But, of course, it tangles that right back up; this emotional post was, ultimately, still Content. For those who are unaware, Bos real name is Robert Burnham. The songs from the special were released on streaming platforms on June 10, 2021. 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. "I didn't perform for five years," he says. During that taping, Burnham said his favorite comic at the time was Hans Teeuwen, a "Dutch absurdist," who has a routine with a sock puppet that eats a candy bar as Teeuwen 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.". In Unpaid Intern, Burnham sings about how deeply unethical the position is to the workers in a pastiche of other labor-focused blues. . The video is an hour-long edit of footage that was deleted from the making of Inside. LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Thank you, Michel. Coined in 1956 by researchers Donald Horton and Richard Wohl, the term initially was used to analyze relationships between news anchors who spoke directly to the audience and that audience itself. Theyre complicated. Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. His hair and beard were shorter, and he was full of inspired energy. "Robert's been a little depressed," he sings (referring to himself by his birthname). MARTIN: You know, about that, because it does move into a deeply serious place at some point. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. 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. That YouTube commenter might be understood by Burnham if they were to meet him. WebBo's transcripts on Scraps From The Loft. So let's dive into "Inside" and take a closer look at nearly every song and sketch in Burnham's special. Daddy made you your favorite. 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. But now Burnham is showing us the clutter of the room where "Inside" was filmed. 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 ". As energetic as the song "S---" is, it's really just another clear message about the mental disorder that has its grips in Burnham (or at least the version of him we're seeing in this special). "And I spent that time trying to improve myself mentally. Bo Burnhams Inside begs for our parasocial awareness The comedians lifetime online explains the heart of most of his new songs By Wil Williams @wilw_writes Jun 28, 2021, 11:01am EDT Burnham lingers on his behind-the-scenes technical tinkering handling lights, editing, practicing lines. HOLMES: Right. Down to the second, the clock changes to midnight exactly halfway through the runtime of "Inside.". It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. All rights reserved. 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. Later in Inside, Burnham thanks the audience for their support while holding them at knifepoint. 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. Underneath the Steve Martin-like formal trickery has always beaten the heaving heart of a flamboyantly dramatic theater kid. 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. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Just wanted to make sure everybody knew about Bo's comedy special transcripts on Scraps. The clearest inspiration is Merle Traviss 16 Tons, a song about the unethical working conditions of coal miners also used in weird Tom Hanks film Joe vs. He decided to stop doing live performances, and instead set out to write and direct his first feature film, the critically-acclaimed 2018 movie "Eighth Grade." "Any Day Now" The ending credits. 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. HOLMES: So, as you'll hear there, on the one hand, there's a lot of sadness in what he's talking about there. Please enter a valid email and try again. Now, hes come a long way since his previous specials titled What. and Make Happy, where his large audiences roared with laughter 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. The voices of the characters eventually blend together to tell the live Burnham on stage, We think we know you.. At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. 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. that shows this exact meta style. Burnham had no idea that his song would be seen more than 10 million times,nor that it would kick start his career in a niche brand of self-aware musical comedy. The title card appears in white, then changes to red, signaling that a camera is recording. 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. 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. of the internet, welcoming everyone with a decadent menu of options while disco lights twirl. Even when confronted with works that criticize parasocial attachment, its difficult for fans not to feel emotionally connected to performers they admire. 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. 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. According to the special, Bo decided he was ready to begin doing stand-up again in January 2020, after dealing with panic attacks onstage during his previous tour, the Make Happy Tour of 2015-2016. Self-awareness does not absolve anybody of anything.". So when you get to the end of a song, it often just kind of cuts to something else. 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. You can tell that he's watched a ton of livestream gamers, and picked up on their intros, the way the talk with people in the chat, the cadence of their commentary on the game, everything. But in both of those cases, similarity and connection would come from the way the art itself connects people, not any actual tie between Burnham and myself, Burnham and the commenter. Throughout "Inside," there's a huge variety of light and background set-ups used, so it seems unlikely that this particular cloud-scape was just randomly chosen twice. "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. Its folly to duplicate the feel of a live set, so why not fully adjust to the screen and try to make something as visually ambitious as a feature? At various points, the gamer is given the option to make the character cry. our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. BURNHAM: (Singing) Could I interest you in everything all of the time, a little bit of everything all of the time? It's so good to hear your voice. @TheWoodMother made a video about how Burnham's "Inside" is its own poioumenon, which led to his first viral video on YouTube, written in 2006, is about how his whole family thinks he's gay, defines depersonalization-derealization disorder, "critical window for action to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible.". It's prison. 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. 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"). By inserting that Twitch character in this earlier scene, Burnham was seemingly giving a peek into his daily routine. Got it? WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. At just 20 years old, Burnham was a guest alongside Judd Apatow, Marc Maron, Ray Romano, and Garry Shandling. A distorted voice is back again, mocking Burnham as he sits exposed on his fake stage: "Well, well, look who's inside again. It's self-conscious. Bo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. begins with the question "Is it mean?" Just as often, Burnhams shot sequencing plays against the meaning of a song, like when he breaks out a glamorous split screen to complement a comic song about FaceTiming with his mom. Mid-song, a spotlight turns on Burnham and shows him completely naked as a voice sings: "Well, well, look who's inside again. Bo Burnham; former YouTuber, iconic Viner, and acclaimed stand-up comedian has recently released a new Netflix special. Still terrified of that spotlight? In this case, it's likely some combination of depression/anxiety/any other mental disorder. Burnham quickly shifts from the song to a reaction video of the song itself in the style of a YouTuber or Twitch streamer. Likewise, the finale of Burnhams next special, Make Happy (2016) closes in a song called Handle This (Kanye Rant). The song starts as him venting his hyperbolically small problems, until the tone shifts, and he starts directly addressing the audience, singing: The truth is, my biggest problem is you / [. And did you have any favorites? Most of the comments talk about how visceral it is to hear Burnhams real voice singing the upsetting lyrics. It's progress. 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. For fans who struggle with panic attacks (myself included) its a comfort to see yourself represented in an artist whose work you respect. 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. 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. He is now back to where he was, making jokes alone in his room, an effort to escape his reality. I have a funky memory and I sometimes can't remember things from something I've watched, even if it was just yesterday. Tell us a little bit more about that. He slaps his leg in frustration, and eventually gives a mirthless laugh before he starts slamming objects around him. This line comes full circle by the end of the special, so keep it in mind. It's a dangerously tempting invitation to stop caring, coming from the villain of this musical comedy (depression). And I think that's what you're getting here. Then comes the third emotional jump scare. Burnham starts spiraling in a mental health crisis, mentioning suicidal ideation after lamenting his advance into his 30s. "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. "I was a kid who was stuck in his room, there isn't much more to say about it. WebBo Burnham's Netflix special "Inside" features 20 new original songs. 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).
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