Bo Burnham: Inside

"I hope this special can maybe do for you, what it's done for me, this last couple of months, which is, to distract me from putting a bullet, into my head, with a gun." this is my billionth time watching this, and I've had a terrible couple of months, and man I needed this right now. it's funny, the more I watch this, the less funny it gets. I don't mean that as a negative thing at all. I watch this when I need to cry. this is so much more than just a "COVID special." COVID heightened awareness of these issues, and probably heightened the issues themselves, but these ideas go much beyond COVID. this special depressingly, and beautifully, captures the creeping nihilism that these past few years, or even decades, has brought to us. with hypercapitalism mythologizing (white) comedians and other public figures, touting them as saviors, while neo-liberalism continues to strip the means of production from the working class; turn the internet into a cesspool of reality-distortion, disconnection, and exploitation; and morph art into an empty pool of consumerism that we call content creation - a lot in the name of progressivism. commenting on how growing up on the internet has destroyed our relationship with the world, and ourselves, not due to its inherent existence, but the capitalist exploitation of it, and how that has only exponentially grown worse, for the younger generations. illustrating the sorrowful pit of despair, depression and anxiety all this culminates in, making it difficult to wake up, go to work, be yourself, hang out with friends, laugh. the continued motif throughout the film of Bo watching himself, watching his own content, watching himself perform, emphasizes an idea that Bo has been keen on since his older specials: we are constantly expected to perform, and in a world that newly largely exists on the internet, the disassociative nature of over-editing ourselves, over-analyzing ouselves and over-perfecting ourselves leads to a reality where nothing feels tangibly real. kids are expected to do this from birth now. he touches on this even further in his film *Eighth Grade. * at first glance, this special feels like a random string of vaguely related vignettes, but all these ideas are continually hitting the same notes, over and over again. a lot of the skits and songs, especially from the first half, like Facetime With My Mom or White Girls Instagram, may seem trivial or jokey on first watch, but end up contributing to the overall ideas of the special, adding to the sadness, nihilism, and sorrow of it all. that's not even getting into the production value of this thing. so creatively made, and well put together. so earnest and sarcastic, at the same time. truly such smart writing and such a unique visual language. my favorite from the jump, and most blatant discussion, is within the song How The World Works. "don't you know the world is built with blood! and genocide! and exploitation" the way the two verses juxtapose their ideas - the first verse describing a way of living, seen in nature, that many people have convinced themselves is the way our human world follows suit. a way of of communal cooperation. and the second verse describing the actual nature of the reality humans exist in, engulfed in capitalism. the jarring contrast works so well. say it with me kids: "PRIVATE PROPERTY'S INHERENTLY THEFT, AND NEO-LIBERAL FASCISTS ARE DESTROYING THE LEFT. AND EVERY POLITICIAN, EVERY COP ON THE STREET, PROTECTS THE INTERESTS OF THE PEDOPHILIC CORPORATE ELITE!!!" the puppet, meant to speak for the working class, is of course shut down and threatened immediately afterwards, because you must not threaten the status quo with ideas. or you are dangerous to the bottom line: their dollar. god, so good. I could write an essay on each scene/song in this special, but I won't because it's been done to death. but my favorites are that funny feeling, goodbye, all eyes on me, and welcome to the Internet. but I love them all. unfortunately, I can't shut the fuck up about anything for an hour.