look!" is not helpful to me. But I am not the intended audience, so. I hope he's OK. So yeah, appreciated this well-wrought thing without liking it.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:27 AM on June 10, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:27 AM on June 10, 2021 [3 favorites]
I've never heard of this guy until a few days ago when mentions of this show started popping up in my social media feeds. So I gave it a look ...
Holy shit, this is amazing. This isn't a "comedy special," this is performance art.
This is the first, best thing I've yet seen that deeply engages with what the last year and a half has been.
This guy gets to come out of the pandemic with this amazing explosion of creativity to show, and I've got... diddly.
And yeah, I'm concerned for his mental state. His self-deprecation about suicide seems like exactly the kind of "humor" one heard from the likes of Anthony Bourdain, David Foster Wallace and many others... right up until the day they turned up dead. Please, please, I hope the work on this piece has helped this guy work with his demons in a productive way, so he can stick around, because I really want to see more of his insights on our crazed current life.
posted by dnash at 8:12 PM on June 10, 2021 [7 favorites]
Holy shit, this is amazing. This isn't a "comedy special," this is performance art.
This is the first, best thing I've yet seen that deeply engages with what the last year and a half has been.
This guy gets to come out of the pandemic with this amazing explosion of creativity to show, and I've got... diddly.
And yeah, I'm concerned for his mental state. His self-deprecation about suicide seems like exactly the kind of "humor" one heard from the likes of Anthony Bourdain, David Foster Wallace and many others... right up until the day they turned up dead. Please, please, I hope the work on this piece has helped this guy work with his demons in a productive way, so he can stick around, because I really want to see more of his insights on our crazed current life.
posted by dnash at 8:12 PM on June 10, 2021 [7 favorites]
The Reductress: How to Recommend Bo Burnham’s Comedy Special Without Explaining Your Mental Illness in Excruciating Detail
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 8:31 PM on June 10, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 8:31 PM on June 10, 2021 [8 favorites]
I really, really liked this. I had heard it was funny but dark, but wow, is it ever dark. I'm still thinking about the sock puppet.
Agreed with others that I'm a little concerned, but I hope he sees how much this resonates with people. The editing and lighting are top-notch and extremely impressive, and I would be the first to say how much I don't know about those subjects. Knowing he did all the camerawork and editing himself, I saw every scene a little more differently, wondering how he worked out those shots; how long it took him to do the YouTube react segment and how he scripted it for it to work like it did; how and why he made the decisions he made.
I really loved this a lot and I might actually buy the album. The songs are all pretty varied enough to keep my interest throughout.
posted by lesser weasel at 6:27 AM on June 11, 2021
Agreed with others that I'm a little concerned, but I hope he sees how much this resonates with people. The editing and lighting are top-notch and extremely impressive, and I would be the first to say how much I don't know about those subjects. Knowing he did all the camerawork and editing himself, I saw every scene a little more differently, wondering how he worked out those shots; how long it took him to do the YouTube react segment and how he scripted it for it to work like it did; how and why he made the decisions he made.
I really loved this a lot and I might actually buy the album. The songs are all pretty varied enough to keep my interest throughout.
posted by lesser weasel at 6:27 AM on June 11, 2021
It's definitely weird to explain why I enjoy this without invoking mental illness, but happily, Kim Renfro wrote about "All Eyes on Me" and explained how I feel about it perfectly:
The vocal distortion on Burnham's voice in this song makes him sound like the manifestation of depression, a force that's trying to convince us to sink into the comfort of inertia.posted by gladly at 8:19 AM on June 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
The song's melody is oddly soothing, and the lyrics are a sly manifestation of the sometimes-inviting nothingness that depression can offer ("It's almost over, it's just begun. Don't overthink this, look in my eye. Don't be scared, don't be shy, come on in, the water's fine.")
But of all the brilliant lines in "Inside," nothing has shaken me the way this verse did:
"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
Got it? Good. Now get inside."
New harmonies kick in after this line, adding to the haunting beauty of the song. Listening to "All Eyes on Me" is like having a religious experience with your own mental disorder. Burnham's voice crawls into your skin, speaking to a dark corner of your mind that's been waiting for permission to give up.
I am back in this thread to say, it's been a few days since I saw Inside, but it hasn't left me at all. In fact it has haunted me. Since the album dropped on Spotify it's all I've been listening to. Burnham has created a really important work, in my opinion.
posted by unicorn chaser at 1:05 AM on June 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by unicorn chaser at 1:05 AM on June 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Similar, though it's been two weeks and I'm really angry. Inside did really bad things for my mental health, and I wish I could unwatch it. (Though I've also had surprisingly strong impulses to watch it again, I guess because my brain is impatient with how long it's taking to kill me? So far, we've compromised by rewatching only the segments that have been posted to YouTube.)
It's important! It's art! It's a technical marvel! I'm really impressed by the way that the bridge saves "White Woman's Instagram" from being shallow misogynistic garbage (at least in my reading of it; no doubt people disagree)! The disco ball was surprising / hilarious / awesome! The tiger (?) roar in "Problematic!" "The whole world at your fingеrtips, the ocean at your door!" Socko! It's all very clever (if not funny) and I don't think "genius" is necessarily too strong of a word!
But my mental health did not need this shit right now.* So in the future, if a Bo Burnham special includes "suicide" in the rating information at the beginning of the show -- and maybe even if it doesn't -- I'm going to skip it.
Also I really liked these pieces about 'Inside' on Medium, which all make points I would like to make but wouldn't make as well:
I Am Not Feeling Good: My Experience with Bo Burnham’s “Inside”, by William Young
REVIEW: Bo Burnham’s Milleresque One-Man Show “Inside” is Painful, Uncomfortable, Beautiful, and Vicarious, by Olivia G
'Inside' by Bo Burnham, by Ayesha
* (I'm currently waiting to see a psychiatrist about changing medications; I made the call to set up the appointment on 30 November 2020. My appointment is on 7 September 2021. Today, I am 196 days into a 281-day wait.)
posted by Spathe Cadet at 9:34 AM on June 14, 2021 [5 favorites]
It's important! It's art! It's a technical marvel! I'm really impressed by the way that the bridge saves "White Woman's Instagram" from being shallow misogynistic garbage (at least in my reading of it; no doubt people disagree)! The disco ball was surprising / hilarious / awesome! The tiger (?) roar in "Problematic!" "The whole world at your fingеrtips, the ocean at your door!" Socko! It's all very clever (if not funny) and I don't think "genius" is necessarily too strong of a word!
But my mental health did not need this shit right now.* So in the future, if a Bo Burnham special includes "suicide" in the rating information at the beginning of the show -- and maybe even if it doesn't -- I'm going to skip it.
Also I really liked these pieces about 'Inside' on Medium, which all make points I would like to make but wouldn't make as well:
I Am Not Feeling Good: My Experience with Bo Burnham’s “Inside”, by William Young
REVIEW: Bo Burnham’s Milleresque One-Man Show “Inside” is Painful, Uncomfortable, Beautiful, and Vicarious, by Olivia G
'Inside' by Bo Burnham, by Ayesha
* (I'm currently waiting to see a psychiatrist about changing medications; I made the call to set up the appointment on 30 November 2020. My appointment is on 7 September 2021. Today, I am 196 days into a 281-day wait.)
posted by Spathe Cadet at 9:34 AM on June 14, 2021 [5 favorites]
I finally got around to watching this last night, with my wife and friends, and...woof...it was rough. Not because I thought it was awful or anything like that. Far from that. It was rough because, as a lifelong severely depressed individual, it was often like I was deep inside my own head, and sometimes not in a good way.
Even before things in the show got really dark, I was experiencing a lot of stuff in Bo’s words and self-image that was really familiar. Depressed people are good at recognizing others like them and...man. Rough. I found myself chuckling and nodding in agreement with some of his little quips and asides that, to a non-depressed person probably came across as nothing too special. But, to me, they were things I’ve heard inside my own head.
The piece that had the biggest effect on me was his monologue on suicide. The “just don’t” talk. I actually started chuckling at it, because “just don’t” is pretty akin to the entreaty to “cheer up” that depressed people hear so often from well-meaning, but clueless people. But, as he continued on his monologue, the video of him talking transitioned to a projection of the video onto Bo just sitting there quietly. The effect was stunning. The talk now became the interior voice of the depressed person begging him not to kill himself. Fuuuuuuck!
In that instant, I wanted to jump up and scream to everyone “That’s what it’s like!!!” I fought the urge off, because do that would be way too revealing, and likely to scare everyone in the room. Which is kind of a shame because I’m pretty certain none of them could have seen the scene the same as I did. It really was a big gut-punch for me. Fucked me up the rest of the night and I’m still dealing today.
Rough stuff.
I give it five stars.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:47 AM on June 20, 2021 [15 favorites]
Even before things in the show got really dark, I was experiencing a lot of stuff in Bo’s words and self-image that was really familiar. Depressed people are good at recognizing others like them and...man. Rough. I found myself chuckling and nodding in agreement with some of his little quips and asides that, to a non-depressed person probably came across as nothing too special. But, to me, they were things I’ve heard inside my own head.
The piece that had the biggest effect on me was his monologue on suicide. The “just don’t” talk. I actually started chuckling at it, because “just don’t” is pretty akin to the entreaty to “cheer up” that depressed people hear so often from well-meaning, but clueless people. But, as he continued on his monologue, the video of him talking transitioned to a projection of the video onto Bo just sitting there quietly. The effect was stunning. The talk now became the interior voice of the depressed person begging him not to kill himself. Fuuuuuuck!
In that instant, I wanted to jump up and scream to everyone “That’s what it’s like!!!” I fought the urge off, because do that would be way too revealing, and likely to scare everyone in the room. Which is kind of a shame because I’m pretty certain none of them could have seen the scene the same as I did. It really was a big gut-punch for me. Fucked me up the rest of the night and I’m still dealing today.
Rough stuff.
I give it five stars.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:47 AM on June 20, 2021 [15 favorites]
The Attention-Hunger Artist, Popula, June 21
DF Wallace was mentioned above, and I'm a member of the DFW mailing list. The article I've linked is a copy of a conversation about Inside that originated on that mailing list. Then someone asked the author(s) if they could post it on "Popula"... What's ironic for me is that I drafted an email to the main writer, a therapist, also to ask if he wouldn't mind if I posted it here, but I never went through with it -- mostly as my attention-seeking tendencies are in the first percentile -- and this is a low-traffic thread at this point. Now I can just link to the article from someone who did!
Anyway, he begins,
DF Wallace was mentioned above, and I'm a member of the DFW mailing list. The article I've linked is a copy of a conversation about Inside that originated on that mailing list. Then someone asked the author(s) if they could post it on "Popula"... What's ironic for me is that I drafted an email to the main writer, a therapist, also to ask if he wouldn't mind if I posted it here, but I never went through with it -- mostly as my attention-seeking tendencies are in the first percentile -- and this is a low-traffic thread at this point. Now I can just link to the article from someone who did!
Anyway, he begins,
I agree that Inside is super-recursive and virtuosic, well-made and successful on its own terms, but fatally lacking in mirth. It left me with a hollow, sad feeling. A supposedly funny thing I’ll never watch again. It’s a glimpse of the thing that killed Wallace.posted by sylvanshine at 9:54 AM on June 23, 2021 [7 favorites]
...
The show is a masterful portrayal of the prison of narcissism… No Exit with an even smaller cast. It is permeated with despair at the inability to make authentic contact with others, while betraying hatred and contempt in every direction. The Facetime-with-mom sequence is a hackneyed comedic premise that could have allowed room for a glimmer of affection or warmth, or a hint that mom’s fumbling with the phone is worth enduring because there is a bond of love, however attenuated. But it’s all empty. The kicker about dad speaks for itself.
Thank you, sylvanshine--that nails the catch-22 of "I want your attention, and I have contempt for you for giving it" dynamic that bothered me so much. If the art is that hermetically sealed, then what are we doing here?
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:06 PM on June 24, 2021
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:06 PM on June 24, 2021
Does he have to be bleeding? We're here because our pain was seen. If he had to show me his pain to reveal mine, I don't hold it against him.
posted by Stanczyk at 12:36 PM on June 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Stanczyk at 12:36 PM on June 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
I can’t remember the last time I watched something that has stuck to me so much. Thinking about it a lot. Sometimes, when I’m at my absolutely lowest and really falling apart, I wish there was a way to make it into art. I have this desperate need to communicate to someone what it is like at those moments. At the same time, I’m usually feeling so alone, isolated, and trapped that I also feel completely alienated from any means of connecting with anybody. I don’t read contempt into Inside. I see it as an accurate portrayal of our need to connect with others, our deep fear that it’s impossible to do so, and our ambivalence or even distaste with the methods we have at hand. When I do my work, I often have to use social media to connect with others. I also feel that social media is harming us. I also see that I get definite dopamine hits and ego boosts from social media. I also see those things as not good for me. But I crave them. To me, this is what Inside is (in part) about. When my world is falling apart, my brain tells me “reach out to others” but it also tells me that any and all gestures to do so are false, self-aggrandizing, and even potential harmful to others. Sometimes it tells me those gestures are pointless. I’ve never seen art before that reflects all this so well.
posted by CMcG at 5:24 AM on June 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by CMcG at 5:24 AM on June 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Bo's between my brother and me in age, and I've watched him since his earliest 240p YouTube days. It's been fascinating watching him grow as an artist. The "We Think We Know You" finale to what. has long been one of my all-time favorite stage performances. And the first half was pretty much at that tier. But the second half blew it all away. I can't stop thinking about it.
It strikes the same raw nerve as peak Radiohead -- the prescient millennial angst of OK Computer, the way "Welcome to the Internet" (a villain song if I ever heard one) echoes Idioteque with its seductive "can I interest you in everything all of the time?" The unique place it's coming from, with him having grown up on and with the web, with a legion of younger fans who he clearly cares about and connects with (if Eighth Grade is anything to go by), while also feeling responsible for preying on them as part of the modern social media entergagement complex. The way what begins as a funny internet parody song declines into the tragic horror of the early web ("right before the Towers fell") metastasizing into a hypercapitalist panopticon, an entire generation of children warped from birth by addictive and manipulative dark patterns, disinformation and hate rending the social fabric and tipping us into fascism. The way it infuses algorithmic dystopia with faux spirituality, like Vienna Teng's haunting "Hymn of Acxiom" -- "Is that wrong? Isn't this what you want?"
But the real core is "That Funny Feeling." I've seen it described as a 21st-century "We Didn't Start the Fire" from the point of view of the ashes. For me, the power of it comes not from the absurd late-capitalist images, but the way it plainly lays out the darkest fears so many of us have about the future. And not in the ironically distant way that's in vogue on Twitter, but in much starker terms:
This looming self-inflicted catastrophic reckoning is so immense and horrifying that we're desperate to distract ourselves with escapist bullshit. The song, and the special, is the first high-profile pop cultural statement I've ever seen that not only recognizes that fact, but basically admits it's too late. The outro moves past denial and grief to a kind of hollow acceptance: "Hey, what can you say? We were overdue. But it'll be over soon, just wait." Or as the following track "All Eyes on Me" puts it:
I genuinely think this is one of the great works of art of the 21st century. Maybe one of the last ones.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:47 PM on June 27, 2021 [17 favorites]
It strikes the same raw nerve as peak Radiohead -- the prescient millennial angst of OK Computer, the way "Welcome to the Internet" (a villain song if I ever heard one) echoes Idioteque with its seductive "can I interest you in everything all of the time?" The unique place it's coming from, with him having grown up on and with the web, with a legion of younger fans who he clearly cares about and connects with (if Eighth Grade is anything to go by), while also feeling responsible for preying on them as part of the modern social media entergagement complex. The way what begins as a funny internet parody song declines into the tragic horror of the early web ("right before the Towers fell") metastasizing into a hypercapitalist panopticon, an entire generation of children warped from birth by addictive and manipulative dark patterns, disinformation and hate rending the social fabric and tipping us into fascism. The way it infuses algorithmic dystopia with faux spirituality, like Vienna Teng's haunting "Hymn of Acxiom" -- "Is that wrong? Isn't this what you want?"
But the real core is "That Funny Feeling." I've seen it described as a 21st-century "We Didn't Start the Fire" from the point of view of the ashes. For me, the power of it comes not from the absurd late-capitalist images, but the way it plainly lays out the darkest fears so many of us have about the future. And not in the ironically distant way that's in vogue on Twitter, but in much starker terms:
Female Colonel Sanders, easy answers, civil warAmerica is on the verge of a civil war between white supremacy and multicultural democracy. The world is backsliding into far-right demagoguery. We're thisclose to locking in society-ending, extinction-level environmental destruction. And then the vibe of shallow corporatized fun trying to paper over this increasingly apocalyptic mood, the same as in Childish Gambino's "This is America."
The whole world at your fingеrtips, the ocean at your door
The livе-action Lion King, the Pepsi Halftime Show
Twenty-thousand years of this, seven more to go
That unapparent summer air in early fall
The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all
This looming self-inflicted catastrophic reckoning is so immense and horrifying that we're desperate to distract ourselves with escapist bullshit. The song, and the special, is the first high-profile pop cultural statement I've ever seen that not only recognizes that fact, but basically admits it's too late. The outro moves past denial and grief to a kind of hollow acceptance: "Hey, what can you say? We were overdue. But it'll be over soon, just wait." Or as the following track "All Eyes on Me" puts it:
You say the ocean's rising, like I give a shitThere's a resonance with the way he openly talks about his depression and suicidal ideation (a similarly transgressive act). It's both chilling and somehow cathartic to hear such a talented and successful artist with such a track record of insight straight-up saying that we've murdered the future on a global scale, so enjoy this beautiful dying world while you still can. Because "it'll stop any day now."
You say the whole world's ending, honey, it already did
You're not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried
Got it? Good. Now get inside.
I genuinely think this is one of the great works of art of the 21st century. Maybe one of the last ones.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:47 PM on June 27, 2021 [17 favorites]
From Bo Burnham on Twitter: Inside is hitting select theaters, one night only. (Probably US only.)
posted by Pronoiac at 9:06 PM on July 11, 2021
posted by Pronoiac at 9:06 PM on July 11, 2021
Could I interest you in everything about "Inside"?
posted by Rhaomi at 12:18 PM on July 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Rhaomi at 12:18 PM on July 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
Back around 2004 I became a superfan of a comedian in San Francisco named Will Franken - Franken's comedy style had one-person sketches (in-person as well as self-produced audio) with intensely cerebral and conceptual humor, like an unborn baby asking not to be born so it could remain in a William Blake-described pre-birth heaven.
Unfortunately Franken became a Trumpist and as such Franken's comedy became less enjoyable to me (also, because of a transition and detransition I believe the pronoun is "he" but I am not sure).
"Inside" was the first time in 15 years I've gotten the same flavor of enjoyment that I used to get from that comedian who used to be a favorite of mine (this was my first Burnham) and I am grateful.
The "How the World Works" cascade, from "everything has to work together" to abstract discussion of exploitation to the sock submitting to Burnham's demands out of terror, was so striking.
The cry in "Problematic" asking whether anyone would hold him accountable (subtextually asking to be held at all).
The silent meditation and reflection he invites you into while waiting for the clock to turn to 12:00.
The few moments when the equipment falls over, one an accident, one on purpose.
posted by brainwane at 8:32 PM on August 4, 2021
Unfortunately Franken became a Trumpist and as such Franken's comedy became less enjoyable to me (also, because of a transition and detransition I believe the pronoun is "he" but I am not sure).
"Inside" was the first time in 15 years I've gotten the same flavor of enjoyment that I used to get from that comedian who used to be a favorite of mine (this was my first Burnham) and I am grateful.
The "How the World Works" cascade, from "everything has to work together" to abstract discussion of exploitation to the sock submitting to Burnham's demands out of terror, was so striking.
The cry in "Problematic" asking whether anyone would hold him accountable (subtextually asking to be held at all).
The silent meditation and reflection he invites you into while waiting for the clock to turn to 12:00.
The few moments when the equipment falls over, one an accident, one on purpose.
posted by brainwane at 8:32 PM on August 4, 2021
Tonight on Twitter, Bo Burnham linked an hour of outtakes on YouTube.
posted by Pronoiac at 7:35 PM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Pronoiac at 7:35 PM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
You're not going to heaven--
Eat a thousand crackers, sing a million hymns--
None of you are going to heaven
You're not My children, you're a bad game of Sims
posted by praemunire at 3:55 PM on May 31, 2021