On a podcast, back in 2016, Bo Burnham talked about his overall disappointment with mainstream culture. His advice to the world was simple: Stop posting every twenty-four hour period, stop creating "content" (a concept he hates). Disappear from the public eye and make something exceptional that volition accident anybody abroad… In other words: "Effort harder."

At the fourth dimension, he had just released Make Happy, a live stand up-up special where his usual blend of absurdist one-act and humorous pianoforte tunes culminated in an unexpected coda.

Conceived as a parody of Kanye'due south rants from the Pablo bout, the vocal Can't Handle This was dissecting mundane fast food annoyances before letting the mask crash downwardly. For the beginning fourth dimension since his not-so-humble ancestry as a YouTube wunderkind, the comedian was addressing the crippling anxiety that plagues his creative process, and the vulnerability he feels as a result of living his life in the limelight.

Jumpcut to last week when, after a period of 5 years spent largely away from comedy, Bo Burnham is back with a Netflix special he shot entirely by himself, in a one-room bungalow. Simply titled Inside, the moving picture blurs the line betwixt the documentary and the i-person show.

I'll spare you the platitudes. Inside has been dissected advert nauseam in the past week, and a simple Google search volition return some much better critiques and Easter egg hunts than what I could offering.

The but thing I tin do here is write about how much this special means to me.

When people started posting about Bo Burnham'southward new special, I had a hunch that I would probably enjoy the new Netflix bear witness. What I didn't anticipate was that Inside is an Oops-All-Goosebumps type of picture. Following his own advice, Burnham has created a true masterpiece, a patchwork of musical numbers directed with ingenuity that manages the impossible: To be both funny and transforming. It'due south non taking any easy exits or cop-outs. It'southward a bear witness nigh breach, heavy depression, and doom.

I would say these are underlying themes, but they're right there at the surface, at every moment.

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A great example is the musical number How the World Works. It starts off as an optimist - admitting naive - child show vocal about the equilibrium of the ecosystem, earlier tipping in some extremely lucid social rhetoric. when we're introduced to Socko, a mitt-boob that has more in common with Adam Curtis than with Kermit the Frog.

The songs of Brett McKenzie meet the twisted universe of Hans Teeuwen in a sketch that exhibits the power dynamics at work in our tardily-stage capitalist society through a lean back and forth betwixt the singer and his prop.

Every song in the special has this level of depth, those about-face moments where something unexpected is revealed. This ironic push-pull where he can defend progressive ideologies while exploiting their flaws, arguing a bespeak and its opposite, never settling for righteousness.

The song Comedy exposes the futile narcissism of using fine art as a hateful of societal alter while it does, well… exactly that. White Adult female's Instagram is a nihilistic look at the shallowness of the social media façade… until it becomes a humanistic ode to how hard it is to grapple with expiry and the loss of a loved one. Problematic acknowledges the need for what has been recently referred to every bit a "cancel culture", while also mocking its shortcomings.

To say more than would be to ruin the fun of discovering all those mind-fucks, one after the other.

All I can say is that, equally an artist, Inside has made me re-think songwriting. In the past decade, an increasing amount of pressure - whether internal or external - has pushed musicians to fit the molds of the music industry, at the fearfulness of being left behind. I have experienced that first-paw, I can tell you. Bo Burnham's special has taught me to be more centered and to have the backbone to listen to my intuition rather than endeavour to delight whatever algorithm or playlist curator.

Burnham has likewise shown united states of america that a songwriter can be merely equally firsthand as a stand-up comedian in their process, and that yous don't have to dumb downward your ideas and retell the aforementioned generic beloved story, over and over once again. Yous tin utilize your medium to explore new ideas and permit ideas or sketches evolve organically in a challenging work of fine art.

The heartbreaking monologues and the glimpses we get of Bo Burnham betwixt the musical numbers also add together to the songs themselves, putting them in context, making the whole thing more than human, involving the public in an ever-growing tension that we can't be indifferent to. It'due south like a meta-musical where the story arch has been replaced with a post-modern look at life nether lockdown.

I'chiliad non washed re-listening to the song, re-watching the special, peeling its many layers. In the past week, I've been obsessed with Within the way I haven't been obsessed with a song cycle for years.

The final matter I'll mention, for at present, is that, beyond all the sadness expressed here (and boy do I relate, don't get me started), beyond all the mental wellness struggles and the depression, I think Inside documents of a immature adult becoming a grown-up.

There's something really touching almost seeing Bo settle in his natural, lower voice register and transform in front end of our eyes, both psychologically and physically. If his goal was to disappear in the shadows and re-emerge with something exceptional, mission accomplished.

Inside is available now on Netflix and Spotify . It'southward a slam-douse, folks.