by Robert Bouffard, Editor
If you’ve ever watched one of Bo Burnham’s projects, then i’m sure you know that he’s unique. The man started in his late teens as an inappropriate YouTuber trying to be edgy, created three musical comedy specials that are somewhere on the “incredible spectrum,” and has now gone on to be successful in the movies, both in front of and behind the camera. I love Burnham’s unique blend of comedy, music, and message, and his 2016 Netflix special (which, at the time, was supposedly his last), Bo Burnham: Make Happy has been a major influence in the way I’ve processed a lot of different things. So I was absolutely stoked when I heard he would be releasing a new special that he wrote, edited, directed, and performed on his own over the past year.
In the new Netflix special Bo Burnham: Inside, Burnham goes further off the rails than we’ve ever seen him before. He produced the entire 87 minute special alone, inside his house during the pandemic-induced quarantine in 2020, and darn it if this thing didn’t speak to the experience I had during that time.
2020 was pretty rough for me mentally. As an introvert, I was was kind of happy about being stuck at home at the beginning of lockdown. But I learned a lot about myself over the year of not being able to do the things I was accustomed to. It started as anxieties about being stuck at home, which led to looking for connection in any healthy way I could find it. And then of course there were the social atrocities to reckon with and the only way I could process it all was through my various screens, which led to a feeling of helplessness. And the biggest, most significant thing to deal with was time passing by, even though it felt like it wasn’t, which caused an immeasurable amount of stress and anxiety.
Things have finally started to look up now that so much is starting to open back up and look and feel like it did 15 months ago (at least where I live in America), but Burnham grabbed me and pulled me back to where I was with his new special. The special made me confront everything I’ve dealt with since the beginning of this pandemic, which I didn’t realize I needed until I watched it. But the thing is, it doesn’t give any easy answers.
The best way to describe the tone of this special is that 20 minutes in, Burnham talks to his sock puppet named Socko. And it only gets more unhinged from there. He uses his signature, unique ability to be silly and musical at the same time to question if this is the right time for comedy, pontificate on whether there’s even anything he can add to the world with a comedy special, take jabs at brands being performatively woke, white women on social media, people in general on social media, and Jeff Bezos and immoral corporations (I’m paraphrasing with the understatement of the century), and the general anxieties that come from being cut off from society the way so many of us were for over a year.
Now, it would be a disservice for me to try to explicate the ideas that Burnham explores in this special. He’s created something so confined inside the walls of his house and what he has there that it’s unlike anything I’ve seen. He still created about 25 ear worms, but the way he performs them are so different from how he’s done it in the past. Being inside, alone, without an audience gave him the ability to play with the visual presentation of his jokes and messages so that they land in a completely new way.
This is a piece that can really only be understood or explained by watching it. Burnham played about as many songs as I was expecting, but he was in his underwear 100% more than I was expecting. It’s quirky and weird and special. He isn’t trying to be relatable with this piece of art. He just is relatable.
I said at the top that Burnham doesn’t give any easy answers. I think that’s because he doesn’t really have them himself. A lot of this comes across as him processing what he was feeling and thinking at each moment in lockdown. I’ll be going back to the majority of these songs just to stimulate my own thinking on the various subjects so I can try to process my thoughts and feelings. He’s not trying to give you answers — he’s just trying to say that you’re not the only one struggling to know how to grapple with all the crazy stuff that is happening in our information overloaded world.
Bo Burnham: Inside looks and sounds beautiful. Burnham definitely took some lessons he learned from making movies to form whatever the correct term to call this is. It’s not going to be for everyone, much like the rest of what he does. It can come across as self-indulgent, but that might only be the case for those unfamiliar with Burnham’s work or those who already aren’t fans of his. But if his style has worked on you in the past, then I think it’s safe to say it will again. Just be prepared to finish the special with your existential crisis back at square one.
Grade: A+