Bo Burnham on "Eighth Grade" and tech

hello hi everybody hello bow thank man how are you yes I'm good thank you how are you I'm good I'm great hello everybody how are you how's your day going they can't hit that Mike's will get you Mike's there is my movie out there have written and directed it's called eighth grade is about eighth grade yes the last week of it how many of the folks in the room have seen this movie already how many yes a lot of customers about to happen half dozen that aligns with the box office numbers pretty correctly bowed to watch this movie indie breakout means about a handful of people watch so let's give them a taste of this movie you're gonna watch a quick scene from this movie I will warn you eighth grade has been rated R because as you have said bow eighth grade is r-rated yes so there is a moment of profanity in this clips should that offend your delicate ears do close them let's watch a scene from eighth grade this is different generation yes she is she's four years younger than okay but people who are like four years older than spot like fifty years old it's like lately not your sister this is just sucks okay but like on top of that Sheen up Twitter in middle school and we did that made us different okay you're not different than us yeah when did you get snapchat what grade this is great kiss so that scene is a light see I'm going to confess that when I before I saw eighth grade I was like you know Bo Burnham Musical comedian kind of like you know stand-up guy like doesn't does comedy light stuff and then you deliver this movie that scene is one of the lighter that moment is one of the lighter moments in the film movie is a searing steep serious introspective reflective look at making at the sociology of eighth grade and it's who and I was surprised I was surprised stand-up comedian viburnum doing musical YouTube to Ritz sure that movie I'm curious and that made me wonder what do we miss when we're looking at we as viewers we as parents looking at the videos of our kids are the young folks around us on YouTube on Instagram their stories on snapchat on Facebook what do we miss what don't we see yeah well I mean the movie is sort of framed by her making videos her making vlogs on YouTube that nobody watches they have like three or four views and Kaila the four Taylor the main yeah the main protagonist she gives life advice about things that she probably doesn't maybe actually know anything about but it sort of projecting it out loud and you know the impulse for the movie was watching hundreds of kids online talking about themselves you know watching young kids make vlogs the boys talked about fortnight and the girls talked about their souls so I was like okay I'm gonna make a movie about a girl probably but but yeah I mean I was just really fascinated with sort of these this raw footage of kids trying to express themselves out loud and I would sort the videos by upload date so you can see kids that were actually you know had three or four views ten or twelve subscribers you know we tend to only talk about the Internet in terms of people like me people that went viral people that are seen but a majority of people on the Internet are expressing themselves to nobody and expressing themselves or to a very small amount of people and and I do think that participation is just as valid if not more than the people that we pay attention to but yeah but what I think people don't pay it what people don't notice about kids online I had seen right before I wrote the script I had seen a young girl in the mall sitting on a fountain taking selfies of herself and she would go like this and then goat snap in and go on her phone and sit like this for a while and then snap back up into this thing and go down and I looked at her and I said you know it feels like the culture is looking at her Instagram account and talking about her and talking about that generation saying look how self obsessed and self-involved these kids are but if the way I'm seeing her which the way she is which is the way a movie would see her I'm seeing a kid that is scared and nervous and not sure how to present herself and then as if being held hostage in her falsest moment is presenting herself to the world so that's how I was interested in doing presented presenting this generation that I feel like a part of I feel like this sort of like Gandalf like the very old I feel like the very old member of year like I'm the oldest person that grew up on the Internet at 28 you know I wanted to do justice to the Internet on my behalf you know when I feel like I saw the Internet represented media to me it felt like you know some Taco Bell like hashtag chalupa I mean like that's literally how stuff on the internet like that was not you know it feels like older people's shoehorning references in and not understanding that it's a just environmental thing it's the air they move through it's the water they swim in that clip was unique in one respects from many of the scenes in the movie and that it involves a conversation among a number of people only one of whom I believe is glued to his device yeah yeah for most of the movie many person-to-person interactions are there is this this force this this smartphone this device it's either in the frame or the center of the frame or in front of the person's face or it more commonly because people don't hold their phones like this and tell me about that what why how did you you decide to put Lord is the role of the smartphone where it plays in in the scenes in the movie how is it director were you using why did that scene have the characters talking face to face well it's the same role has in my life unity which is funny it's like I had a lot of people adults come up to me after the movie and go man I couldn't imagine being so addicted to my like so addicted to the Internet at that age or something and I would watch pre you know screenings of the movie where them there it would cut to the credits and immediately the audience lit up by people on their phones you know so it's my relationship that I have with it which is like you know I started peeing sitting down so I could my phone and I was like what is happening has I've quit I'm standing again all of the audience just kidding um but for real like yeah I don't know I I look at kids in their phone and I don't say like why are they looking down at that I go like of course like look at the world we've made for them to look up at of course they want to go on their phone and I totally would have wanted to escape for myself in my life at that age but it just I think the economy of being young is a tension obviously the economy of the economy is attention now but but that is the thing I don't think kids are bullied as much as they are ignored there is bullying a stuff but kids would love to be shoved in a locker and given a swirly it'd be so much easier than the sort of psychic torment they get from what they feel moment a moment which is if my life isn't viewed I'm not real if I'm not seen I don't exist and what a easy way to not be alone than to take out that thing when you're feeling lonely in any situation but what a strange choice to have to make at the end of the night between all the information in the history of the world and the back of your eyelids you know infinity or oblivion that's insane to have anything to be true I think it choose before anybody let alone for a thirteen-year-old who's whose brain is growing so um yeah I wanted to kind of just make a movie about this stuff where it was just existing you know we were just kind of because there's a lot of finger-wagging I feel like about the internet and for me it's like anyone that feels like they have any sort of authority over the current moment is not paying attention I mean what is going on at every level of the culture and society what is happening you know it's the only thing I felt certain of is sort of my subjective experience of these things so that's the hope of this is that like yeah in 20 years when these kids become social scientists I'll be very curious to hear their dissertation on the internet you know whatever but until then it feels like I just wanted to take emotional inventory of it and go this is what it feels like and I don't know what to make of it the movies not about like and then she threw her phone into the ocean and then she was happy you know if the internet was bad it'd be so much easier to address yeah you know you what feels new it was the key the kids in the movie has depicted are probably like 15 years younger yeah they're in eighth grade now that was 2003 years yeah yeah well I was like 26 seven when I made the movie in Chiba Sturge so it was like it was kind of halfway yeah I mean I was in eighth grade when she was born the actress what do you think is different what was this what differed in Kayla's experience from your own um everything I mean like oh like a ton it's interesting I was in a similarly I think hot cultural moment of post 9/11 when I was in sixth seventh eighth grade and you know as a as to what the Trump era probably feels for an eighth grader talking to them how much they're thinking about politics and their normal life is scary and they expressed that to me like how much they actually have to think about that and how much they don't how much they don't want to think about political issues until a political issue Kicks down the door with the political issue in their hand so I don't I don't know it's a lot different I really wasn't even thinking about my own 8th grade experience really I wanted to talk about how it felt for me to be alive right now and I went like what does it feel like to be alive right now well I feel nervous and sweaty and like everything's changing and my body's exploding and what is happening eighth grade you know I mean really it feels like the culture is sort of functioning at an eighth grade level right now kind of you know so that that's what it really was um I found myself wondering as I watched the movie which character you empathize most with I think one of the achievements of the film is that is an open question but each of the characters feels fully rounded I recognize them as people and regardless of how you feel about them and their actions in the film they they do feel honest and that made me curious even for a character like Kayla's dad who is an awkward let's say you can see the family resemblance to they they share an awkwardness a language of awkwardness of one another and it's a little bit beautiful it's sad but who I'm curious who was your your strongest tethering well certainly her I mean she's the sort of tire movie that the whole movie sort of told from her perspective it's pretty subjectively felt or whatever that's the at least that hope at the movie yeah and she's her single dad I felt like both of them you know I was between them and age perfectly like thirteen years apart from either of them and how did you get into Kayla's experience given that from nearly the moment that you started posting on YouTube you got views you had a lot of you yeah yeah yeah it's funny it's like I don't know ooh you know this is like a strange area you know they actually get into but like I've I did relate to her I felt like her I was very aware that I was a man making this story about a thirteen year old girl you know and I tried to very much service my particular limitations and telling it but also feeling like I did understand her and I did connect with her I would do my stay I did stand in for a long time and a might stand up I would talk about my specific anxieties which were connected to me being a 25 year old male comedian with an you know performing in the theater of 2,000 people or whatever and I thought you know no one's going to relate to that that isn't me and then after the show 13 year old girls would come out to me and say I feel exactly like you do and I'd go what you know I mean and I realized that like my stresses as a sort of c-list d-list comedic celebrity had been exported to an entire generation now everyone gets to feel like they're their own publicists and they're our own brand managers and the sort of horrible like sort of gross icky existential dread you get from being in this sort of world of Hollywood that just feels Brooke is now everyone gets to have it you know I mean it's that weird thing where I felt like celebrities were sort of like on Mount Olympus and the way we solved that problem was we all moved up there and now the air is really thin and we can't breathe you know because it's like it's not a place to view yourself so that it's not so I saw myself as her now I saw these kids and what they struggled with which was Who am I Who am I to other people there's a sort of cap there's a sort of proper noun version of my name now bo burnham where people know that and then I have to Who am I and and where's that what's the difference between those two things and is trying to close that gap bad is keeping them separate bad and again I thought that was particularly in my circumstance and it wasn't and that was beautiful that was my biggest fear that I wasn't unique and my biggest salvation that I wasn't alone he started to touch on this in that answer but I am curious as someone who achieved the currency that the kids are striving for that attention that popularity the views you had them in spades you have them in spades what would you tell Kayla coming to you with zero viewers one viewer and putting yourself out there what would you tell her what it's like to be on that hey that's funny you know yeah like I would ask her stuff as much as I would want to tell her things I mean I I look to her for guidance as much as I'd want to give guidance I mean it's obvious that it's not gonna fulfill you and it's not gonna or whatever you mean like I don't know I worry about young people being creative as a young person trying to be creative it's almost like everything that the systems are asking you to do you have to avoid absolutely everything you see a generation of kids that are learning to be self promoters and not learning to actually make the thing to promote yeah I mean like I believe obviously like the best thing to promote is the best form of self promotion is a good thing that people want to engage with you know obviously and you anyway I don't know there's this that's a whole other thing but uh yeah I don't know I would tell her to chill out and relax and know that the thing and this maybe applies to other things hope I'm just trying to make this hopefully useful to people just haven't seen a movie or even give a about me that like that I do believe after a long journey and a lot of things that like the great thing about working creatively is accessible to everybody right away it took me a long time to realize the thing I actually loved about it was the thing that I was doing when I was doing theater in sixth grade you know and there's this belief I get a lot of kids coming up to me going like I'm an aspiring writer I'm an aspiring actor I go like are you a writer do you write do you act you're a writer you're an actor don't wait to have some sort of arbitrary version of success or reach some sort of milestone or be seen don't what you actually have permission to enjoy the thing right away and if that's not what you enjoy and you jus do enjoy the views or the attention run Go Go get away from it because you are actually putting your happiness in the hands of something you have zero control over and that's gonna be a treble I'm gonna ask you one more question before I turn to the audience for one but you I understand saw a screening of eighth grade at an arc like cinema in Hollywood with a bunch of 8th graders that were the company r24 yeah we did we did a we did screenings every state there were no ratings in the forest so the kids could see it got it and so you've heard from kids yeah yeah kids about the movie yeah what are their most legitimate criticisms of it Oh legitimate I mean like they're legitimate SAR like the LeBron like because the kid shouts like LeBron James we're just like a meme or something like that memes old and I'm like I know also like culture ages like milk now but uh no they're critic I mean I get if I was an eighth grader I'd be like if there was a movie called eighth grade I was in eighth grade I'd be like back off yeah I mean so like it's maybe more for ninth graders and above more than actual kids but you know whatever they feel I don't care you know it's funny to make a movie about how eighth graders are incredibly unselfish and their opinion of it but they've definitely got opinion it is easier for them I think to step outside of themselves and see it so and they are aware they get it they're another joke let's take a question anybody yes my name is Dylan Kiley I'm freelance and you're one of the og youtubers who kind of rose up what are your thoughts on where the platform has kind of transformed to since you left like five years ago mom and have you considered transition back not doing it the same maybe skits or whatever but maybe making like short film or something along those lines great how how heavy is Google as a sponsor and this No I will say it's disappointing to me it is it's it's disappointing what YouTube is you know you go to the trending page of YouTube it is late night talk show clips and movie trailers and ironic ironic advertisements by corporations who are making you know celebrities can't go viral I don't believe that and yet all the viral videos or celebrities that have millions of subscribers and built-in audiences I thought it was going to be a platform for the people to you know I mean truly like you know and but you know they're smart the big the big guys are smart and they know how to get in there and and work it and you know the real people making real things are still available but a lot of it is you know it's that's a bummer to me it is I don't think someone like me at that time at 16 could be discovered now because they have to compete with you know Bob Iger you saw you sorted YouTube by upload date to see those videos those videos that the algorithm doesn't bring you yeah I'm lovely that's and I suggest sort your videos by upload date not relevancy and get past the algorithm and see the actual people you put some of what you found in that movie what didn't you put in the movie that you found oh there's plenty I mean there's just like YouTube actually is I know it seems like the corniest thing full of the corniest people doing the cornea stuff it's like Oh YouTube is just like people eating hot peppers and like like people are like opening PlayStation for whatever they do like it's actually like if you dig past the surface you see it's like wells of just like raw humanity you know like someone just doing vlogs because their father is dying and just walking you through every day of what that means not because they're looking for views that because they just need to actually say it out loud and you go through the comments and these people have 500 views or like and there's just it's everywhere all the time so it's it's it's it's the greatest research source in the world for me so that exists on YouTube but you stated you have some sadness about where it's I'm not saying that guys like walking through your father's desk should be trending that's what I'm saying obviously I'm just saying you know you know what I mean it's like like the rock Kevin Hart you've went viral enough like chill out there are other kids that want yeah you wish that more people could see more of that well I just wish it wasn't the medium for like all the other mediums to like go and make jokes on or like I don't know you know I'm saying it's just like music videos and and Jimmy Fallon throwing a bowl of skittles at like a cutout of a dog or I I don't get it we're supposed to be like our meeting suppose be like the French Revolution or supposed be like the people but I guess there are people too technically with their lizards with people's skins all right with lizards with people's skins I think I got to leave it there Bo Burnham appreciate thanks the time you so much thanks that thank you I appreciate

Channel: AtlanticLIVE

Views: 14,350

Rating: 4.9527559 out of 5

Keywords: Technology, Smartphones, Social Media, Humanity, Tech, Google, MIT, MIT Media Lab, Technophobes, Privacy, Information, Devices, Digital, Digital Technology, The Atlantic, Crazy/Genius, UCLA, Georgia Tech, New America, Atipica, New York University, NPR, Politifact, Harvard University, Harvard Kennedy School, Boston Debate League, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Personals, Twitter, Eighth Grade, UX Africa, Urban Mechanics, ACLU, Cambridge, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Parenting, AI

Id: Ylq1Pm133kA

Length: 20min 47sec (1247 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 06 2018