Inside is a special released by comedian
Bo Burnham to Netflix in the May of 2021, and while Bo is a comedian, calling it a
comedy special doesn’t quite do it justice. This was Bo’s first contact with the outside
world in 5 whole years. His last special, Make Happy, was one in a long line of tragic,
yet hilarious products he’s put out since his time making comedy songs on Youtube 14 years ago.
But this special, out of everything he’s made, is very different. In fact, it’s different from
basically anything I’ve ever seen. It’s dark, and brooding, and depressing,
yet simultaneously mesmerising. I am not the first person to analyze this special;
several videos have already been made about it. However, some came out only a few days after
it released, some are just reviews, etc. While a solemn few do try to properly
analyze the show… not to be rude, but I can do better. So, I’ll be breaking this down
for all of you the best I can. The first thing I’d like to say is that if you haven’t yet seen
this special, I heavily encourage you to do so. It’s an hour and 30 minutes and is truly one
of the most moving things I’ve ever seen. If you’re in a dark place right now, though, it
may not be best for you. Just keep my video on a tab so youtube doesn’t kill me, and watch it real
quick. Warning over, ready or not, let’s begin. In order to start understanding this
special, we need to understand Bo and his past in greater detail. Bo, real name Robert
Burnham’s career began on December 21st, 2006. Fresh off the acquisition of youtube from
Google, and its rapidly growing user base, Bo found immediate success in his comedy
songs. There is not a single song on his channel with less than 2 million views with well
over half breaking the 10 million mark with ease. This immediate success began
to fuel his comedy career. Just 4 years after that first video, Bo came
out with Words, Words, Words. At the age of just 20 years old, Bo already had his first
hour long comedy special on Comedy Central, the youngest person ever to do so. This
immediate and explosive success, however, wasn’t something Bo ever fully took to. His
song “Art is Dead” in that very special gives us a lot of insight into just how he feels about
himself and the wider scene of celebrity culture. Despite being widely loved, Bo hates
his need for attention and equates it to a state of arrested development. As his
career continued, this self hatred and tragic touch to his comedy never died down. With
every laugh in a Bo Burnham comedy special, there was a distinct moment of reflection. This
continued up until his last special, Make Happy. Make Happy is essentially a comedy show about
the act of performing. It takes an almost hostile approach to the audience, constantly berating
them and using them as the butt of jokes. This continues all the way up until the final act
of the live show, a rant parodying Kanye Wests’ of a similar nature. While most of his complaints
are minor, he suddenly switches his attention to the audience. He says that they’re his biggest
problem, treating them almost like an addiction he can’t seem to sway, right before switching
back to his stage persona to cap off the song. But unlike his past 2 specials, this one ends
differently. We cut away to a pre-recorded segment, taking place in a small, quiet room. He
plays a simple piano song, titled Are You Happy? This song gives us a look into Bo’s mental state.
Despite his massive success over what’s now a full decade, he’s come to hate himself and everything
he’s become. It’s clear to him that the only way to find happiness is to hang up the towel and
quit comedy. And the final thing we saw from Bo, for the next 5 years, was him leaving that dark
room into daylight, presumably onto a better life. Then comes Inside. The very first
shot of the special shows us that Bo, after 5 years of silence, is returning
back into that very same room. In fact, the entire special takes place here.
Inside is far different than anything Bo’s made before. While his other products
took place in front of a live audience, with meticulously planned jokes and songs, Inside
is a project being made over the course of months. It has no audience, no other people,
only Bo, his camera, and the room. The structure of Inside can be split into two
different parts. On one end you have the songs. These are about anything from internet culture to
the themes of the special to what Bo’s currently thinking, and all of them are fantastic and
way too catchy. The other side is what I call the Behind the Scenes. This is essentially the
plot of the special, it tracks the process of how Bo’s creating it, as well as his state of
mind as it takes longer and longer to complete. And while Bo is the only person
we see in the entire special, you might as well call The Room and The
Camera the two other main characters. The camera is depicted as this cold dark void.
In nearly every single shot we see of it, we almost never see the actual lens. This makes
sense when you consider how Bo sees his audience. The first song of the special is called Content.
Other than being an absolutely amazing intro, he treats us like animalistic children. While the
first part of the song talks about how he’s been in a bit of a rut, the tone flips on a dime. The song goes from “robert’s been a little
depressed” to “but hey, I got you content!” He feels like he couldn’t return to the public
eye without already having a special ready for us to consume. When we look back at the camera,
that’s really what it is. An all consuming void. The room is not without its sins either. As
stated, this is the room he left at the end of Make Happy. That symbolized him leaving
comedy to find happiness, but this special begins with him re-entering. Bo is stepping right
back into the same demons he left behind. This room is his Comedy career, and everything
else that comes with it. It’s a cage, and we see it further isolate him
from the world as the project goes on. Right after Content ends, we get
our first look Behind the Scenes. We’re met with Bo setting up shots, with the
camera ever patiently watching. Bo tells us that the reason he’s making this special is
because quarantine’s started to get to him, so he’s making it to give him something to
do. However, we’re told later that there’s more to the story. I’m mostly trying
to keep this analysis chronological, but the monologue in All Eyes on Me is very
important for contextualizing the entire special. [Bo tells us in that monologue that the reason
he quit comedy was because of intense anxiety attacks he would start to get while performing on
stage. He left comedy in order to better himself mentally, and right at the cusp of 2020, he
finally felt ready to return. But right at the moment he was ready, you all already know what
happened.] So right as his mental state was ready, he was knocked down a peg and
isolated from his loved ones, yet he decided to make a
special in isolation anyways. As he leaps back into comedy, we start to see
him fall right back into his old habits. His song Comedy brings back his satirical self-hatred
in style. This song is basically a comedic takedown of the entire entertainment
industry, but especially of comedians. As much as Bo hates his own position as
a comedian, he seems to despise certain other ones more. The ones that champion
themselves as leaders of free speech, speaking truth to power. Or how he puts
it, [“I’m a special kinda white guy…”] But he certainly saves more than enough
criticism for himself. We see many times throughout the special, Bo making fun
of the very idea of self-improvement, the thing he’s been trying to do for 5 whole
years. My personal favorite example of this is in the song How the World Works. Other than
this song being just absolutely fucking hilarious, the way he delivers this line specifically is just
fantastic. Despite how great that line is, it’s clear that he’s already starting to destroy all of
the progress he’s made, even dashing the idea of improving himself, making it seem selfish for even
trying to. In his mind, he’s a straight white guy with millions of dollars and just as many adoring
fans, he should feel bad for even feeling bad. Even beyond the self hatred we
see him fall even further into perfectionism. After several songs in the
special, we’re given a shot of him very, very closely inspecting the song that just played.
Bo is definitely not new to being a perfectionist; his former specials, despite being live,
were carefully planned out and relentlessly rehearsed. One of my favorite bits involving
his perfectionism is from his special, What. This habit of his, while definitely hurting his
mental state, also helps us out in analyzing this special. Just like Stanley Kubrick, Bo
Burnham does not make mistakes. In fact, he’s so afraid of making mistakes, that even when he gets
a perfect take, we hear after several songs... We get some more insight into this behavior in
his reaction segment to his Unpaid Intern song. This reaction segment serves multiple purposes.
Not only does it very literally show off his process of over analyzing himself, leading
to more self loathing, he also says this. Afterwards, he gets so overwhelmed by all of his
swarming thoughts that he shuts everything down entirely. The truth of the matter is that he’s
terrified of people hating what he does. It doesn’t help then that this special has been
made entirely in isolation, with no feedback as to whether you’re doing well or not. In
a live setting, you can tell by laughter, but this special is just him. He has no support,
and his doubt and hatred starting to get to him. The reaction video was the
most obvious example of this, but we start to notice a theme of loops
being shown off as the special goes on. Immediately after what is possibly the
only unnecessary song in the special so far, just an anthem to Jeff Bezos,
we’re hit with another visual loop. This section puts into words what a lot of the
songs in the special are about: the internet. It’s obviously a very broad subject, but many of
the songs display just how the internet is slowly replacing things we would otherwise do in the real
world, accelerated even faster by recent events. Sexting, the song that plays next, is about
the same exact thing. Rather than, you know, actually doing it, it’s become trendy to
even replace the basest of human actions with online communication. By the end of the
song, just like Facetime with My Mom earlier on, he’s suddenly left entirely by himself the
moment it’s over. This theme of the internet being a second best option that leaves
you empty continues the further we go. Stuck in a Room is probably my favorite song from
the special, I constantly hum it to myself, but it also serves a good purpose to us here. While
we were seeing literal loops just a bit earlier, this song shows us just how much of his life is
being repeated through this special. As a kid, on youtube, just like now, he was stuck in
a room making comedy songs. This special is continually pushing himself towards his past,
something confirmed in the very next scene. We’ll see this projector setup multiple times
throughout the special, and while I was confused a bit on the first watch, it’s pretty obvious
what this is now. The projector represents what Bo is thinking about. This special is
constantly reminding him of his past. And his past and his self loathing and his
anger and his resentment keep building and building while his endless search for perfection
stretches things out longer and longer. And all of his demons bring us to the
midnight scene. A full 6 months have passed since he started this project, and in
the next 2 minutes after the scene starts, he’s going to turn 30 years old. He wanted
to finish before then, because the thought of him still being in this room, in the art
of Comedy, seemed incredibly depressing. He is far more visibly dejected than in
any other scene in the special thus far. Up until this point, Inside has had the feel of a
regular Bo Burnham special with a new format, but as things continue, we’ll see his mental state,
as well as this special, start to deteriorate. The moment it hits 12 AM, the song 30
starts to play. While the majority of the song is lamenting over the fact that’s
somehow already 30, it ends like this. The next scene is Bo seemingly clarifying to
us that he doesn’t want to end his own life. However, halfway through, it suddenly
transitions to a projector screen. And while the first part may have
been for us, the second half is him thinking to himself. He’s talking himself down
from taking his life. Just like in his 30 song, stripped down bare, his facade is
starting to strip down alongside it. We’re given a short intermission to the
instrumental tune of Content, the next we’re met with the song Don’t Wanna Know. Having been cut
off entirely from his audience for 6 months now, he’s desperate to know if what he’s doing is
worth it, or even good. Yet every time he asks, he gets far too scared of the possible rejection
and backs down from the question entirely. He’s clearly losing confidence
in both the product and himself. And then out of absolutely nowhere, we’re hit
with a gaming segment for the video game “Inside”. Not this one, this one. Not only does the streamer Bo do a fantastic job mimicking a
boring, run of the mill streamer, the game is incredibly interesting. While the
streamer Bo makes a lot of subtle comments… we get to see a very simplified version of
what Bo’s everyday life has become. Setting up lighting, playing music, and crying, with him
only being happy when he’s playing songs. This constant day in and day out cycle is absolutely
mind numbing, or as streamer Bo puts it… At this point in the special, we see
Bo starting to long for the outside, thinking about it before going to sleep for
another day of playing songs, setting up lights, and crying. And by the way, if it wasn’t obvious
enough that this was mimicking his everyday life, there’s actually a flash frame from earlier
on in the special of the streamer Bo in the bottom right corner. The songs from
this point turn from outward to inward, with nearly every single one showcasing his
rapidly declining mental state. And all this while, throughout the entire special, we see
his room fill up more and more with electronics. This is obviously set up and placed with intention
for us to see. In a lot of scenes, they serve no functional purpose to whatever he’s doing, only
cluttering the space and making it feel cramped. The wires almost feel like an infestation that he
can’t get rid of, and we’ll only see more as we near the end. After the absolute banger that is
Shit, which essentially says what you expect it to, we see Bo on the verge of a mental breakdown.
He’s finally starting to experience panic attacks again, the very thing that caused him to leave
comedy in the first place. Or how he puts it… And then, out of fucking nowhere,
we get the centerpiece of the entire special. An anxious and deeply troubled
Bo taps the computer, and the person that takes their hand off is completely different.
It’s suddenly nighttime, and we get the song of the special. Let me make this absolutely clear
to all of you, this thing is not Bo Burnham. While most people refer to it as the internet, since
this is essentially a carnival song, I think it’s more fitting to call him the Ringmaster
of the Internet. Or, the ringmaster for short. And even though we only see the ringmaster
for just one song, he is undoubtedly the villain of this entire special. The electronics
littering the floor like tendrils or veins, nearly every song about the drawbacks
and loneliness the internet brings you. That camera, the all consuming void.
The internet sucks everything up, pain, suffering, happiness, sadness, and shits it
out on the other side. It overwhelms you and takes over every single aspect of your life, and with
quarantine, it’s truly begun to replace our lives. We communicate with our family online, we make up
fake lives for validation, burn through every bit of entertainment we can think of, even do weird
sex stuff. And staring into this void of stimuli, it begins to suck your very soul out
with you. Your emotions, your opinions, your sanity gets added to this infinitely
dense black hole of nothing and everything. And, the thing is, you can’t really
stop it. This is a villain song of a villain that’s already won. And just
as suddenly as it appears, it ends. But I actually have a theory. In terms of the
plot of inside, not truly what was planned, but what was quote unquote “planned” in the
plot, this was supposed to be the end of the special. Every one of his previous comedy specials
have lasted exactly one hour, or slightly over, and this song ends at an hour and one minute.
However, the scene immediately after says this. While the turning 30 segment was
the first step towards madness, everything after this scene has Bo essentially
falling apart right in front of our eyes. The starkest change is how he starts to
view Outside. While just a bit earlier he was desperate to leave, he now seems absolutely
terrified of it. Nearly every scene afterwards, we hear nature sounds and see projections
of nature in the background of the room. He’s simulating outside, trying to relish in
the idea of it rather than actually leaving. However, just like with the internet, it’s a
second hand facade that doesn’t truly work. We again see Bo without clothes
on, performing standup to nobody at all. And instead
of jokes, he begins ranting. Even though this isolation is
tearing him apart, he’s become even more afraid of the outside world. He’s
not only regressed into what he was before, it’s become even worse. And with all of this,
self-hatred, regression, isolation, perfectionism, all repeatedly beating him down in cycles, his
grip on reality is starting to slip completely. That Funny Feeling is the most harrowing song in
the special. While describing many things that are tragically ironic, uncanny, or desperately
hopeless, it becomes impossible to understand just how truly messed up a lot of it is. What “That
Funny Feeling” is, in my opinion at least, is Disassociation. Or, as he puts it, Derealization.
That feeling of spectating through your own eyes, rather than actually looking through them. And
while Bo earlier was talking himself down from ending it all, he seems to welcome the end of
the world in this song, treating it as a release. After the song ends, Bo tries to tell us that
it’s been a year since the start of the project. It’s clear, though, that even his grip
on language is starting to slip away. It’s been well documented that being alone
for long periods of time leads to a sharp cognitive decline. In 1972, scientist Michael
Siffre locked himself in a cave for 6 months. By his own observation, by the time 5
months passed, he could hardly string thoughts together. He even tried befriending
a mouse, just to have someone to talk to. While Bo has the internet, it's clear that
it can’t make up for a total lack of real contact with others. He eventually get so
angry at his inability to speak that he storms out of the room entirely. And after
an hour and eleven minutes of spiraling, we finally see Bo break. And all of this
while the camera just continues watching. Reduced to nothing, we hear Bo give
a monologue to pre-recorded cheers. All he wants is the only thing that seems to
bring him joy anymore, the admiration of his fans. All Eyes on Me is a mesmerizing song. Bo’s
voice is lowered and distorted as he dances discordantly with himself looping in the
background. We already know the monologue, but afterwards, the lyrics devolve into
the chorus, repeating the same three lines, calling for admiration and praise. The song ends
with him falling into his piano, and suddenly we wake up the next day to pristine lighting.
Despite just yesterday being his ATL, we’re suddenly back to a scene reminiscent of the first
Behind the Scenes at the beginning of the special. We see him mess with lights, create
the background track we’re hearing now, and most importantly, scrub over
All Eyes on Me looking for mistakes. After he’s finished, he picks
up a mic, and, exhausted, says… This contrast between the complete loss of
control just yesterday back to his sharp, specific process of creating took me
by surprise my first watch though. However, looking now, it makes sense.
While Inside is about so many things, just like his previous specials, it’s
also about the process of creation. What we learn from this scene is that although
all of what we saw did happen (in the plot of the special), it was all willingly done.
What we saw was a visceral version of what Bo puts himself through to make every single special
he’s done. Going to the darkest places of his mind he can imagine, pulling out the worst in himself,
to create something truly amazing. This is why he was suffering anxiety attacks, why comedy is so
unhealthy for him. It takes everything he has to make what he does. And now that he’s finished,
he’s starting to come back to his normal state. The final song, called either
Goodbye or “Possible Ending Song”, is a great cap to the special. A Bo from the
beginning, from even before the first scene, starts playing the song. This entire special,
from the start, to his collapse, to his ATL, was all planned out in advance. Young Bo
fades into our new, changed Bo. The song’s lyrics phase in and out with lamenting about
quarantine, the process of making the special, and the very important line, “I
promise to never go outside again.” He’s still afraid the special will be widely
hated, and the lack of live response has continued to eat at him. Lines like “Hey here’s a fun idea,
How about I sit on the couch, and I watch you next time?” or “Does anybody want to joke When no
one’s laughing in the background?” show this fear of being shot down, but he knows he’s explored
everything he could at this point. Even though he doesn’t want it to end, he knows it has to.
Several songs are brought back, the most important being Stuck in a Room, as its sung from
someone who isn’t Bo. In fact, the voice is us. We’re mocking Bo for ever trying to leave
Comedy, to leave the room. He left only to find a new excuse to come back. And as we
mock him, he’s stripped completely naked, blinded by the spotlight. He’s been fully broken
down in front of us. But as the song fades out, we’re hit with a surprise. The door is finally
opening. The room is clean, devoid of all electronics; the only light coming from outside.
Bo looks at it, both amazed and terrified. He steps out, hearing what he thinks are other
people and daylight. As the camera cuts further out, though, the world is just as dark as the
room, and he’s still in the spotlight. The door locks behind him as he’s showered with applause,
and as he tries to enter, the clapping is replaced with laughter. Then, the final haymaker, the
shot turns into a projector screen with Bo intently watching. This entire scene has been
in his own head, and while it seems like the Bo in the projector is suffering, right at the
end, the real Bo smiles. And then it’s over. This ending confused me for 5 straight watch
throughs. Only on the 6th did it click for me. Him leaving the room can be interpreted as two
different scenarios, but both end in the same way. One is that leaving the room symbolizes
quarantine ending. After this special is over, even though he leaves that physical room,
he’s still stuck in the cage that is Comedy. The other scenario is that him leaving
the room is him thinking about leaving Comedy again after this special,
but realizing he can never go back after this. He’ll be stuck suffering for
our entertainment for the rest of his life. So then, why does Bo smile at the end? Why,
after knowing that no matter what he does, he’ll continue to suffer, does he smile?
Because of the laughter. There’s always been a tragedy to his comedy, it’s the reason people
love him. He just put himself through all of this, all of this hell and isolation, all of it… just
for the applause and the laughter. Him leaving that room is him returning to the world with this
special, and even though he can never go back, he still wants to go through with it. Because
people might love it, and they’ll love him too. Make no mistake, this story is a tragedy.
This is not a good ending. Bo has given in to his desperate need for attention, and has
sacrificed his path to happiness in the process. The special ends with the song Any Day Now, and
a message reading, “for lor, for everything”. Lorene Scafaria is his girlfriend. I think it’s
important to note at the end of the day that this was a special that was directed, planned,
and acted. It’s incredibly easy to forget that. Even though this represents the pain that Bo
goes through in the process of creating, and all the suffering that comes with isolation, it’s
dramatized. Bo has people that love him, and this special is merely that, a special. Not precisely
a comedy one, not completely, but a special. This script has, funnily enough, gone on far
longer than I intended it to, but it’s so worth it. When I said this is Bo’s magnum opus, or
at least his first, I wasn’t kidding. Nothing that’s released recently has captured my interest
as much as this, and I am so happy I’ve had the chance to truly look at it with such a lens.
This special is a masterpiece, and it will truly last. Both as a product of the time, and a
product of mastery. Even if you didn’t watch the special when I asked you to, please do it now. And
if you have already, do it again. It’s worth it. He’s suffered enough for it. Anyways,
if you want more analysis like this, I ask you to subscribe and join my discord. Or
not. Regardless, have a truly fantastic day.
