Bo Burnham’s “Inside” is a must watch

Could I interest you in everything, all of the time?

A little bit of everything, all of the time?

Apathy’s a tragedy and boredom is a crime,

Anything and everything all of the time.

Today we’ll be doing something different from normal. Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting down and watching Bo Burnham’s latest special: Inside.
I’ve been a big fan of Bo’s brand of comedy for a long time. His song art is dead is one of my favorite pieces of commentary of all time, on top of being very funny. I’m particularly fond of the way he performed it on the show The green room in a room full of talented comedians. I implore you to check it out for yourselves. But the topic at hand for today is his new special. Before sitting down to watch the special I had seen the song Welcome to the internet which Bo has posted to youtube. Let’s jump into what I thought then.

If you come into this special expecting a lot of laughs then you’ll likely be disappointed. I expected it to be funnier than it was, but I suspected it would be more introspective than funny, and I was definitely right in that aspect. We spend about 90 minutes watching Bo go through lockdown during the pandemic. He’s spending this time on making his new special, the one we’re watching. His hair also grows throughout the special. I didn’t mention this yet, but he made this entire special on his own. It looks like it’s produced by a full crew but instead it’s just him in a room with some cameras and lights. It’s a strange parallel to some of his early work in which he was just a kid sitting in his room making youtube videos.

So what do I think of the special itself and the topics it covers?
Bo talks a lot about different issues currently happening in society. The internet being the amazing yet terrifying beast that it is has its own song (this one you can find on youtube). He plays the role of the internet personified and definitely does so from a villainous outlook. He also talks about wealth inequality and makes fun of Jeffrey Bezos. The main theme of the entire thing though is him slowly losing his mind in the pandemic, just like I assume most of us did. I definitely lost my mind over time and right now I’m dealing with heavy stress related issues. You can see similar things happening to Bo. He admits when he’s near the end of the special that he’s scared to be done with it, because it’ll mean he has to go back and live his normal life. He doesn’t want that, this special is his coping mechanism. How do you cope when your coping mechanism isn’t there anymore?

If you want to know more about the special I recommend watching it yourself. It’s definitely worth your time, and although I think it’s not his best special, it’s still really good and often painfully relatable. With the pandemic coming to a close (I’m getting my second shot soon, the end is in sight) I’m worried about going back to normal life. I think I’m more excited than worried, but it’ll be a challenge to go back. How do you all feel about this? And having watched this special, does that change your outlook in any way? Thanks for reading.