![]() ![]() As Burnham snidely puts it, “The outside world, the non-digital world, is merely a theatrical space in which one stages and records content for the much more real, much more vital digital space.”įittingly, Burnham includes multiple scenes in which he points the camera in a mirror, capturing both himself and a reflection of the audience as we stare back at him we are subject to the literal Black Mirror, the veneer of a screen that’s come to signal our fear of the future and ourselves. Hundreds of thousands of people have latched on to the special’s messaging about the normalization of performance as an aspect of everyday life rather than something confined to a controlled setting, with the most vehement of those testimonials coming from social media. The song “Welcome to the Internet” alone could have cemented the special’s place in 2021’s cultural history with its diatribes against technology-induced mania. Objectively, it’s a creative tour de force. There is no denying that “Inside” is good. ![]() ![]() And that’s why I refuse to tell you what I think of it. It is addressed, signed, sealed and hand-delivered to you with a capital Y. There is a magnitude to “Inside” that lets viewers know, from the first bars of its overture, that this is not just a momentary internet craze like “Tiger King” or “Bridgerton.” It’s meant to mean something to you and you singularly. “Inside” is all of these things rolled up and crammed into a tiny studio in Bo Burnham’s backyard. And how sad and heartbreaking and hilarious and troubling it was, which it is. Just hours after “Inside” was uploaded to Netflix, friends and family started messaging me about what a masterpiece it was. I knew that, no matter what, the special’s release would be An Event. As someone especially moved by his 2018 film, “Eighth Grade,” I was excited and also a little terrified. After six years without performing live, no one was sure what “Inside” had in store. When Bo suddenly announced he had a new special coming out this year, his fans, including myself, were ecstatic. ![]() As I scroll through my TikTok For You Page, songs from “Inside” play on endless 15-second loops, worming themselves deeper into the app’s notorious algorithm the longer I listen to the lyrics repeat. For the past few days, social media has been awash in reactions to Bo Burnham’s new special, “Inside.” My Twitter and Instagram feeds are a constant barrage of glowing reactions to Burnham’s introspective, 90-minute performance art piece. ![]()
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December 2022
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