Well well, look who’s analysing ‘Inside’ again... Zine by Madison Marshall
INSIDE Thoughts on and drawings of a comedy special from someone who went out and found a reason to hide again.
Um, what the fuck is going on?
I still remember looking out at the ocean in January 2020, watching the sky turn red as the smoke from the bushfires spread across the bay. People had been talking online about World War III potentially starting, and I didn’t know if I should take the memes seriously, or if I could mentally handle a reality of that in the first place. It felt like a scene from a dystopian movie. I had never felt so numb at the start of a year before then. The year had just begun and already it was falling apart. The first time I heard about the Coronavirus was at work one morning, when one of my coworkers called in sick, and my boss made a joke that she’d caught the virus. I thought he was making a Corona pun, implying that she was hungover.
After waiting 4 years for a new Bo Burnham special, I was incredibly excited when Bo announced Inside. It was something to look forward to in a year that was uneventful personally but still reltentless globally.
When the special finally came out, I watched it late at night in my pyjamas, smiling the whole way through, raising my arms during ‘All Eyes On Me’.
But as time went on, I watched myself spiral in real time. Enjoying the more lighthearted songs at first, then gradually listening to the darker songs on repeat, just on Spotify at first, then in my head like clockwork.
There was something about it that was so comforting and upsetting and fun and draining all at once. I couldn’t explain just how much it affected me.
I’d never felt more seen and more alone in my life.
Am I goin
ng crazy? Would I even know?
The internet has become both an escape and a hellscape. It used to be “catalogues, and travel blogs, a chatroom or two”, it used to just be a basic tool to enhance our real world lives. But now it’s pervasive and excessive and amazing and horrifying all at once. There are so many incredible ways the internet has changed my life for the better; hell, I would’ve never known Bo’s comedy existed if it weren’t for YouTube and Netflix. But there are so many ways it is destroying us too.
And this has only been exacerbated by the pandemic forcing everyone indoors. We’ve had to turn to the internet to keep so many systems running, which should be a good thing. It should just be adding other options for ways to live based on your specific needs, disabled people have been pushing for online learning/working for years and then it happened practically overnight. And while it has done that, it’s also revealed just how bad social media is for our mental health.
I downloaded TikTok in our second lockdown, knowing I would get addicted to scrolling through endless videos. And that app is a perfect representation of the best and worst parts of the internet. You can discover so many people and hobbies and topics and artists, but they’re sporadically followed by videos of political unrest, alt-right propoganda, fear-mongering, sexist vitriol, cries for help, misinformation, hate speech, it’s endless. Then you experience the emotional whiplash of a cute frog video or a recipe for goat cheese pasta.
anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and
One should only engage with the outside world as one engages with a coal mine: Suit up, gather what is needed, and return to the surface.
Living in Melbourne, I spent most of 2020 in a state of lockdown, with restrictions only easing briefly halfway through the year, and then again at the end. I spent those months living the same day over and over, working in my room, watching content on my bed, making art at my desk, working out on my floor, only leaving my room to collect parcels from the front door or food from the pantry. I’d only leave the house for four reasons: Getting fresh air, buying snacks, walking with a friend, and playing Pokemon Go. I’d wear the same jacket and walking shoes, walk the same route, buy the same snacks, see the same friends, fight the same Pokemon gyms, and head back home. I suited up, gathered what I needed, and returned to my room. This worked fine for the first lockdown, but the second lockdown hit me harder than the first, and I could barely manage that routine anymore. By the time restrictions finally started to ease again, I couldn’t handle the thought of going outside. I’d developed a stockholm syndrome with my room, living in a self-imposed lockdown. Everything outside felt so much more daunting than it used to. Therapy helped, and I did start to get back to normal many months into 2021, only for another snap lockdown. I handled it okay at first, but as soon as it was extended I reverted back to my hermit ways. As I finish writing this zine, it is now the beginning of 2022, and I can’t say much has changed since the pandemic started even with vaccines now available. Outside is still scary, the world still feels wrong, and I still stay inside.
One of the most interesting interpretations of Inside that I saw online was from @clairlythere on TikTok, who compared Bo’s posture in ‘30’ to the religious imagery of Saint Sebastian. Typically depicted in this contorted posture, Saint Sebastian was a martyr, and the patron saint of plague sufferers. By the middle ages, many people worshipped him in the hopes that he would heal them of the bubonic plague. This was criticised as an inherently selfish act, as they looked to images of his suffering for their own personal gains. Today, we’re watching Inside over and over again to find comfort and validation for our mental states by idolising Bo, who is also suffering with us. @clairlythere argues this is very comparable to the “greedy and self-centred” way that people venerated Saint Sebastian, and that this plays into one of the “main themes of the special” that Bo critiqued. Putting Bo on a pedestal and listening to ‘All Eyes On Me’ on repeat isn’t going to heal all the damage we’ve taken from the events of 2020 onwards and everything that lead up to it. Bo is very good at articulating how we’ve been feeling, but that doesn’t mean that he alone holds all the answers. But with all of that in mind, there is still a lot to be said for how healing the special has been for many people. @toktherapies on TikTok believes that the special is playing an important part in the grieving process for the loss we’re currently experiencing. It’s validating so many of our emotions and fears that we’re repeatedly going back to it to feel that relief that we’re not alone. “He put into words so many things that people were experiencing and didn’t have the words for, and I think... it’s triggering a grief process. Grief is not linear, I don’t think we’re even close to done grieving for all that has transpired in the past year. And I think the repeat behaviour is a processing behaviour.” The way we perceive Bo as a result of this special is not healthy, but the response we are feeling to his art is. No matter where you are in the world or how badly Covid has impacted your country, everyone is trying to “go back to normal”, but we’re nowhere near done with Covid, let alone done with processing everything it has taken from us and everything it has exposed about how flawed our previous “normal” way of life was.
i cant believe it its been a decade since youve been gone
momma i miss you, i miss sitting with you in the front yard
still figuring out how to keep living without you
its got a little better but its still hard
momma i got a job i love and my own apartment
momma i got a boyfriend and im crazy about him
your little girl didnt do too bad momma i love you
give a hug and kiss to dad
“That’s part of the gamble of what performing is, it’s meant to be interpreted in any way it can.” There’s an interesting interview with Bo online where he talks about ‘cancel culture’, and he points out that the rush to shun someone from Twitter and ruin their lives isn’t actually a problem with political correctness, but a problem with the internet. “That’s its own thing and that’s horrific; someone tweets a little joke that’s misunderstood and their life is ruined, and they get fired from their job, that’s awful. But that is not ‘PCness’ to me, that is the internet being unrestrained, and anonymous, and horrifying, and violent, and quick, and too many people at once. I think those two things are conflated a little too often.” Bo isn’t critiquing people in this special - except Jeff Bezos of course - he is critiquing the internet, and how it is designed to bring out these sides of ourselves to benefit the “bug-eyed salamanders in Silicon Valley” and no one else. He apologises for a verse in his song ‘Problematic’ as he is singing it. We’re expected to be perfect all the time, to the point where there’s no breathing space for learning from the mistakes you have, and will, make. ‘White Woman’s Instagram’ received a lot of backlash for being mysoginistic and the exact kind of joke that Bo criticises in ‘Comedy’ earlier on. But he’s not punching down. He’s not making fun of women for trying to be creative with their Instagram profiles, he’s pointing out the strange persona that many white women specifically have constructed for themselves online. They’ll quote Martin Luther King when it’s actually from Lord of the Rings. They’ll appropriate native American culture with headpieces and dreamcatchers from Urban Outfitters, and jokes about Beyonce being their ‘spirit animal’. They’ll post photos of a bobblehead of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and derivitave political street-art. They’ll draw harsh words on their skin and tape ‘hate’ on their mouthes, showing they’re political and passionate about social issues in the vaguest way possible. But behind all of the virtue-signalling and hipocrisy that is scattered amongst photos of latte foam art and poems, there’s a real person. An unfiltered, unedited person, who has a moment of authenticity when she tells her mum how much she misses her. And when you compare the caption to the birthday balloons, you can assume that she was only 17 when her mother passed. The aspect ratio changes from the confines of the Instagram square, and fills the screen as she expresses something purely for her own catharsis. But as soon as the caption goes back to bragging about her boyfriend and job and apartment the ratio returns. She’s no longer having a moment of vulnerability, she’s making it about herself and turning it into an opportunity to add to her online persona as a perfect person. This vulnerable moment gets lost in the grid of perfect photos.
I've been totally awful, my closet is chockfull of stuff that is vaguely shitty. All of it was perfectly lawful, just not very thoughtful at all, and just really shitty. I’ve been totally awful, my closet is chockfull of stuff that is vaguely shitty. All of it was perfectly lawful, just not very thoughtful at all, and just really shitty. I’ve been totally awful, my closet is chockfull of stuff that is vaguely shitty. All of it was perfectly lawful, just not very thoughtful at all, and just really shitty. I’ve been totally awful, my closet is chockfull of stuff
Stunnin’ 8K resolution meditation app, In honour of the revolution It’s half off at the gap, Deadpool self awareness, Loving parents, harmless fun, The backlash to the backlash To the thing that’s just begun There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling The surgeon general’s pop-up shop, Robert Iger’s face, Discount Etsy agitprop, Bugle’s take on race, Female Colonel Sanders, Easy answers, civil war, The whole world at your fingertips, The ocean at your door, The live-action Lion King, The Pepsi halftime show, Twenty thousand years of this, Seven more to go, Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul, A gift shop at the gun range, A mass shooting at the mall, There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling
Reading Pornhub’s terms of service, Going for a drive And obeying all the traffic laws in Grand Theft Auto V, Full agoraphobic, Losing focus, cover blown, A book on getting better Hand-delivered by a drone, Total disassociation, Fully out your mind, Googling “derealisation”, Hating what you find, That unapparent summer air in early fall, The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all, There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling Hey, what can ya say? We were overdue But it’ll be over soon You wait Hey, what can ya say? We were overdue But it’ll be over soon Just wait Hey, what can ya say? We were overdue But it’ll be over soon You wait Hey, what can ya say? We were overdue
Isn’t it ironic? ‘That Funny Feeling’ is Bo’s second song about irony. He already joked about irony in his ‘wordswordswords’ show back in the day, but this time around it’s exploring the absurdity of the modern world and how we process it. For me, it feels like my generation’s version of ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ by Billy Joel; an anthem of all the things we’ve lived through and revolve our lives around. Everything’s contradictory, original intentions have been corrupted, our society is both systematic and chaotic in its function, and we’re all spiralling. If you’re using a meditation app, there’s no need for it be in 8K resolution because you shouldn’t even have your eyes open. Companies are still focused on profit despite social upheaval. Deadpool can’t be truly self-aware when written by a corporation focused on selling tickets and pleasing as many audiences as possible. We have such strong reactions to different events that those reactions then spark their own reactions. We sell propoganda alongside resin coasters and crocheted blankets from our online small businesses. We’re glued to the virtual world while the real world is melting around us. We’re remaking highly stylized animations into live action films that are devoid of any life in any sense. We can buy merchandise from a gun range that allows mass shooters to attack a mall. We can obey traffic laws in a videogame specifically designed for breaking them. We can buy self help products from the companies that are responsible for us needing help in the first place. We’re watching the world end in terror and total calm. In the grand scheme of things, most of these individually aren’t that scary, but they add up to a society that feels like it’ll collapse at any second. It’s death by a thousand cuts but we’re too desensitised to have the strong emotional response that these oddities deserve as a whole. They’re instead just a small addition to this underlying sense of dread that follows us everywhere. It’s a funny feeling, because it’s not funny at all.
Despite a rough start to the year, my mental health was actually great pre-covid. I was feeling confident about uni, I’d finally settled into our new home, I was so comfortable that I finally felt open to dating. I ended up going on my first date ever with a guy who then became my first boyfriend. The last time my friends hung out before lockdown was announced, we had a really fun night watching each other’s student films from high school, eating pizza, and goofing around on the road when we were supposed to be saying goodbye. We sang and screamed in the car, and I danced alone on the train platform as I waited for the last train of the night to take me home. Most of us planned on doing internships that year, and many were actually about to graduate. We had the whole year ahead of us to make new memories, create cool shit, and just enjoy life together. As long as I didn’t read the news, and just kept to myself, life was looking pretty good not just for me, but for everyone around me. We were happy. I think that’s what hurt the most about Bo’s monologue in ‘All Eyes On Me’, knowing that he had also been doing so well mentally that he was ready to put himself out there, only for the world to push him back inside again. Everyone I’ve spoken to and listened to online have all said they had good feelings about 2020 on a personal level, we all felt like we were on the cusp of something. And in a way, that’s how people my age are feeling about the rest of our lives going forward. I’m in my twenties, supposed to be having the ‘time of my life’, I’ve almost finished university, I’m slowly starting my career, I’m talking to my friends about moving out one day, I feel like my life is only just beginning. But now it feels like it’s almost over. Even though I know that climate change and capitalism isn’t going to spontatneously kill all life on earth within the next decade, I know that it’s certainly not going to make life any easier, or even the same. On this current path, life will only get worse for so many people. And that’s terrifying. How can I plan for my future and look forward to life events when I don’t know what kind of world I’ll be living in? My dad always joked that I’m too young to be jaded, now I’m starting to think that’s true.
My therapist has been reminding me recently that progress isn’t linear, especially when it comes to the grieving process. When Bo opens ‘Possible Ending Song’ as “take one”, wearing a clean outfit with a post-lockdown haircut, we assume that he’s reflecting on everything leading up until then. That this is a healed Bo, one that’s not in this headspace anymore, and is just wrapping up the last details of his special. But as soon as he starts singing, another shot of him fades in. He’s singing the song back when his hair and beard were especially long, the same haircut from when his mental health had hit an “all time low”. We see this in other aspects of the special, mainly the montages of him reviewing footage at different points in time, so we’ve already seen glimpses of non-linear editing from the very start. But Bo really draws attention to it in ‘Possible Ending Song’, to the point where it adds a whole other meaning to the song. Realistically, I think Bo intended this as just another nod to the staged nature of Inside. How this is ultimately a constructed special, that’s been highly controlled and edited to show only what he wants us to see. He could’ve written the song after over a year of working on the special, or it could’ve been the very first song he wrote, we’ll never know for sure. He’s blurring the timeline, and my personal interpretation is that he was showing how our path out of the pandemic will not be one easy route. Our grieving process won’t be linear, we’re all dealing with these past two years differently, and we will likely feel the effects of them for years to come.
We might heal in some ways, but other parts of us will still be hurting. We might fix certain aspects of society, but the core issues will remain if nothing is done about them. This grieving process will be non-linear.
You say the whole world’s ending, honey it already did.
You’re not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried.
Are you feeling nervous? Are you having fun? Bo finished his last special asking “are you happy?” Even though the song was directed at us, the lyrics grew more introspective and started to become more about his own mental health and his sense of self. This time around, I think he knows that’s not the right question to ask. We’re not happy. Not in the way that we should be, anyway. Now we live in this weird time where we’re both expected to be living our best lives but also intensely aware of every problem plaguing the world. We have to preach self-care while supporting every sociopolitical cause we see on our Twitter feed. We’re in this weird mental state of feeling terrified for our futures and begging for anyone in power to do anything, as well as keeping to ourselves and just trying to enjoy life on our own individual scale without worrying about everything else. But we can’t exist in both of those states at once, there’s no way we can have pure fun while still feeling nervous about how much longer we have left to have fun. While Inside is in some ways a call-to-action to fix the many problems we’re facing globally, it focuses more on how this is collectively affecting us mentally, and how that inherently makes it even harder to bring about change. I know that the main negative effect this special had on me is that it enabled a lot of my fatalist thoughts around the state of things. I did not feel inspired to make change, I was just all too tired. But I think what is inspiring about it is that Bo is showing us we’re not alone in this feeling. We are all feeling this nervousness to a degree, and he’s inviting us to process it together. But it has to lead to a proactive reaction. We can take time to grieve what we’ve lost, but we then have to do the work and get outside.
I hope you’re happy.
Thoughts on and drawings of a comedy special from someone who went out and found a reason to hide again.