It's Been Three Years and I'm Still Thinking About Bo Burnham's "Inside"

Yeah, it came out on May 30, 2021. That was three years ago.

A Brief Introduction

If you’re an artist of any type, writer, filmmaker, painter, musician, whatever, this post is for you. (And if you’re not, please still read this anyway, you might enjoy it.)

This thing might still make sense if you haven’t seen Bo Burnham’s Inside, but not as much as it could. Inside is part an artifact of its time (written during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic) and part continually relevant (Welcome to the Internet is tragically timeless). It’s one of the few times I’d say a one-month subscription to Netflix is worth it just to see this one piece of media. You can listen to the album, but you really should watch it for the complete experience.

Once you’re done with that, and once you’ve fully processed it, you should watch The Inside Outtakes. Because I’m going to be discussing both, and art, and the creative process, and the audience we as artists fear and crave.

Like I said, I’ve been thinking about this thing for three years now. I’ve got a lot to say. I only hope it’s worth saying.

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The Art, the Artist

On its own, Inside has a lot to say about the relationship between art and artist. The opening song Content, leading directly into Comedy, explores the value of art in a world where art will not directly fix problems like global climate change.

If you wake up in a house that’s full of smoke,
don’t panic. Call me and I’ll tell you a joke.

Since the bulk of Burnham’s work is delivered tongue-in-cheek, it’s difficult to know how sincere he is when he says he’s “healing the world with comedy.” Because sure, the song admonishes the centuries of American white men dominating the conversation, but he, an American white man, did create and release this work. Perhaps there’s a bit more vulnerability in that statement than tone alone would have us believe.

Don’t we all as artists feel that tension at some point? What’s the worth in what I’m creating, when there are real problems in the world? or perhaps Why bother making my silly book/painting/comic/film? No one is going to see this anyway. I could be doing something useful with my time.

So I’m writing this to remind us both: art makes life worth living. Creating it, consuming it, being consumed by it. Everything from deeply philosophical literature to comedy to gay little romance novels. Your art could hang in the MoMA, or it could be uploaded to your Patreon. Your music could be played in symphony halls or from tinny cell phone speakers (but if you are playing it from speakers on the bus, please know, I will physically fight you).

History may capture the facts of time, but art captures the feeling. We can understand the lives lived centuries before us by the art they left behind. Music and poetry and paintings tell us what was valued, what was worth writing down and passing forward. And I don’t mean the “canon” which, as we all know, is shaped more by sociopolitical drives than an earnest desire to share and preserve that which we are most authentically moved by. I mean all of it, everything.

Art is an important way in which we connect with one another. It’s how we say, “This is what matters to me. I can’t say it directly, so I’ll say it like this. Can you hear me? Can you see me?”

Over 120 years ago, someone thought it was important to take a photograph of their cat and store it in a time capsule. They wanted the world to know this cat existed and was cherished enough for his image to be preserved for all time. They thought it was important. So do I.

If I wake up in a house that's full of smoke
I'll panic, so call me up and tell me a joke

The Art, the Artist, the Audience

In All Eyes On Me, Burnham recounts how he decided he was finally ready to go back on tour. That he was ready to get back out into the world, after five years of isolation. His previous tour had ended with Can’t Handle This, a song that serves as an indictment of himself and the crowd in front of him for the relationship they’ve developed. (It’s also an indictment of poor burrito construction which I, as a San Francisco resident, feel deep within my bones.) After five years of healing, he decided it was time to come back.

He made this decision in January 2020.

And then, the funniest thing happened...

Bo Burnham first went viral online at the age of 15, and his career has only grown since, with multiple comedy specials and long tours, interviews, media appearances, etc. He also released an award-winning feature film titled Eighth Grade.

The bulk of artists, myself included in this number, are able to share our work with a small, cherished audience. We likely know all of them by name. It’s a rare few that gain a sizeable audience that can actually fund their work full-time. Hitting Burnham’s level of fame is basically winning the powerball.

We create because we feel we have something worth saying. Unfortunately, we only know it’s worth saying when someone hears it and echoes it back to us.

I used to perform comedy on a stage in front of people, living humans. And I would try to be funny and then the audience would sometimes laugh, and that was really helpful because I would hear their laughter and that would let me know that what I was doing was funny to them. As opposed to now, when I’ll try to be funny, like, um, (changes voice) Ooh, hoo-woo! And then... [long pause] You see what I’m saying?

Creating for an audience is both constructive and destructive. Can you hear me? Can you see me? When the answer is yes, it’s intoxicating. It’s a drug that we need more of, that satiates less and less the more we can get. When the answer is no, it’s devastating. Either answer can cause an artist to give up and walk away from their work forever. And yet, we cannot help but keep asking the question.

We want so badly for our work to be recognized and enjoyed. At best, because we’ve enjoyed creating it, and want to spread that joy. At worst, because we only acknowledge our worth when an audience says we are worthy.

Come and watch the skinny kid with the steadily declining mental health
And laugh as he attempts to give you what he cannot give himself

Since he couldn’t go on tour again, he funneled this energy into creating Inside.

Art and Time

In the first month of filming, Bo Burnham said:

“So I’ve been filming things for, like, a month now and I don’t really have anything that’s even kinda close to usable yet. So I’m just hoping I can write or film something soon that’s usable or I’m gonna just stop and play PlayStation.”

Honestly, a year and change to write, film, and edit a one hour comedy special completely by yourself is pretty impressive. Me, I spent lockdown failing at sourdough.

I remember a conversation I once had with a family member, about writing. They were shocked to learn that writers edit. “Did you think writers just sat down at the computer, typed it up in one go, and that’s it?” “Yes, I did.”

This is where I think Burnham sharing The Outtakes is a gift.

Most people who do not pursue a craft fail to understand the amount of effort that goes into the final outcome. The amount of editing and refining that it takes to get a final, seemingly effortless work. Earlier I singled out Welcome to the Internet. It’s shot in two long takes, with a small section in the middle that cuts quickly between several different angles.

How many times did it take for him to get those long takes?

At least this many times. I’m not counting.

The bulk of creating is editing. It isn’t about getting it right in the first shot. Editing could mean working on getting the shot you want by filming it over and over until you get a clean take, or it could mean filming hundreds of different scenes to figure out which one fits best.

Above is another screenshot from The Outtakes, showing nine different shots that could have gone into the song Problematic, but were ultimately cut. Who knows how many more there were. This, too, is the work of creating. It’s writing a scene ten times because the other nine simply didn’t work. It’s tweaking a single line over and over until it flows with the rest of the song. It’s years of sketchbooks piled on the shelf, from which only a handful of drawings became finished pieces.

This perception of creation and art being effortless leads to a devaluation of what we do. It breeds resentment, leading to accusations of artists gatekeeping talent and skill, when really, it’s only time that is gatekeeping talent and skill. We’re not special. We’ve just put in the hours.

How long did this thing take me to write? By one measure: half a day. By another measure: three years.

Nobody Sees Your Outtakes...

Many of us can become stalled in our work, fearing some unseen audience is watching us as we actively create. That we’re expected to sit down and knock it out perfectly in one go, as my family member suggested. And that if we fail to do so, we are failures for all eternity and should simply give up.

But, like, we all know that’s not true. That’s silly.

You’re not being graded on every word you type, just the words you send out for publication. You’re not being judged for every sketch in your sketchbook, just the ones you decide to post online. You’re not getting feedback on every chord you strum on your guitar, just the ones you record and upload.

Most every writer has heard the adage “kill your darlings.” And many of us have said the follow-up “okay but don’t actually kill them, save them in another file, you never know when it might be useful.”

Your outtakes are part of your creative work, for many reasons. If it’s a failure, it’s one you learned from. You learned that sort of thing doesn’t work. If it’s good, but simply not suited for your project, it’s something you can keep for future work. When you’re an artist and you’re actively striving towards improving your craft, no work is wasted. It’s only fuel for the fire.

But ultimately, nobody sees your outtakes.

... Unless You Let Them

The Outtakes isn’t a dump of the raw footage from the creation of Inside. It’s curated. It tells a story.

I could talk about authenticity and the internet, if something like this is authentic or if, due to the fact that it is edited and constructed, it has had its authenticity stripped away. But that’s an essay for another time. This one’s long enough.

The public face of artistry demands we look carefree in our work. That our lives are aspirational, that we simply stumbled into success, wide-eyed, naive, so surprised to be here. People blame the internet for this, and while social media certainly bears some responsibility, this perspective of art and artistry predates even Usenet.

The truth of art isn’t glamourous. It’s vulnerable. It’s isolating. It’s honestly sometimes garbage. Driving yourself mad spending half a day putting a comma in, only to spend the other half of the day taking the comma out. There’s wonder to it, but we spend a lot of time talking about the wonder, and very little talking about the work, except in the most romantic tones. You think it’s dreamy to date a writer, until you see how many invitations we say no to in order to work.

I want to take a page from The Outtakes. I want to figure out how to share the reality of being a writer, especially a lightly-published one, stuck in the trenches, hoping against hope that her work might get noticed, terrified of what would happen if it did. Drowning in a deep ocean of rejection, praying for a life raft.

The Outtakes shares a story of the creative process. It says: Creating Inside was a lot of work. It was lonely. It was hard. It was repetitive. I can’t say that directly, so I’ll say it like this.

Can you hear me?

Can you see me?

Thank you. Good night. I hope you’re happy.