I don't think he was skewering the things Socko was saying. The whole point of the sketch was that Socko was right about everything, but it didn't matter because the Bo character was in control (like the folks who own our media and society at large) and could destroy Socko even after breaking Socko's spirit.
The turning thirty song hit me really hard because I don’t think it was about him. To me it captured the sentiment myself and many people I know have where, as we turn thirty, we don’t have a house, or a stable career, or savings, or even healthcare, then the pandemic comes along and sets us even further back. I am STILL Looking for a stable job after loosing two during the pandemic and barely able to pay for all of my bills each month. i turned 29 in the pandemic, so thirty has not been a good time for me or several of my close friends, and arguably many millennials around the US around my age.
Regarding White Women's Instagram: I think the whole of it is what it feels like to scroll through someone's instagram. It's a list of post after post not just here's a list of funny things you might find. So when it gets to the part about her mother, the commentary can be seen as not just "this took a dark turn to then get fun again". but recognizing that these people posting are real people and they use this medium to not only do their "basic white girl" posts, but also share important things about their lives. And how we react to that moment "ugh, why did you have to get all depressing, this was fun" or even "what a dumb person to put something so negative in my fun feed, this isn't the place for that" makes you reflect on that a bit.
Yess!! They are assuming that just because these people are being made the subject of a joke that he doesn’t like them. In the end it is the internet which gives “basic women” these predictable memes that then pervade the culture. Beyond all that there are real people with sometimes difficult and meaningful things happening in their lives. I think the commentary is mostly about the memes that shape the tapestry of how women use social media and not an insult to them. It is actually deeply empathetic towards women. Note that Bo also makes himself the subject of a joke most of all. He has mixed feelings about everything.
Yeah I thought they kind of missed the mark on their read of this track. He sucks you in to kind of mock or at least side eye this person posting "basic" or minor things and when you get to the mom section you are clued into the reason why they're posting these seemingly trivial things. They're sharing from a place of loss as a way to deal with that grief. I dunno, it was kind of weird that they didn't go surface level on the preceding tracks. But they get to that one and stop critical thinking at all just assuming he was taking the piss out of women. Weird.
love this, you can also see it in the way Bo frames the images. all of the “random” posts are in the Insta square format, but when the post about the woman’s mom starts the camera pans out to a full screen to bring us out of the feed and closer to real life before narrowing back to the square.
I was feeling so frustrated after this segment that I started writing my own comment about this, but you all have covered so much of what I was going to say that I’ll just write a little note here in the replies instead. I'll feel less weird about being a cis man defending some (alleged) light musical misogyny this way anyway. After the part that Jon called “dark,” where the Instagram poster talks about her mom, I've always felt like the song doesn't just go back to being funny - it pretty clearly becomes an anthem. A celebration of this person who we just been forced to acknowledge as a real person who has gone through real struggles in her life and is finding the joy in small things. Don’t you feel like you’re rooting for her when it’s revealed that she’s fallen in love with someone and is getting married? I’m not an overly romantic person, but “3 little words, a couple of doves, and a ring on her finger from the person that she loves” has me cheering this Instagram poster on for finding love in her life. The song also becomes a bit more energetic as it goes on, and the triumphant backing vocals on "A GOAT CHEESE SALAAAAAAD" always have me singing along in support of the woman on Instagram. As members of the sometimes-too-online liberal community, I think the Offline crew is experiencing some self-cringe or in-group cringe throughout the special, and it’s perhaps getting in the way of them seeing beyond the surface level of this song? Bo’s comedy is so often about pointing out your own intrinsic biases to you - and that’s what a lot of the best comedy does anyway. It makes you notice & question your own thoughts & behaviors while you laugh. To quote a comment on another video: “Bo Burnham does this thing where he ridicules someone and instantly challenges you for feeling superior.” I think the Offline folks are missing the "challenging" bit and focusing on the "ridiculing" bit, and I think that might be due (at least in part) to viewing things through some invented anti-online-liberal lens. See their comments about Socko in “How the World Works” for even better examples. Inside has never seemed as pointedly political to me as they seem to be making it.
A quick addendum (after I finally stopped writing and finished listening to the episode) because I'm feeling bad about focusing on the negatives: The 3 of them had some great commentary and plenty of insightful remarks about the special. I actually enjoyed this episode quite a lot. The frustration is just about a few small portions of it.
I felt that the real subtext of Inside was depression. Like the internet is supposed to connect us, but it often isolates us -- times 1000 during the pandemic. And the overwhelming cloud of depression that sunk down on us from that. Also, I did not watch this thinking that Burnham is playing himself; I felt that he was playing a character. So the mansion thing did not bother me.
Agreed. A LOT of folks took this special VERY literally, perhaps even thinking it was an actual documentary, but it was very clear to me that he was using lockdown as a metaphor for being locked inside one's own mind.
On the duality of him living in a mansion - I am pretty sure thats the point. The whole movie wants you to believe that he is going insane inside this small box, but thats not true we know he has to eat and go out to take care of his pets and other things of that nature. This plays into the dynamics of the film between showing people what you want to see. Its why he interjects all those small cuts, we will watch him have a break down while singing and then right after we see him meticulously go over the video in detail and make corrections. Its an image he wants to project and thats the bigger idea.
That funny feeling was part of my 3-hr looped "roadtrip" playlist on my 4500km (~2800 mile)/ 5-day drive across Canada to my 1st full-time uni, media studies teaching job in Aug 2021. The whole country was LITERALLY on fire. Smoke and flames, fire and brimstone, all along the highway for 1000s of km. I swapped between that playlist and Kim Stanley Robison's "The Ministry for the Future" audiobook. It was a dystopic hellscape in real time. TLDR: That funny feeling will forever be etched into my soul.
I have a different take on White Woman's Instagram (which I still love) after watching Inside multiple times. To me, it's a commentary on the dangers of the algorithm, because once you like a single post the algorithm is going to serve you more of that whether you want it or not. The fact that we all instantly know the memes Bo spoofs, whether we're a white woman or not, and how deftly he imitates them highlights this. And if so many people start posting the similar things, we have to ask why? Because they want to jump on the trend? Because they want to feel like part of a community? Because they know they'll have more eyes on their content if it's "popular"? In this context it's cute and funny, but when does it start becoming a dangerous echo chamber? If he had done a song about an Incel's Instagram it would have been terrifying and most likely not funny. While it's obvious to us now how performative social media is, how often do we question supposedly sincere moments like when she's talking about her mom and the screen opens up as a metaphor for her opening up. Did anyone notice that as soon as she starts talking about all that she's "accomplished" since her mom died, the screen starts closing down again? We should question whether her even posting about missing her mom is sincere or performative or a mix of both. Is she truly expressing grief and reaching out for human connection or just performing for likes? How much is performing for likes just a dysfunctional way of reaching out for human connection? Thank you for listening to my TED talk.
Enjoy the podcast but this is one where I feel like they got it backwards. This was Bo putting his satirical genius into a deep inner reflection while being "trapped" Inside due to the pandemic. It was a pandemic film first and foremost that happened to involve the internet a ton because for most people, that was our coping mechanism. Parts of the film is Bo reflecting on himself and making himself the butt of the joke, other parts are his classic dark satire, and even others are just a look at the average day to day life of people during the pandemic.
So I’m going to stand by White Woman’s Instagram. I may not be white but I am a woman, and I think that the visual parody is funny but I don’t actually think he’s being as judgmental as people think. I think he’s pointing out that people on instagram are constantly trying to create this perfectly imperfect version of themselves for public consumption. And if you notice, when she starts talking about her mom, the aspect ratio changes out of the Instagram square and expands to reflect her actual lived experience and reality. But the second she starts to get performative (she uses this post about her mom to start bragging about her boyfriend and her cool job) the aspect ratio starts to shrink again to demonstrate her being stuck back in the impression/branding algorithm instead of being real. Yeah, I don’t think there’s a problem with it and I don’t think about it as being misogynistic. While the bro podcast thing is part of The InsideOuttakes, I feel like it was also a pretty balanced skewering of white men. I just think that Inside as a special, though, works better with what’s there than with what’s in the outtakes as EXCELLENT as the outtakes are. And if any of you having seen The Inside Outtakes, go watch it now. It’s on UA-cam. It’s great.
Quite disappointed with the analysis of a white woman's Instagram song. The song is about how getting wrapped up in your Internet persona makes you lose track of what's actually important, and that occasionally we get to see the real people when real life and real emotion cut through in some of our posts and images. That's why the framing of the shot changes from the vertical phone to a full widescreen during the bit about her mom, then reverts back as she gets sucked back in. This is what happens when you're too defensive.
Yeah, came here to say this. They got real stuck on the title of the song but continued ignoring what the grammar was telling them -- and kept talking about white "women", when the song is about a singular *woman* -- he's telling a singular story about a particular character. They were focused on what he "was saying about women", rather than the fact the Instagram was a curated, impersonal view of this character's life, and we only got one moment of her "real authentic self" at the anniversary of losing her mom. Then she goes back to posting the same stuff as others, with nothing that actually shows who she is - it's all for the aesthetic. She isn't Jane or whatever, a real individual whole person with thoughts and feelings, she's just some white woman. Like the fact they call that mom moment "dark" is so ironic-- it's the only breath of actual humanity in the woman's feed, it's supposed to represent the light of what can exist on the internet- real vulnerability and connection amongst all the noise of curated meaningless aesthetic content.
I was listening to this with my mom and had to pause the podcast to show her the song and explain why their take was so wrong. I don’t think it’s my internalized misogyny speaking, either. I totally read that song as a commentary about the societal expectations that limit genuine expressions of human emotions.
I also think the thing about Turning 30 (this special came out when I was 29), is the fact that I went into the pandemic with goals I had and things I wanted to accomplish before 30. And the pandemic just put this weird stop on the clock that became very real because you still had some of your twenties left when it started. I wasn’t freaking out about 30 before I was sort of forced to freeze while time kept going if that makes sense. It’s like we were all developmentally paralyzed for a bit. No big career changes, or vacations, or adventures. Just… stuck. Watching myself age. Incapable of being able to make use of that aging. THATS why that song hit me so hard. Personally.
As someone who turned 30 during the pandemic..I absolutely had an existential crisis lol. Sold my house, got divorced, moved across the country kind of thing. It was a wild time to be coming out of your twenties.
I thought “White Woman’s Instagram” was a little more layered than it gets credit for. I feel like the thesis was closer to “complaining about basic people is basic”. Like, he’s an ingenious comedian, and he’s now going to do an amazing ultimate-effort multimedia takedown of this kind of woman that’s so much more devastatingly spot-on than all the millions of people, put together, who base their personality around hating on “basic” people… and then the turn is to admit that even the most ingenious form of that one joke is incomplete and dull and uncomfortable when the lights come up while you’re laughing. Like, yes, instagram culture sucks, personal branding as folk-art sucks… but the same way airline food sucks, that being a true thing doesn’t make being the billionth guy to point it out a comedic genius. Even when a comedy genius does it, there’s still a lot of basic-bitchery in the act that makes it ironic in the bad way.
Inside is the greatest piece of art (film, album, or television) released in the 2020s so far. Its a little weird how much of the subtext you guys missed in this one. Much of this anaylsis was Max coming up with a weird baiting prompt and then going "ok I'll go first". I got the sense that Jon seemed to get the special more than the other panelists but a fair amount of it seems to have been ignored to try to make the point that aspects of it dont hold up in their opinions. Much of what Bo is discussing can be seen in these panelists in a weird way. Did you forget the greatest song of the decade That Funny Feeling was in this movie?
Oh my god y'all. I was looking forward to this discussion when I saw the title and now I'm disappointed & frustrated. I guess y'all are too white & rich to get the point of Socko. And it's ok, as a liberal white woman, to feel skewered by White Woman's Instagram, but also find it hilarious without getting defensive. And you can't use either just "women" or specifying "liberal white women" in the rhythm of the song. Saying "white woman" plus the specific post examples tells you exactly who he's talking about. At least y'all got the branding sketch right. Gah! lol I'm a disabled woman stuck in a red state and have continued to be stuck inside since the pandemic. Inside lives in my head rent-free on a daily basis. What a masterpiece. Y'all are great, you just really missed the mark on several of these bits.
Agreed! Making fun of Socko for complaining about having to educate rich white people grossly exposed their privilege. When living life is exhausting because my entire body hurts, it's hard to make time for in-person activism, but I guess I should just get over myself. Tbh, I don't know why I expected self-absorbed podcasters to empathize with marginalized individuals. Smdh...
I remember when Bo's very early videos were going viral......I thought it was _cute._ That's all. But I remember the day I became a mega fan of his. He was a guest on Pete Holmes' podcast You Made It Weird. He's been on several times. But I remember being gobsmacked by his *_intelligence._* There was a manic white hot righteous anger fueling this incredibly sharp cutting intelligence that really surprised me. This was not the too cute by half twee UA-cam kid I assumed he was. I remember thinking "I bet this guy is super depressed, because no one is THIS smart and hyper aware and mentally at ease." It's very cool how he's so transcended his initial meme-ified viral foray into popular culture.
I normally enjoy stuff from Crooked Media but this episode did not do it for me. All you did was produce the sort of “content” that Burnham was parodying on Inside.
Is anyone else wondering if their weird takes in this episode were deliberately designed to bait us into engaging and then make us feel awful for allowing ourselves to get drawn in? No? Tbf, that level of self-awareness on their part would be impressive. Maybe they'll address it in their next episode of "Misunderstanding Brilliant Media."
I have intentionally not seen this movie because I could never bring myself to, so thank you guys for providng me with the amuse-bouche plus fun commentary. Glad you're expanding Offline with new ideas on the new channel!
Ok. But I LOVED my Windows 8 phone! Not having any apps actually made it ahead of its time 😂 But in all seriousness, it was far better than my shitty iPhone (i think 4s). MS marketing was such shit 😂
The pressure to weigh in thing that I always think of is a moment where I saw it so clearly made manifest on one of Hasan's streams. He was taking a day off the grind of slogging through the news and talking his usual shit to just like...stream some videogames or something like that and some keyboard warrior comes in with, "Why are you not talking about Palestine right now? People are still dying." As if all it would take to stop the genocide in Palestine is for Hasan alone to put down this one moment of rest and joy in a life essentially dedicated to not ever letting up on the people trying to ignore Palestine and just said, "What's happening in Palestine is a genocide." ONE MORE TIME...That, THAT is going to make the difference and the implication of him being a worse person for not doing it is just like...man, just let that dude play one (1) videogame for like a second. I think he's doing his part! The bar for being a virtuous person simply cannot be never resting until all evil is expunged from the world or none of us will see the light of heaven and everyone who tries will live a life of misery.
I tend to agree with you guys on so many things but this episode just didn’t work for me. I think there are much more charitable reads for almost every one of your criticisms that you just decided not to consider.
You guys landed on some really weird takes regarding some of these songs. It's almost as if you didn't get it... and I hate you for making me sound pretentious by saying that, but like... the socko part, white women's Instagram... So much of this special focuses on how we lose a lot of our humanity by focusing on the performative nature of the internet, and corporations, and even public performances. And you guys talking about "i wonder how this would play on Tik tok".... "Inside" songs and quotes were ALL OVER Tik Tok for MONTHS. Do y'all live under a rock??
Completely disappointed by the guests. I assumed Jamie was a bad comedian, but I went to her website to make sure. Yikes. She's the reason Republicans win elections.
I don't think he was skewering the things Socko was saying. The whole point of the sketch was that Socko was right about everything, but it didn't matter because the Bo character was in control (like the folks who own our media and society at large) and could destroy Socko even after breaking Socko's spirit.
“I hope you learned your lesson
I did and it hurt”
A deliberate misreading of the song from them
The turning thirty song hit me really hard because I don’t think it was about him. To me it captured the sentiment myself and many people I know have where, as we turn thirty, we don’t have a house, or a stable career, or savings, or even healthcare, then the pandemic comes along and sets us even further back. I am STILL Looking for a stable job after loosing two during the pandemic and barely able to pay for all of my bills each month. i turned 29 in the pandemic, so thirty has not been a good time for me or several of my close friends, and arguably many millennials around the US around my age.
Regarding White Women's Instagram: I think the whole of it is what it feels like to scroll through someone's instagram. It's a list of post after post not just here's a list of funny things you might find. So when it gets to the part about her mother, the commentary can be seen as not just "this took a dark turn to then get fun again". but recognizing that these people posting are real people and they use this medium to not only do their "basic white girl" posts, but also share important things about their lives. And how we react to that moment "ugh, why did you have to get all depressing, this was fun" or even "what a dumb person to put something so negative in my fun feed, this isn't the place for that" makes you reflect on that a bit.
Yess!! They are assuming that just because these people are being made the subject of a joke that he doesn’t like them.
In the end it is the internet which gives “basic women” these predictable memes that then pervade the culture. Beyond all that there are real people with sometimes difficult and meaningful things happening in their lives.
I think the commentary is mostly about the memes that shape the tapestry of how women use social media and not an insult to them. It is actually deeply empathetic towards women.
Note that Bo also makes himself the subject of a joke most of all. He has mixed feelings about everything.
Yeah I thought they kind of missed the mark on their read of this track. He sucks you in to kind of mock or at least side eye this person posting "basic" or minor things and when you get to the mom section you are clued into the reason why they're posting these seemingly trivial things. They're sharing from a place of loss as a way to deal with that grief.
I dunno, it was kind of weird that they didn't go surface level on the preceding tracks. But they get to that one and stop critical thinking at all just assuming he was taking the piss out of women. Weird.
love this, you can also see it in the way Bo frames the images. all of the “random” posts are in the Insta square format, but when the post about the woman’s mom starts the camera pans out to a full screen to bring us out of the feed and closer to real life before narrowing back to the square.
I was feeling so frustrated after this segment that I started writing my own comment about this, but you all have covered so much of what I was going to say that I’ll just write a little note here in the replies instead. I'll feel less weird about being a cis man defending some (alleged) light musical misogyny this way anyway.
After the part that Jon called “dark,” where the Instagram poster talks about her mom, I've always felt like the song doesn't just go back to being funny - it pretty clearly becomes an anthem. A celebration of this person who we just been forced to acknowledge as a real person who has gone through real struggles in her life and is finding the joy in small things. Don’t you feel like you’re rooting for her when it’s revealed that she’s fallen in love with someone and is getting married? I’m not an overly romantic person, but “3 little words, a couple of doves, and a ring on her finger from the person that she loves” has me cheering this Instagram poster on for finding love in her life. The song also becomes a bit more energetic as it goes on, and the triumphant backing vocals on "A GOAT CHEESE SALAAAAAAD" always have me singing along in support of the woman on Instagram.
As members of the sometimes-too-online liberal community, I think the Offline crew is experiencing some self-cringe or in-group cringe throughout the special, and it’s perhaps getting in the way of them seeing beyond the surface level of this song? Bo’s comedy is so often about pointing out your own intrinsic biases to you - and that’s what a lot of the best comedy does anyway. It makes you notice & question your own thoughts & behaviors while you laugh. To quote a comment on another video: “Bo Burnham does this thing where he ridicules someone and instantly challenges you for feeling superior.” I think the Offline folks are missing the "challenging" bit and focusing on the "ridiculing" bit, and I think that might be due (at least in part) to viewing things through some invented anti-online-liberal lens. See their comments about Socko in “How the World Works” for even better examples. Inside has never seemed as pointedly political to me as they seem to be making it.
A quick addendum (after I finally stopped writing and finished listening to the episode) because I'm feeling bad about focusing on the negatives: The 3 of them had some great commentary and plenty of insightful remarks about the special. I actually enjoyed this episode quite a lot. The frustration is just about a few small portions of it.
I felt that the real subtext of Inside was depression. Like the internet is supposed to connect us, but it often isolates us -- times 1000 during the pandemic. And the overwhelming cloud of depression that sunk down on us from that. Also, I did not watch this thinking that Burnham is playing himself; I felt that he was playing a character. So the mansion thing did not bother me.
Agreed. A LOT of folks took this special VERY literally, perhaps even thinking it was an actual documentary, but it was very clear to me that he was using lockdown as a metaphor for being locked inside one's own mind.
On the duality of him living in a mansion - I am pretty sure thats the point. The whole movie wants you to believe that he is going insane inside this small box, but thats not true we know he has to eat and go out to take care of his pets and other things of that nature. This plays into the dynamics of the film between showing people what you want to see. Its why he interjects all those small cuts, we will watch him have a break down while singing and then right after we see him meticulously go over the video in detail and make corrections. Its an image he wants to project and thats the bigger idea.
They also completely glossed over the final scene where he tries to go outside and gets locked out.
Them not brining up “That Funny Feeling” is a travesty
There is an insane amount of reality that the majority of humans will die before realizing. Collapse is the main one.
Agreed. I'll never forget how I felt the first time I heard, "20,000 years of this, 7 more to go." It still gets me today.
That funny feeling was part of my 3-hr looped "roadtrip" playlist on my 4500km (~2800 mile)/ 5-day drive across Canada to my 1st full-time uni, media studies teaching job in Aug 2021. The whole country was LITERALLY on fire. Smoke and flames, fire and brimstone, all along the highway for 1000s of km. I swapped between that playlist and Kim Stanley Robison's "The Ministry for the Future" audiobook. It was a dystopic hellscape in real time. TLDR: That funny feeling will forever be etched into my soul.
I have a different take on White Woman's Instagram (which I still love) after watching Inside multiple times. To me, it's a commentary on the dangers of the algorithm, because once you like a single post the algorithm is going to serve you more of that whether you want it or not. The fact that we all instantly know the memes Bo spoofs, whether we're a white woman or not, and how deftly he imitates them highlights this. And if so many people start posting the similar things, we have to ask why? Because they want to jump on the trend? Because they want to feel like part of a community? Because they know they'll have more eyes on their content if it's "popular"? In this context it's cute and funny, but when does it start becoming a dangerous echo chamber? If he had done a song about an Incel's Instagram it would have been terrifying and most likely not funny. While it's obvious to us now how performative social media is, how often do we question supposedly sincere moments like when she's talking about her mom and the screen opens up as a metaphor for her opening up. Did anyone notice that as soon as she starts talking about all that she's "accomplished" since her mom died, the screen starts closing down again? We should question whether her even posting about missing her mom is sincere or performative or a mix of both. Is she truly expressing grief and reaching out for human connection or just performing for likes? How much is performing for likes just a dysfunctional way of reaching out for human connection? Thank you for listening to my TED talk.
Enjoy the podcast but this is one where I feel like they got it backwards. This was Bo putting his satirical genius into a deep inner reflection while being "trapped" Inside due to the pandemic. It was a pandemic film first and foremost that happened to involve the internet a ton because for most people, that was our coping mechanism. Parts of the film is Bo reflecting on himself and making himself the butt of the joke, other parts are his classic dark satire, and even others are just a look at the average day to day life of people during the pandemic.
So I’m going to stand by White Woman’s Instagram. I may not be white but I am a woman, and I think that the visual parody is funny but I don’t actually think he’s being as judgmental as people think. I think he’s pointing out that people on instagram are constantly trying to create this perfectly imperfect version of themselves for public consumption. And if you notice, when she starts talking about her mom, the aspect ratio changes out of the Instagram square and expands to reflect her actual lived experience and reality. But the second she starts to get performative (she uses this post about her mom to start bragging about her boyfriend and her cool job) the aspect ratio starts to shrink again to demonstrate her being stuck back in the impression/branding algorithm instead of being real.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s a problem with it and I don’t think about it as being misogynistic. While the bro podcast thing is part of The InsideOuttakes, I feel like it was also a pretty balanced skewering of white men. I just think that Inside as a special, though, works better with what’s there than with what’s in the outtakes as EXCELLENT as the outtakes are.
And if any of you having seen The Inside Outtakes, go watch it now. It’s on UA-cam. It’s great.
Quite disappointed with the analysis of a white woman's Instagram song. The song is about how getting wrapped up in your Internet persona makes you lose track of what's actually important, and that occasionally we get to see the real people when real life and real emotion cut through in some of our posts and images. That's why the framing of the shot changes from the vertical phone to a full widescreen during the bit about her mom, then reverts back as she gets sucked back in.
This is what happens when you're too defensive.
Yeah I agree with you, they extremely got the idea of the song and the message wrong
Absolutely agree! I love that song and my sisters and I all had a laugh at it...of course we are white women LOL
Yeah, came here to say this. They got real stuck on the title of the song but continued ignoring what the grammar was telling them -- and kept talking about white "women", when the song is about a singular *woman* -- he's telling a singular story about a particular character. They were focused on what he "was saying about women", rather than the fact the Instagram was a curated, impersonal view of this character's life, and we only got one moment of her "real authentic self" at the anniversary of losing her mom. Then she goes back to posting the same stuff as others, with nothing that actually shows who she is - it's all for the aesthetic. She isn't Jane or whatever, a real individual whole person with thoughts and feelings, she's just some white woman.
Like the fact they call that mom moment "dark" is so ironic-- it's the only breath of actual humanity in the woman's feed, it's supposed to represent the light of what can exist on the internet- real vulnerability and connection amongst all the noise of curated meaningless aesthetic content.
I was listening to this with my mom and had to pause the podcast to show her the song and explain why their take was so wrong. I don’t think it’s my internalized misogyny speaking, either. I totally read that song as a commentary about the societal expectations that limit genuine expressions of human emotions.
@@rachels.8051 exactly!
_Inside_ is his masterpiece, so far
This is some real world class “we missed almost every point the artist was making and now you’re gonna hear about it” BS.
Bo Burnham's movie, Eighth Grade, is a work of art, too. Will be watching for his future iterations.
I also think the thing about Turning 30 (this special came out when I was 29), is the fact that I went into the pandemic with goals I had and things I wanted to accomplish before 30. And the pandemic just put this weird stop on the clock that became very real because you still had some of your twenties left when it started. I wasn’t freaking out about 30 before I was sort of forced to freeze while time kept going if that makes sense. It’s like we were all developmentally paralyzed for a bit. No big career changes, or vacations, or adventures. Just… stuck. Watching myself age. Incapable of being able to make use of that aging.
THATS why that song hit me so hard. Personally.
As someone who turned 30 during the pandemic..I absolutely had an existential crisis lol. Sold my house, got divorced, moved across the country kind of thing.
It was a wild time to be coming out of your twenties.
I thought “White Woman’s Instagram” was a little more layered than it gets credit for. I feel like the thesis was closer to “complaining about basic people is basic”. Like, he’s an ingenious comedian, and he’s now going to do an amazing ultimate-effort multimedia takedown of this kind of woman that’s so much more devastatingly spot-on than all the millions of people, put together, who base their personality around hating on “basic” people… and then the turn is to admit that even the most ingenious form of that one joke is incomplete and dull and uncomfortable when the lights come up while you’re laughing. Like, yes, instagram culture sucks, personal branding as folk-art sucks… but the same way airline food sucks, that being a true thing doesn’t make being the billionth guy to point it out a comedic genius. Even when a comedy genius does it, there’s still a lot of basic-bitchery in the act that makes it ironic in the bad way.
“I love an excuse to watch a movie and pause it every three seconds.” SAME!!😂😂
One of my favorites podcasts discussing one of my favorite comedians.
Inside is the greatest piece of art (film, album, or television) released in the 2020s so far. Its a little weird how much of the subtext you guys missed in this one. Much of this anaylsis was Max coming up with a weird baiting prompt and then going "ok I'll go first". I got the sense that Jon seemed to get the special more than the other panelists but a fair amount of it seems to have been ignored to try to make the point that aspects of it dont hold up in their opinions. Much of what Bo is discussing can be seen in these panelists in a weird way.
Did you forget the greatest song of the decade That Funny Feeling was in this movie?
Would love a bonus episode on the Inside Outtakes (especially the podcast skit in it)
As a white woman (without an instagram account) I thought White Woman Instagram was hysterical
Ya the follow up stuff on his youtube was great too. I loved the insta skit he did!
Yay! Love Jamie, great show
Oh my god y'all. I was looking forward to this discussion when I saw the title and now I'm disappointed & frustrated. I guess y'all are too white & rich to get the point of Socko. And it's ok, as a liberal white woman, to feel skewered by White Woman's Instagram, but also find it hilarious without getting defensive. And you can't use either just "women" or specifying "liberal white women" in the rhythm of the song. Saying "white woman" plus the specific post examples tells you exactly who he's talking about. At least y'all got the branding sketch right. Gah! lol I'm a disabled woman stuck in a red state and have continued to be stuck inside since the pandemic. Inside lives in my head rent-free on a daily basis. What a masterpiece. Y'all are great, you just really missed the mark on several of these bits.
Agreed! Making fun of Socko for complaining about having to educate rich white people grossly exposed their privilege. When living life is exhausting because my entire body hurts, it's hard to make time for in-person activism, but I guess I should just get over myself. Tbh, I don't know why I expected self-absorbed podcasters to empathize with marginalized individuals. Smdh...
I remember when Bo's very early videos were going viral......I thought it was _cute._ That's all.
But I remember the day I became a mega fan of his. He was a guest on Pete Holmes' podcast You Made It Weird. He's been on several times. But I remember being gobsmacked by his *_intelligence._* There was a manic white hot righteous anger fueling this incredibly sharp cutting intelligence that really surprised me. This was not the too cute by half twee UA-cam kid I assumed he was. I remember thinking "I bet this guy is super depressed, because no one is THIS smart and hyper aware and mentally at ease." It's very cool how he's so transcended his initial meme-ified viral foray into popular culture.
This is a brilliant idea -- thanks so much!
Ya just HAD to say
the " like" comment during the first third so that it's all I heard for the rest of the show. Thanks
Ahhh... thought Bo was on.
Same
I've got my fingers crossed that he'll do an episode of neal brennan's podcast someday
I'm sorry, but White Womans Instagram was on point. My wife felt called out LOL (note that I am also a woman, but have a very different instagram lol)
Love you Jamie!!!
I normally enjoy stuff from Crooked Media but this episode did not do it for me.
All you did was produce the sort of “content” that Burnham was parodying on Inside.
Is anyone else wondering if their weird takes in this episode were deliberately designed to bait us into engaging and then make us feel awful for allowing ourselves to get drawn in? No? Tbf, that level of self-awareness on their part would be impressive. Maybe they'll address it in their next episode of "Misunderstanding Brilliant Media."
You need to check out Jesse Welles.
Hey, don’t make fun of ‘concept’ used as a verb if you’re gonna use ‘creative’ as a noun!
Bo being such an inspiration for this show is legendary.
I have intentionally not seen this movie because I could never bring myself to, so thank you guys for providng me with the amuse-bouche plus fun commentary. Glad you're expanding Offline with new ideas on the new channel!
I recommend watching it for yourself. A lot of their takes really missed the mark.
Max, microsoft DID make phones, they're called windows phones. Thank God they never took off.
Ok. But I LOVED my Windows 8 phone! Not having any apps actually made it ahead of its time 😂 But in all seriousness, it was far better than my shitty iPhone (i think 4s). MS marketing was such shit 😂
The pressure to weigh in thing that I always think of is a moment where I saw it so clearly made manifest on one of Hasan's streams. He was taking a day off the grind of slogging through the news and talking his usual shit to just like...stream some videogames or something like that and some keyboard warrior comes in with, "Why are you not talking about Palestine right now? People are still dying."
As if all it would take to stop the genocide in Palestine is for Hasan alone to put down this one moment of rest and joy in a life essentially dedicated to not ever letting up on the people trying to ignore Palestine and just said, "What's happening in Palestine is a genocide." ONE MORE TIME...That, THAT is going to make the difference and the implication of him being a worse person for not doing it is just like...man, just let that dude play one (1) videogame for like a second. I think he's doing his part!
The bar for being a virtuous person simply cannot be never resting until all evil is expunged from the world or none of us will see the light of heaven and everyone who tries will live a life of misery.
I tend to agree with you guys on so many things but this episode just didn’t work for me. I think there are much more charitable reads for almost every one of your criticisms that you just decided not to consider.
But Max, have you forgotten the Windows phone!? Microsoft DID make a phone! Thankfully, it tanked hard.
You guys landed on some really weird takes regarding some of these songs. It's almost as if you didn't get it... and I hate you for making me sound pretentious by saying that, but like... the socko part, white women's Instagram...
So much of this special focuses on how we lose a lot of our humanity by focusing on the performative nature of the internet, and corporations, and even public performances.
And you guys talking about "i wonder how this would play on Tik tok".... "Inside" songs and quotes were ALL OVER Tik Tok for MONTHS. Do y'all live under a rock??
The "Joe Biden" clip was left on the cutting room floor... wise choice, but IYKYK.
Yuck... need a break from you guys for a bit now. Really research people you profile, guys.
I like bo
What?
If there was anything substantive that provoked this, you would say it. You just don't like women.
Completely disappointed by the guests. I assumed Jamie was a bad comedian, but I went to her website to make sure. Yikes. She's the reason Republicans win elections.
What elections? They have lost pop vote every time but once this century
Huh??
If there was anything substantive that provoked this, you would say it. You just don't like women.
I'd really love to see @FDSignifire as a guest on a future show!