I think this song is indeed a deep one. It's about the feeling that you get when you look at the world and the humans and realize that a lot things have gone wrong. The gift shop at the gun range, the mass shooting at the mall is a line that seems ironic at first, but when you think about it, it comes to your mind that that's not as absurd as it seems and it gets a bitter aftertaste. This feeling that we live in a world where the situation of humankind sometimes seems really hopeless can be a really depressing one and I think Bo is a person thinking about this intensely.
"The whole world at your finger tips, the ocean at your door" "20,000 years of this, 7 more to go" "We were over due, it will be over soon just wait" "Quiet comprehending to the ending of it all"
I feel like those who experienced that feeling before just instinctively know what that funny feeling is. Like when i first heard the song i instantly recognized what feeling he was talking about even tho i couldn't figure the right words to describe it.
It's called existential dread. I started to experience it periodically after my first child was born. I found out later it is common after giving birth, as well as other major life (losing a loved one, retiring, etc) or societal (COVID, war, etc) events.
I'm a gen z kid born in the early 2000s and I can say this song almost perfectly captures the melancholy and nostalgia-seeking that has happened to my generation due to all of the rapid changes and violence throughout our early lives. To me, that funny feeling is just the way I've felt for a long time. It's a deep sadness but acceptance with the way the world is and knowing you probably won't live to be the one to make the change for a plethora of reasons. Looking up at the stars next to a campfire wishing you were a kid again because at least then, you didn't feel so crushed by the reality of the state of things.
Take a break from the internet and study the world around you in your community. There is hope there. I'm not saying never learn about current events.... but keep a balance with what you feed your brain
oh please fuck off as if your generation has it bad. you all have houses and medicine whatever you want. do you rather live in 1700 as a slave or ,during the first world war as canon fodder? count your blessings ffs.
Born 1990, I’m so sorry we left the world in such a bad way, I didn’t realize it until recently, but I’m powerless to do anything about it. Please forgive us.
I feel like this is one of those songs that almost requires the context of the special. He briefly touches on a lot of matters that he goes into in more depth prior to this in the special (like companies profiting off social movements by using them for advertisement purposes) so I think it kind of prepares you for this song which may otherwise seem like an arbitrary list of odd things to mention. As has been mentioned in the comments, I think the funny feeling is existential dread but, crucially, that feeling has become so familiar that it barely warrants a mention anymore. There is so much going on at all times, we are constantly distracted, and it feels incongruous to think that while people are debating the merit of Logan Paul or fawning over Deadpool's self-referential cleverness (which Bo has spoken about absolutely loathing) the world is essentially burning. The line "20.000 years of this, seven more to go" is kind of the crux of the song, it's like the human kind is racing towards its own extinction and here we are, watching carpool karaoke in order to distract ourselves from that reality. The end, with the iteration of "Hey, what can you say? We were overdue but it will be over soon, just wait" feels flippant but I interpret it as resignation. We have been wilfully ignoring how unsustainable our lifestyle is for so long that there is nothing left to do or say. We aren't going to change our course, the only thing the narrator can do is accept that. At least it will be over soon. The first time I heard this song I absolutely bawled because it was so deeply relatable to me.
I think I'd use less of words like flippant or resigned; more of like, absolutely disturbing, inducing a bone-deep dread. I cried, too. I hate how things are in the world right now and how no one seems to care, but Bo calling attention to all of those deep roots of my depression that I'm so helpless about made me feel... not alone? And reading comments sections, watching reactions, seeing people really get the song and feel like me... it really is like therapy. I hope a lot of politicians end up watching Inside. I hope it eventually gets to them. I hope it so hard.
@@WynneL I think the reason I wouldn't use more dramatic terms like "bone-deep dread" is that, like op said, this feeling has become so normal in our day-to-day, it's part of our default state, it doesn't register as strongly as it should.
This song has a ton of layers and interpretations but the chord it for me was existential dread and ironic detachment. I felt this song so deeply the first time I watched the special I couldn’t listen to again for 2 months.
i’ve never seen anyone mention existential dread when it comes to this song but that’s exactly what it is. just modern existential dread and the dissociation that comes with it.
@@walkingexistentaldread3079 that’s funny that you’ve never seen that because to me that’s the most plain reading you can come up with. Especially with the ocean at your door and the comprehending of the ending of it all lines
This song is the overwhelming lurking dread that the world is slowly collapsing while you watch in real time. And then you pause it go back to whatever mundane task you were busying yourself with. It's that feeling that it's absurd to care because it's not clear that anyone does. Every little thing you experience in this beautiful and interconnected world has ways of bringing you back into that awareness off how bad it is in some other aspect. And just like Welcome To The Internet it's often complete mental whiplash. I wake up every morning and scroll through world events and unless I deliberately avoid it I'll see a dozen human corpses before I finish coffee and move on to cat pictures on IG. Every time I find a new show to enjoy some actor or director is outed as a terrible person. I try to enjoy a new tech gadget and I'm reminded that it's likely built with exploited labor. It's incredibly difficult to comprehend and eventually reaches that point where trying to stay on top of all of it just puts you in a fugue state where the best you can do is prattle on and say "oh well, we had it coming."
My take on this song is about all of the things going on in the world that don't make us feel right, but we don't quite have a way to describe it. A showcase of how backwards the world can be at times.. ways people are really disconnected from the things going on around them. Like Deadpool being self aware about the movie he is in, he is disconnected in a way. An 8k resolution meditation app... why? You're meditating, why does it need to be 8k? Companies who use war and impactful moments in history for promotion. The surgeon general's pop-up shop.. government provided public healthcare being turned into a consumer product. The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door.. People are so entranced in their devices that they aren't taking the time to just go outside, or even worry about a crisis like global warming which is having real effects on everybody. I think a part near the end sums up that funny feeling the best.. "Total disassociation, fully out your mind. Googling 'derealization', and hating what you find." Derealization being that feeling of being detached from your surroundings feeling. THAT is the funny feeling. Truth is, every line has that level of depth to it. You can take every phrase here and outline why "that shouldn't be the way that it is".. yet it is just the direction civilization has gone in. "The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all".
the funny feeling to me is like this underlying feeling of doom to where society and the world is heading. this song touches on environmental, societal, political, and economic aspects. in my personal mental health, it's a lot of feeling uncomfortable and different around people, like you don't understand the human psyche, are scared of them, or don't really feel real sometimes (i.e. derealization).
Covered by Phoebe Bridger and inspired a series of TikToks where people did their own verses - not the only reason for it being one of my fave Bo songs but I like that it had that kind of impact if only for a little while.
Have you seen the UA-cam video where Bo is in the audience watching Phoebe perform this live? It's seriously scratched some psychological itch that I had for no real reason.
It helps to take this one in context. It kind of says we’re post pandemic that nobody’s thinking about this as his pandemic album anymore. The special is his video diary of his year in lockdown. He spent all year in that room.
That funny feeling is laying in bed shaking never needing to watch a reactor react because simply listening to them is enough. Of course, this is a momentary feeling, as life is. However, there it is, again.
I think this song is about weird triggers for depression and the feelings that come with it. The little things. It's hard to describe depression and in a weird way this song describes it for me
To me its all about dread, be it knowing how messed up things are and that funny feeling it gives us, how it creeps in when we least want it even when doing things we like or enjoy.
It's about capitalist realism. The fact that we have become enclosed in an ideological and economic iron cage that we cannot escape, the effects it has on our mental health making us alienated, atomized, detached from reality through the black portals around us on the walls and in our pockets sucking us into the hyperreal symbol world of the digital space - we have reached total technological comfort but it destroyed our planet in the process and now we are at the doorstep of paying the price. (the world at our fingertips but the ocean is at our doorstep, ready to consume us) Also new forms and waves of violence, fascism and other social ills are rising up as symptoms of our disordered world - I feel like that is what the song is trying to summarize, the feeling of it all happening without being able to put it all into words, because these dynamics and symptoms of a dying world are what could be called a hyper-object; something so large you can never describe it with a single phrase. It's just a funny feeling that it's all going to shit very soon.
One of the few songs that will always make me cry. Its like always being aware that you're being stalked by a wild animal, but no one else can see it or feel it. At some point, you just welcome it catching up to you so that you don't have to feel it's presence constantly over your shoulder.
He kinda hints at it within the lyrics: it's about the detachment that comes with depression, derealization and such, and how yuxtaposed events in the world exacerbate it, especially those that bring about existential dread and impending doom (climate change: the ocean at your door, world's doom: seven more (years) to go, we were overdue but it will be over soon - - which is also a point he makes on another song of his in the special, won't spoil it in case you haven't seen it), in front of superfluous humor, vloggers and materialistic figures and matters which, when put together, don't really make sense at all in the big picture, and seem so dumb to even exist or that they had so much importance, a show, a ytuber, doing dumb little things, PLUS the lack of appreciation people can have as well (loving parents), or more precisely, how taken for granted they are until you are looking at it from afar, again, from this position of feeling away from it all that comes with alienation.
To me, this song is basically a more somber introspective version of “Welcome to the Internet.” It touches a lot on his mental health struggles. My biggest take away from it is that the more connected we all are through technology, the more disconnected we feel from our shared humanity. That cognitive dissonance is “that funny feeling.”
This song hits so close to home for me that it's painful for me when people don't get it alto I know it's not an easy one and if you don't experience it you'd probably just see it as irony Derealization, Dissociation, feeling a disconnect with reality, that's the funny feeling and the things he mentions aren't ironic they are things that make you think and feel that "wrongness", breaking your immersion, your immersion into reality
I interpreted it as a feeling of dread in the back of your mind. The feeling that things have gone so wrong, but there's nothing you can do about it. That wrong has somehow become normal. He mentions feeling agoraphobic, experiencing derealization, and like the ocean is at his door. I also really like the line "20,000 years of this, seven more to go..." 20,000 years is about how long human civilization has existed, and he's predicting that it will all end soon.
I think the "7 more to go" line is about climate change. The climate clock in 2020 predicted seven years before climate change became so irreversible that we can no longer prevent human extinction.
I saw one take on the song that kind of became one of the ways I saw it, after I had the original thought of it being existential dread. All the things he's saying are snippets of news headlines and things in his life that are barraging past him, and every once in a while he has a panic attack - the funny feeling. At the end he doesn't admonish himself for having them - just acknowledges that they happened, that it's been a while since he had one, that it might've been overdue, but it will be over soon and he just has to wait.
My interpretation is that here, in the Information age, our minds our bombarded from all sides with so much stimulation, comedy, tragedy, horror, educational…that we don’t know how to feel and become numb. The only way to deal is to disassociate or consider life as just absurd. It has the same vibes as welcome to the internet “here’s a tip for straining pasta and here’s a nine year old who died!” Couple this fever pitch of emotional extremes with an ever decreasing ability for people to socialize and form community, mental health issues skyrocketing, global pandemics, wars, recessions, environmental issues, mass shootings…you get overwhelmed and it’s the funny feeling of you’re supposed to find meaning in but this absurd life doesn’t seem to have any to offer. Some of people get rich on tik tok for being good looking, others are killed or tortured by a drug cartel and there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it. We live in chaos.
I think it is about the ennui young people feel when contemplating the world as it is now and what it might be in the future, the feeling of 'it is so messed up, just let it die.'
Re-listening to this and knowing what derealization is, I notice that the recent trend of “living a great lamp and one day noticing that the lamp is blurry” is an exact encapsulation of derealization.
SOMETHING'S WRONG! The theme of the song is that something's wrong. something's truly, and unsolvably wrong and no one seems to notice. no one seems to care. we all just walk around feeling "that funny feeling" when we see the tragic irony that permeates our world
YES exactly the same thing I was thinking listening to it. That was my takeaway with a lot of the lyrics that some people were saying felt "random." Examples of things that just felt "off." The feeling that something isn't quite right coupled with the complacency to either ignore it or avoid acknowledging it and the way some of us embrace that as a coping mechanism with what is going on around us.
I always think the funny feeling is feeling like reality has somehow become more dreamlike and dreams and being in your mind or "safe" space is where you get a sense of normalcy. The funny feeling being anxiety.
The sometimes-unrelated themes and "that funny feeling" make me think that he's saying anxiety doesn't discriminate. It hits when it wants to, whether at the live action lion king or the pepsi halftime show.
I think there is irony in the song, but it's about the ways we distract ourselves from some of the more serious things going on, and the juxtaposition of the two. We try so hard not to be aware, and then something happens that doesn't quite fit with the 'reality' we're trying to live in; hence, the funny feeling.
I view that funny feeling as existential dread knowing that the world is f***** but having no way to control any part of it so you just kind of have to pretend it's not real and put on a happy face but that funny feeling is that voice in the back of your head that's constantly panicking because you know the world is coming to an end but also you can't just show that at all times. So the funny feeling could also be the struggle of the duality of trying to be happy in a world where there's no happiness left.
This song could be nearly endless, as there are so many examples of "that funny feeling" like people taking a half km drive to run 10km on a treadmill, that we actively poison our living spaces in numerous ways daily, that our species would rather die out than lose profit, that rivers have caught fire, that Nixon actually signed in the EPA, that american milk is an illegal substance in most countries, that many "foods" contain fire retardants, that companies are fighting laws that say food labelled with the word "health"/"healthy" must contain a certain percentage of actual food, that the american west is drying up while people build water-themed resorts there, that the colorado river water share allocates more water to people than the river ever carried...
I think that funny feeling is more than just irony altough alot of his examples were ironic, i think if you google derealization you'll understand more what the song is about, he says things like "the ocean at your door", aka the ocean levels rising, aka the world ending and we are detaching ourself from that reality because it's too much to think about, i think thats the funny feeling
it's definitely that deep and more! great reaction, love watching all the wheels spin in peoples heads during reactions to this one. really you need to listen to this one many times to start picking up on the majority of the lyrics! im sure lots of comments have already told you but generally "that funny feeling" is about how weird and crazy the world is while we all know we as a human race have become unsustainable and dying. how everyone knows but no one really talks about it
I personally think of it as a feeling of resignation mixed with irony. Like a thing that makes you chuckle, but not because its funny. Like that awkward laughter you don't mean to let out. Like " oh. Haha. The world is on fire. Great."
As soon as you said "ill never be smart enough to understand..." I seriously said, out loud, "oh bullshit, of course, you're smart enough!" I am so glad people can't hear me sometimes lol.
My take on the song is that it's contrasting what we concern ourselves with (logan paul, the gender of KFC's spokesperson, who's performing at the super bowl) with what is important (ocean levels rising, climate change, mass shootings). He's basically sharing his exhaustion with the human race for spending all its time on trivial b.s. while the world is actually falling apart.
The song talks about tons of things that distract us from the inevitable end of the human race. All these distractions we see day to day that cover up the fact the world is going more and more to shit. The funny feeling he is getting is that the end is coming.
I think the fact that you couldnt figure out the meaning right away just shows that youre more optimistic about the future than many us. This is a man strumming quietly at a campfire, singing a tune about the twilight of humanity. We know weve messed up and we can sense it. "That Funny Feeling."
You might want to listen to "Art is Dead" and "How the World Works" too ... also, something that might help you feel better about catching the meaning - he doesn't know what it means either, lol. He has said in several interviews that he doesn't consciously make these connections - other people do when they see his performances. He just makes observations and strings ideas together. But many of these observations are grounded in his view of social media and the integration of the internet in modern culture.
The song begins listing a lot of common, everyday things that modern culture is stuck on and Bo seems to be suggesting that these things are distracting people from the real issues that need attention. "The backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun" He outlines a lot of the issues that he thinks society should be focusing on throughout the song, although it's not easy to understand the full meaning of each line but every line does have meaning. For example the line "Discount Etsy agitprop, Bugles' take on race" is a criticism of the way that social and political movements are sometimes trivialized or exploited for profit by corporations. As the song goes on it gradually gets darker, hinting that the world is on a path toward destruction if we continue to keep our focus on unimportant things and ignore the real issues like climate change, gun violence, and corrupt corporations. "The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door." "A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall." Then near the end of the song I think he summarizes what "that funny feeling" is. He implies that it's unease or disorientation. "Total disassociation, fully out your mind. Googling "derealization", hating what you find." "That unapparent summer air in early fall(also referencing the climate change issue). The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all". So in summary Bo seems to be suggesting that the "funny feeling" is a symptom of a society that has lost touch with its values and priorities. And I think he's urging listeners to reflect on what they think is important as well as how they are contributing to this culture and to find deeper meaning in their lives.
i feel like that funny feeling is doom that the world is ending in so many ways but everyone is just doing ridiculous things and we are powerless to stop it so its that feeling of just relaxing and giving in to the end of everything.
this is a late comment but this song really hits me even years after it was made. in my opinion, he is saying all things happening in the world are going terrible, yet the silly things on the internet are whats getting the people's attention. not the mass shootings, but silly bickering on tiktok or twitter has more attention instead.
This is a very late comment but I think the line "googling derealization, hating what you find" sums up the song at its core. Derealization is a mental state where you feel detached from your surroundings. Rewatch and all the lines after give you the message on a silver plater.
I think this song is entirely about dissociation and derialisation. With everything happening in the world, a constant berage of the worst most absurd circumstances all paired together it's easy to become jaded and completely seperate yourself from reality. All these things are coming in and That Funny Feeling is the moment where you dissociate yourself from them. Just cracks upon cracks that eventually lead to full derialisation.
The key lies in what he says just before the chorus. First you're inundated with an array of random shit, then something that makes you feel something; something important. But, there's a desensitization in the endless stream of nonsense. "That funny feeling" would be the sense of existential dread and general fear for humanity, as a fleeting background noise that, I think, we may tend to move past and try not to look at, too directly, more often than not; getting quickly lost back into the myriad distractions.
Good number of the comments have gotten it. Its not so much about irony as it is about that feeling of dread, deep in your stomach, the knowledge that we, as a species, have well and truly *fucked it* , and there's not really a whole lot we can do, on an individual level, to stop this tailspin. The final verse pretty much spells it out. Derealization, dissociation, and the unmentioned-but-implied desensitization we all feel, the knowledge that something is *wrong* , but being unable to properly articulate *what* exactly it is. "That unapparent summer air in early fall" is a great way to capture that feeling. You step outside in late September or early October, and it still feels like hitting a wall of heat and humidity, and you subconsciously try not to think too long about what it *means* , because if you do, you'll start to spiral. So you disconnect, stop thinking about it, and try to get on with your day. Same with a lot of the stuff mentioned in the song. Corporations using days of importance to the working class or marginalized communities in order to shill their mass-produced trash for so long that people forget what Labour Day was *supposed* to be about; bread and circuses like the Half-Time Show or the latest Paul Brothers drama that helps distract from the world burning around you; pointless culture war bullshit like KFC gender-flipping Colonel Sanders *specifically* to rile up bigots for that sweet, sweet Controversy PR boost, and tacitly ignoring the dead queer people left in the wake of the rage they stoked. Another news report of a mass shooting, accompanied by people paying lip-service to solutions and asking God to fix it for them when the means are within their grasp if they'd only just sacrifice a *fraction* of what the victims have. All of it accompanied by that little voice in the back of your head, screaming that *this isn't right* . But hey, it'll all be over soon, one way or another. And we can finally stop worrying, in success or death. PS: Solidarity Forever, support your local unions, attempting to assimilate with fascists is suicide.
“Hey what can you say, we were overdue, but it’ll be over soon.” That’s literally what I heard about in reference about the pandemic. We were overdue to have one and that it won’t last long. Lol
That wasn't with the point of that line. I mean I guess you can ascribe the meaning to that one scenario, but I think he was talking about life in general in the current existence of human beings as unsustainable.
I think the song is about the feeling of horrifying things being so commonplace that we all stopped feeling as intensely horrible because they happen all to often and the no longer feel real and start feeling like a story you are told while camping. The main ones being mass shootings but even others like Logan Pauls behavior, companies exploiting people by using social movements like BLM, the fights between dems and republicans at just about everything. I feel like its taking about how we have become so desensitized to things, something even good things, how people have basically accepted that there is nothing we can really do so we just feel disconnected to it all. But that is just what I think and that is one of the best part about most of his songs is there are always multiple ways to interpret them.
Irony, absurdity, dread, anxiety, to be honest it's about a feeling that's hard to describe when things seem off in relation to everything in the modern world. It could be any of these feelings, or something else, and not knowing how to talk about it or fully understand what that feeling is is kinda part of it.
Irony is definitely part of it. But "that funny feeling" could be many things. I think it's up for interpretation, what do the things Bo lists in the song make you feel, when you consider all of it? For me, the song sort of feels like a social media feed, just being shown all these things that range from silly to horrible, and the funny feeling is acknowledging that the world and culture is dying, but not really feeling anything about it anymore, because you're constantly confronted with it on social media.
One thing important to keep in mind with Bo is that he’s intensely conscious of all aspects of his performance and how it effects his message. He’s explained before that his performances are extremely intentional. Like in his comedy song, it was in the surface a silly song about him being a comedian in this crazy world, but it’s really about his guilt at feeing he’s not helping people the way he thinks he should. The “irony” that your sensing is part of it, there is just another layer. It’s these horrific juxtapositions of the utterly normal and the horrendous things that we see on a daily basis. The way the horrific and callous nature of reality defies our ability to accept it as reality. Like, surely only a movie or story could be this awful. And the way our world seems to be heading toward a combination of multiple different apocalypses.
I think what this song is really about is the unease we feel when we look at the situations going on around us and realize that things are really starting to be so off that we must be heading for the end. Sadly now more than ever this is true with who this country just made president…. You can feel how OFF things are and we’re heading for DISASTER/DESTRUCTION. I can feel it too (that funny feeling).. the quiet comprehending of the ending of it all… and hey what can you say, we were overdue… but it will be over soon, you wait. I just know this world doesn’t have long before we have to reap the consequences of all our misdeeds. And don’t worry sweetie about catching all those references, I don’t understand them all either but I really do FEEL him on this one, where I get that odd uneasy feeling that we all do not have as much time left as we may think or hope to have, sadly. But in a way, I think this song feels upbeat still in the acceptance of it and still being joyful and singing a beautiful song before we’re gone. I really LOVE this song , it’s my favorite of Bo’s and I really do like a lot of his but this one takes the cake. The kid is a special talent, I’m grateful for finding his music/comedy.
I feel that this song is not about irony but more of all the terrible things in the world and we've just become numb and complacent to them... The funny feeling is our true hearts questioning the status quo of life right now.
"Funny/feeling" ...it hurts too bad to look at so he tries to be funny to make it easier for himself and us too, but it never actually gets easier That funny feeling keeps coming back
I feel the main theme is absurdism and how it seems to define life (especially in America) in the first quarter of the 2000s. You learn pretty quick as a kid that the world has a lot of problems that adults struggle to solve, but it’s not until you become an adult that you realize just how ridiculous and nonsensical so many of those problems are. At best it hits you with a sense of bewilderment and maybe even amusement, but at worst it can make you wonder if there’s any point to anything or if life itself is just one elaborate joke. And yet even in the face of constant absurdism we still need to go to work, pick up the kids from school, make dinner, etc. To me, ‘that funny feeling’ is begrudging acceptance. The world may be a circus but it’s a circus where I still have to make rent in 14 days, so I guess I’m gonna have to learn to live with the clownery and spectacle.
We've grown up in such an irony-poisoned culture that we don't feel comfortable saying something sincerely about the ways we're destroying ourselves, our gut-impulse has become making jokes and memes instead, whilst we yearn for it to all be over. I wouldn't quite call it existential dread, more existential burnout or ennui. It's a funny feeling.
"The ocean at your door" "20,000 years of this, 7 more to go" I think these are both references to the point of no return for carbon emissions in the atmosphere reaching a runaway level for global warming, etc. "Hey, what can I say, we were overdue. But it'll be over soon (humanity? Life as we know it? Modern society?), just wait.."
To me this song is about the odd feeling you get when you see something completely "normal" and suddenly it clicks in your head how bizarre it is that our society has evolved to allow for such a thing to exist. The world becomes harder and harder to navigate, we have children dying in schools and we have UA-cam stars filming suicide victims, and we encounter it all while juggling our own personal struggles with the world
To me the song is about all the normal things we’re experiencing in this digital age, so much of it so seemingly benign and unassuming. The funny feeling is that existential dread, like I think all of this is wrong, I think things are really seriously not ok. Meanwhile, entertainment keeps on churning and capturing our attention and you’re just stuck with that feeling that we’re barreling towards our end but everyone is so thoroughly distracted that I guess you just resign to the fact that the world will end soon and that’s just that.
At the beginning of this video when he is saying he can't play guitar or sing he is making fun of the guy who brings his guitar to the campfire and tries to get people to let him play
The song is a poignant commentary on the absurdity and contradictions of modern life, particularly in the context of digital culture and the pandemic era. The "funny feeling" referenced in the song can be interpreted as a sense of unease or existential dread that arises from these contradictions. Burnham calls out various aspects of modern society in his lyrics, from the commodification of rebellion to the paradox of using technology to escape from the problems technology itself has exacerbated. The song reflects a deep sense of disillusionment and alienation, a feeling of being overwhelmed by the paradoxes and absurdities of the world we live in. It's a powerful commentary on the human condition in the digital age, capturing the feelings of confusion, helplessness, and disconnection that many people experience. Like much of Burnham's work, "That Funny Feeling" uses humor and satire to comment on serious societal issues, presenting a critical view of the world while also acknowledging the complexity and often contradictory nature of modern life.
It's a quiet and calm acceptance of the end of the world. (This was during the height of the pandemic) "That funny feeling" is a subtle sense of something profoundly wrong with all these things in our reality.
For me, the song is about all of the things we seem to value as a society - celebrities, brands, consumerism - and how none of them are going to save us from whatever eventually wipes us out as a species, whether it's climate change, nuclear war, or something else. And I think Bo's mental health got really messed up from thinking about that.
multilayered, but i think its about retreating into depression and isolation because of the world and society's progress, or lack thereof. lyrics aren't technically ironic, but a sad bitter juxtaposition, misdirection coupled with dark omens. beautiful song about a sad and complicated topic
![[Industry Ghostwriter] Reacts to: Bo Burnham- That Funny Feeling (Reaction)- This is Deep.](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/v5EMaCZMMOQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Industry Ghostwriter] Reacts to: Bo Burnham- That Funny Feeling (Reaction)- This is Deep.](/img/tr.png)
I think this song is indeed a deep one. It's about the feeling that you get when you look at the world and the humans and realize that a lot things have gone wrong. The gift shop at the gun range, the mass shooting at the mall is a line that seems ironic at first, but when you think about it, it comes to your mind that that's not as absurd as it seems and it gets a bitter aftertaste. This feeling that we live in a world where the situation of humankind sometimes seems really hopeless can be a really depressing one and I think Bo is a person thinking about this intensely.
it is very existentialist
@@brittreacts "Googling derealization, hating what you find" is very deep.
I've never been to a range with a "gift shop" though, just saying.
@@SCUBAdfq It wouldn't be surprising to find one there, though, would it?
@@genostellar Well considering I've been to many, I would say it would be.
One of the most eerie parts of the song is the cheerfulness of the last part - like Bo is welcoming the end, just ready for it all to be over
It'll be over soon. . . One way or another :/
"The whole world at your finger tips, the ocean at your door" "20,000 years of this, 7 more to go" "We were over due, it will be over soon just wait" "Quiet comprehending to the ending of it all"
I feel like those who experienced that feeling before just instinctively know what that funny feeling is. Like when i first heard the song i instantly recognized what feeling he was talking about even tho i couldn't figure the right words to describe it.
It's called existential dread. I started to experience it periodically after my first child was born. I found out later it is common after giving birth, as well as other major life (losing a loved one, retiring, etc) or societal (COVID, war, etc) events.
it's despair at it's core. the inverse of hope
I'm a gen z kid born in the early 2000s and I can say this song almost perfectly captures the melancholy and nostalgia-seeking that has happened to my generation due to all of the rapid changes and violence throughout our early lives. To me, that funny feeling is just the way I've felt for a long time. It's a deep sadness but acceptance with the way the world is and knowing you probably won't live to be the one to make the change for a plethora of reasons. Looking up at the stars next to a campfire wishing you were a kid again because at least then, you didn't feel so crushed by the reality of the state of things.
Take a break from the internet and study the world around you in your community. There is hope there. I'm not saying never learn about current events.... but keep a balance with what you feed your brain
oh please fuck off as if your generation has it bad. you all have houses and medicine whatever you want. do you rather live in 1700 as a slave or ,during the first world war as canon fodder? count your blessings ffs.
hope is always around to be found despite it all. I feel like the feeling is despair, and it's very consuming if you let it
Born 1990, I’m so sorry we left the world in such a bad way, I didn’t realize it until recently, but I’m powerless to do anything about it. Please forgive us.
The theme I got was existential dread
great song
facts he very much has a existential vibe
I feel like this is one of those songs that almost requires the context of the special. He briefly touches on a lot of matters that he goes into in more depth prior to this in the special (like companies profiting off social movements by using them for advertisement purposes) so I think it kind of prepares you for this song which may otherwise seem like an arbitrary list of odd things to mention.
As has been mentioned in the comments, I think the funny feeling is existential dread but, crucially, that feeling has become so familiar that it barely warrants a mention anymore. There is so much going on at all times, we are constantly distracted, and it feels incongruous to think that while people are debating the merit of Logan Paul or fawning over Deadpool's self-referential cleverness (which Bo has spoken about absolutely loathing) the world is essentially burning.
The line "20.000 years of this, seven more to go" is kind of the crux of the song, it's like the human kind is racing towards its own extinction and here we are, watching carpool karaoke in order to distract ourselves from that reality. The end, with the iteration of "Hey, what can you say? We were overdue but it will be over soon, just wait" feels flippant but I interpret it as resignation. We have been wilfully ignoring how unsustainable our lifestyle is for so long that there is nothing left to do or say. We aren't going to change our course, the only thing the narrator can do is accept that. At least it will be over soon.
The first time I heard this song I absolutely bawled because it was so deeply relatable to me.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I wish I had read your comment before more or less writing the same thing, except less eloquent haha
I think I'd use less of words like flippant or resigned; more of like, absolutely disturbing, inducing a bone-deep dread. I cried, too. I hate how things are in the world right now and how no one seems to care, but Bo calling attention to all of those deep roots of my depression that I'm so helpless about made me feel... not alone? And reading comments sections, watching reactions, seeing people really get the song and feel like me... it really is like therapy.
I hope a lot of politicians end up watching Inside. I hope it eventually gets to them. I hope it so hard.
@@WynneL I think the reason I wouldn't use more dramatic terms like "bone-deep dread" is that, like op said, this feeling has become so normal in our day-to-day, it's part of our default state, it doesn't register as strongly as it should.
This song has a ton of layers and interpretations but the chord it for me was existential dread and ironic detachment. I felt this song so deeply the first time I watched the special I couldn’t listen to again for 2 months.
i’ve never seen anyone mention existential dread when it comes to this song but that’s exactly what it is. just modern existential dread and the dissociation that comes with it.
@@walkingexistentaldread3079 that’s funny that you’ve never seen that because to me that’s the most plain reading you can come up with. Especially with the ocean at your door and the comprehending of the ending of it all lines
This song is the overwhelming lurking dread that the world is slowly collapsing while you watch in real time. And then you pause it go back to whatever mundane task you were busying yourself with. It's that feeling that it's absurd to care because it's not clear that anyone does. Every little thing you experience in this beautiful and interconnected world has ways of bringing you back into that awareness off how bad it is in some other aspect. And just like Welcome To The Internet it's often complete mental whiplash. I wake up every morning and scroll through world events and unless I deliberately avoid it I'll see a dozen human corpses before I finish coffee and move on to cat pictures on IG. Every time I find a new show to enjoy some actor or director is outed as a terrible person. I try to enjoy a new tech gadget and I'm reminded that it's likely built with exploited labor. It's incredibly difficult to comprehend and eventually reaches that point where trying to stay on top of all of it just puts you in a fugue state where the best you can do is prattle on and say "oh well, we had it coming."
My take on this song is about all of the things going on in the world that don't make us feel right, but we don't quite have a way to describe it. A showcase of how backwards the world can be at times.. ways people are really disconnected from the things going on around them. Like Deadpool being self aware about the movie he is in, he is disconnected in a way.
An 8k resolution meditation app... why? You're meditating, why does it need to be 8k?
Companies who use war and impactful moments in history for promotion.
The surgeon general's pop-up shop.. government provided public healthcare being turned into a consumer product.
The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door.. People are so entranced in their devices that they aren't taking the time to just go outside, or even worry about a crisis like global warming which is having real effects on everybody.
I think a part near the end sums up that funny feeling the best..
"Total disassociation, fully out your mind.
Googling 'derealization', and hating what you find."
Derealization being that feeling of being detached from your surroundings feeling. THAT is the funny feeling.
Truth is, every line has that level of depth to it. You can take every phrase here and outline why "that shouldn't be the way that it is".. yet it is just the direction civilization has gone in.
"The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all".
the funny feeling to me is like this underlying feeling of doom to where society and the world is heading. this song touches on environmental, societal, political, and economic aspects. in my personal mental health, it's a lot of feeling uncomfortable and different around people, like you don't understand the human psyche, are scared of them, or don't really feel real sometimes (i.e. derealization).
This is my favorite track from INSIDE.
This is one of those songs you feel more than try to understand.
Covered by Phoebe Bridger and inspired a series of TikToks where people did their own verses - not the only reason for it being one of my fave Bo songs but I like that it had that kind of impact if only for a little while.
Have you seen the UA-cam video where Bo is in the audience watching Phoebe perform this live? It's seriously scratched some psychological itch that I had for no real reason.
I take it as a song about derealization, existentialism, dissociation, that general numb, hopeless, kind of out of body feeling
It's hard growing up in an apocalypse.
especially recognizing all of a sudden, that one has
been going on for years.
The quiet comprehension of the ending of it all, (the nicest way to describe the apocalypse ever)
It helps to take this one in context. It kind of says we’re post pandemic that nobody’s thinking about this as his pandemic album anymore. The special is his video diary of his year in lockdown. He spent all year in that room.
That funny feeling is laying in bed shaking never needing to watch a reactor react because simply listening to them is enough. Of course, this is a momentary feeling, as life is. However, there it is, again.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
@@brittreacts I did. I'm glad the video existed for my enjoyment; thank you.
I think this song is about weird triggers for depression and the feelings that come with it. The little things. It's hard to describe depression and in a weird way this song describes it for me
To me its all about dread, be it knowing how messed up things are and that funny feeling it gives us, how it creeps in when we least want it even when doing things we like or enjoy.
Yep this is the one I pulled from this.
It's about capitalist realism. The fact that we have become enclosed in an ideological and economic iron cage that we cannot escape, the effects it has on our mental health making us alienated, atomized, detached from reality through the black portals around us on the walls and in our pockets sucking us into the hyperreal symbol world of the digital space - we have reached total technological comfort but it destroyed our planet in the process and now we are at the doorstep of paying the price. (the world at our fingertips but the ocean is at our doorstep, ready to consume us)
Also new forms and waves of violence, fascism and other social ills are rising up as symptoms of our disordered world - I feel like that is what the song is trying to summarize, the feeling of it all happening without being able to put it all into words, because these dynamics and symptoms of a dying world are what could be called a hyper-object; something so large you can never describe it with a single phrase. It's just a funny feeling that it's all going to shit very soon.
One of the few songs that will always make me cry. Its like always being aware that you're being stalked by a wild animal, but no one else can see it or feel it. At some point, you just welcome it catching up to you so that you don't have to feel it's presence constantly over your shoulder.
He kinda hints at it within the lyrics: it's about the detachment that comes with depression, derealization and such, and how yuxtaposed events in the world exacerbate it, especially those that bring about existential dread and impending doom (climate change: the ocean at your door, world's doom: seven more (years) to go, we were overdue but it will be over soon - - which is also a point he makes on another song of his in the special, won't spoil it in case you haven't seen it), in front of superfluous humor, vloggers and materialistic figures and matters which, when put together, don't really make sense at all in the big picture, and seem so dumb to even exist or that they had so much importance, a show, a ytuber, doing dumb little things, PLUS the lack of appreciation people can have as well (loving parents), or more precisely, how taken for granted they are until you are looking at it from afar, again, from this position of feeling away from it all that comes with alienation.
To me, this song is basically a more somber introspective version of “Welcome to the Internet.” It touches a lot on his mental health struggles. My biggest take away from it is that the more connected we all are through technology, the more disconnected we feel from our shared humanity. That cognitive dissonance is “that funny feeling.”
This song hits so close to home for me that it's painful for me when people don't get it alto I know it's not an easy one and if you don't experience it you'd probably just see it as irony
Derealization, Dissociation, feeling a disconnect with reality, that's the funny feeling and the things he mentions aren't ironic they are things that make you think and feel that "wrongness", breaking your immersion, your immersion into reality
I interpreted it as a feeling of dread in the back of your mind. The feeling that things have gone so wrong, but there's nothing you can do about it. That wrong has somehow become normal. He mentions feeling agoraphobic, experiencing derealization, and like the ocean is at his door. I also really like the line "20,000 years of this, seven more to go..." 20,000 years is about how long human civilization has existed, and he's predicting that it will all end soon.
I think the "7 more to go" line is about climate change. The climate clock in 2020 predicted seven years before climate change became so irreversible that we can no longer prevent human extinction.
@2:38 the theme of the song is Illogic/inner conflicts . „Civil war“ for example does not make a lot of sense when you think about it philosophically.
I saw one take on the song that kind of became one of the ways I saw it, after I had the original thought of it being existential dread. All the things he's saying are snippets of news headlines and things in his life that are barraging past him, and every once in a while he has a panic attack - the funny feeling. At the end he doesn't admonish himself for having them - just acknowledges that they happened, that it's been a while since he had one, that it might've been overdue, but it will be over soon and he just has to wait.
exostential dread is the funny feeling realising where we are in the world when -most- times we avoid thinking about it
My interpretation is that here, in the Information age, our minds our bombarded from all sides with so much stimulation, comedy, tragedy, horror, educational…that we don’t know how to feel and become numb. The only way to deal is to disassociate or consider life as just absurd.
It has the same vibes as welcome to the internet “here’s a tip for straining pasta and here’s a nine year old who died!”
Couple this fever pitch of emotional extremes with an ever decreasing ability for people to socialize and form community, mental health issues skyrocketing, global pandemics, wars, recessions, environmental issues, mass shootings…you get overwhelmed and it’s the funny feeling of you’re supposed to find meaning in but this absurd life doesn’t seem to have any to offer. Some of people get rich on tik tok for being good looking, others are killed or tortured by a drug cartel and there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it. We live in chaos.
aweeeeeeee i love ur reactions to bo lol
The message is like - “look at all these things, how is this not the end?” The funny feeling is the feeling that maybe this is it
He's listing all the things he tried to distract himself with while in isolation, but the existential dread kept on creeping in.
Oh I'm so happy you did it!
"sometimes i get it, sometimes i don't and that's okay!" miss ma'am i ADORE you
the fact you question yourself and then get it like 100%
"The whole world at your fingertips the ocean" damn
I think it is about the ennui young people feel when contemplating the world as it is now and what it might be in the future, the feeling of 'it is so messed up, just let it die.'
It is that deep! I promise. This is one of my favorites!!
This is one of my favorite songs to cover.
Re-listening to this and knowing what derealization is, I notice that the recent trend of “living a great lamp and one day noticing that the lamp is blurry” is an exact encapsulation of derealization.
SOMETHING'S WRONG! The theme of the song is that something's wrong. something's truly, and unsolvably wrong and no one seems to notice. no one seems to care. we all just walk around feeling "that funny feeling" when we see the tragic irony that permeates our world
YES exactly the same thing I was thinking listening to it. That was my takeaway with a lot of the lyrics that some people were saying felt "random." Examples of things that just felt "off." The feeling that something isn't quite right coupled with the complacency to either ignore it or avoid acknowledging it and the way some of us embrace that as a coping mechanism with what is going on around us.
I always think the funny feeling is feeling like reality has somehow become more dreamlike and dreams and being in your mind or "safe" space is where you get a sense of normalcy. The funny feeling being anxiety.
You were close, “things that make you think, ‘hmm, something’s not quite right here,’”
The sometimes-unrelated themes and "that funny feeling" make me think that he's saying anxiety doesn't discriminate. It hits when it wants to, whether at the live action lion king or the pepsi halftime show.
I think there is irony in the song, but it's about the ways we distract ourselves from some of the more serious things going on, and the juxtaposition of the two. We try so hard not to be aware, and then something happens that doesn't quite fit with the 'reality' we're trying to live in; hence, the funny feeling.
I view that funny feeling as existential dread knowing that the world is f***** but having no way to control any part of it so you just kind of have to pretend it's not real and put on a happy face but that funny feeling is that voice in the back of your head that's constantly panicking because you know the world is coming to an end but also you can't just show that at all times. So the funny feeling could also be the struggle of the duality of trying to be happy in a world where there's no happiness left.
There's real musical irony here, too. It's a folk song (supposed to feel like home) about disassociation.
This song could be nearly endless, as there are so many examples of "that funny feeling" like people taking a half km drive to run 10km on a treadmill, that we actively poison our living spaces in numerous ways daily, that our species would rather die out than lose profit, that rivers have caught fire, that Nixon actually signed in the EPA, that american milk is an illegal substance in most countries, that many "foods" contain fire retardants, that companies are fighting laws that say food labelled with the word "health"/"healthy" must contain a certain percentage of actual food, that the american west is drying up while people build water-themed resorts there, that the colorado river water share allocates more water to people than the river ever carried...
I think that funny feeling is more than just irony altough alot of his examples were ironic, i think if you google derealization you'll understand more what the song is about, he says things like "the ocean at your door", aka the ocean levels rising, aka the world ending and we are detaching ourself from that reality because it's too much to think about, i think thats the funny feeling
I love this one! Might be my favourite sound wise. Precisely one of my types of music!
it's definitely that deep and more! great reaction, love watching all the wheels spin in peoples heads during reactions to this one. really you need to listen to this one many times to start picking up on the majority of the lyrics!
im sure lots of comments have already told you but generally "that funny feeling" is about how weird and crazy the world is while we all know we as a human race have become unsustainable and dying. how everyone knows but no one really talks about it
It's about the funny feeling that the world as we know it is coming to an end, but no one is going to act against it.
I personally think of it as a feeling of resignation mixed with irony. Like a thing that makes you chuckle, but not because its funny. Like that awkward laughter you don't mean to let out. Like " oh. Haha. The world is on fire. Great."
As soon as you said "ill never be smart enough to understand..." I seriously said, out loud, "oh bullshit, of course, you're smart enough!" I am so glad people can't hear me sometimes lol.
Another great reaction! Your hair is awesome too. I love your short hair too, but the braids look really nice on you as well. 😊
My take on the song is that it's contrasting what we concern ourselves with (logan paul, the gender of KFC's spokesperson, who's performing at the super bowl) with what is important (ocean levels rising, climate change, mass shootings). He's basically sharing his exhaustion with the human race for spending all its time on trivial b.s. while the world is actually falling apart.
The song talks about tons of things that distract us from the inevitable end of the human race. All these distractions we see day to day that cover up the fact the world is going more and more to shit. The funny feeling he is getting is that the end is coming.
I think the fact that you couldnt figure out the meaning right away just shows that youre more optimistic about the future than many us.
This is a man strumming quietly at a campfire, singing a tune about the twilight of humanity. We know weve messed up and we can sense it. "That Funny Feeling."
You might want to listen to "Art is Dead" and "How the World Works" too ... also, something that might help you feel better about catching the meaning - he doesn't know what it means either, lol. He has said in several interviews that he doesn't consciously make these connections - other people do when they see his performances. He just makes observations and strings ideas together. But many of these observations are grounded in his view of social media and the integration of the internet in modern culture.
the first line "8k resoloution meditation App" you normaly close your eyes while meditating.
The song begins listing a lot of common, everyday things that modern culture is stuck on and Bo seems to be suggesting that these things are distracting people from the real issues that need attention.
"The backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun"
He outlines a lot of the issues that he thinks society should be focusing on throughout the song, although it's not easy to understand the full meaning of each line but every line does have meaning.
For example the line "Discount Etsy agitprop, Bugles' take on race" is a criticism of the way that social and political movements are sometimes trivialized or exploited for profit by corporations.
As the song goes on it gradually gets darker, hinting that the world is on a path toward destruction if we continue to keep our focus on unimportant things and ignore the real issues like climate change, gun violence, and corrupt corporations.
"The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door."
"A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall."
Then near the end of the song I think he summarizes what "that funny feeling" is. He implies that it's unease or disorientation.
"Total disassociation, fully out your mind. Googling "derealization", hating what you find."
"That unapparent summer air in early fall(also referencing the climate change issue). The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all".
So in summary Bo seems to be suggesting that the "funny feeling" is a symptom of a society that has lost touch with its values and priorities.
And I think he's urging listeners to reflect on what they think is important as well as how they are contributing to this culture and to find deeper meaning in their lives.
i feel like that funny feeling is doom that the world is ending in so many ways but everyone is just doing ridiculous things and we are powerless to stop it so its that feeling of just relaxing and giving in to the end of everything.
I think the perfect theme for this song is "ironic absurdity"
this is a late comment but this song really hits me even years after it was made. in my opinion, he is saying all things happening in the world are going terrible, yet the silly things on the internet are whats getting the people's attention. not the mass shootings, but silly bickering on tiktok or twitter has more attention instead.
This is a very late comment but I think the line "googling derealization, hating what you find" sums up the song at its core. Derealization is a mental state where you feel detached from your surroundings. Rewatch and all the lines after give you the message on a silver plater.
I alway think of “agoraphobic” by corps whenever he says it in this song
I think this song is entirely about dissociation and derialisation.
With everything happening in the world, a constant berage of the worst most absurd circumstances all paired together it's easy to become jaded and completely seperate yourself from reality.
All these things are coming in and That Funny Feeling is the moment where you dissociate yourself from them. Just cracks upon cracks that eventually lead to full derialisation.
The key lies in what he says just before the chorus. First you're inundated with an array of random shit, then something that makes you feel something; something important. But, there's a desensitization in the endless stream of nonsense. "That funny feeling" would be the sense of existential dread and general fear for humanity, as a fleeting background noise that, I think, we may tend to move past and try not to look at, too directly, more often than not; getting quickly lost back into the myriad distractions.
he is using Irony as a device to describe the incredibly difficult to explain feeling of existential dread.
Good number of the comments have gotten it. Its not so much about irony as it is about that feeling of dread, deep in your stomach, the knowledge that we, as a species, have well and truly *fucked it* , and there's not really a whole lot we can do, on an individual level, to stop this tailspin. The final verse pretty much spells it out. Derealization, dissociation, and the unmentioned-but-implied desensitization we all feel, the knowledge that something is *wrong* , but being unable to properly articulate *what* exactly it is.
"That unapparent summer air in early fall" is a great way to capture that feeling. You step outside in late September or early October, and it still feels like hitting a wall of heat and humidity, and you subconsciously try not to think too long about what it *means* , because if you do, you'll start to spiral. So you disconnect, stop thinking about it, and try to get on with your day.
Same with a lot of the stuff mentioned in the song. Corporations using days of importance to the working class or marginalized communities in order to shill their mass-produced trash for so long that people forget what Labour Day was *supposed* to be about; bread and circuses like the Half-Time Show or the latest Paul Brothers drama that helps distract from the world burning around you; pointless culture war bullshit like KFC gender-flipping Colonel Sanders *specifically* to rile up bigots for that sweet, sweet Controversy PR boost, and tacitly ignoring the dead queer people left in the wake of the rage they stoked. Another news report of a mass shooting, accompanied by people paying lip-service to solutions and asking God to fix it for them when the means are within their grasp if they'd only just sacrifice a *fraction* of what the victims have.
All of it accompanied by that little voice in the back of your head, screaming that *this isn't right* .
But hey, it'll all be over soon, one way or another. And we can finally stop worrying, in success or death.
PS:
Solidarity Forever, support your local unions, attempting to assimilate with fascists is suicide.
The funny feeling is dread
“Hey what can you say, we were overdue, but it’ll be over soon.” That’s literally what I heard about in reference about the pandemic. We were overdue to have one and that it won’t last long. Lol
for real
That wasn't with the point of that line. I mean I guess you can ascribe the meaning to that one scenario, but I think he was talking about life in general in the current existence of human beings as unsustainable.
I think the song is about the feeling of horrifying things being so commonplace that we all stopped feeling as intensely horrible because they happen all to often and the no longer feel real and start feeling like a story you are told while camping. The main ones being mass shootings but even others like Logan Pauls behavior, companies exploiting people by using social movements like BLM, the fights between dems and republicans at just about everything. I feel like its taking about how we have become so desensitized to things, something even good things, how people have basically accepted that there is nothing we can really do so we just feel disconnected to it all. But that is just what I think and that is one of the best part about most of his songs is there are always multiple ways to interpret them.
Irony, absurdity, dread, anxiety, to be honest it's about a feeling that's hard to describe when things seem off in relation to everything in the modern world. It could be any of these feelings, or something else, and not knowing how to talk about it or fully understand what that feeling is is kinda part of it.
Irony is definitely part of it. But "that funny feeling" could be many things. I think it's up for interpretation, what do the things Bo lists in the song make you feel, when you consider all of it?
For me, the song sort of feels like a social media feed, just being shown all these things that range from silly to horrible, and the funny feeling is acknowledging that the world and culture is dying, but not really feeling anything about it anymore, because you're constantly confronted with it on social media.
One thing important to keep in mind with Bo is that he’s intensely conscious of all aspects of his performance and how it effects his message. He’s explained before that his performances are extremely intentional. Like in his comedy song, it was in the surface a silly song about him being a comedian in this crazy world, but it’s really about his guilt at feeing he’s not helping people the way he thinks he should.
The “irony” that your sensing is part of it, there is just another layer. It’s these horrific juxtapositions of the utterly normal and the horrendous things that we see on a daily basis. The way the horrific and callous nature of reality defies our ability to accept it as reality. Like, surely only a movie or story could be this awful. And the way our world seems to be heading toward a combination of multiple different apocalypses.
This song is about the end of the world. The ridiculousness of the world when staring into the beginning of oblivion.
That funny feeling - the feeling of impending doom
I think what this song is really about is the unease we feel when we look at the situations going on around us and realize that things are really starting to be so off that we must be heading for the end. Sadly now more than ever this is true with who this country just made president…. You can feel how OFF things are and we’re heading for DISASTER/DESTRUCTION. I can feel it too (that funny feeling).. the quiet comprehending of the ending of it all… and hey what can you say, we were overdue… but it will be over soon, you wait. I just know this world doesn’t have long before we have to reap the consequences of all our misdeeds. And don’t worry sweetie about catching all those references, I don’t understand them all either but I really do FEEL him on this one, where I get that odd uneasy feeling that we all do not have as much time left as we may think or hope to have, sadly. But in a way, I think this song feels upbeat still in the acceptance of it and still being joyful and singing a beautiful song before we’re gone. I really LOVE this song , it’s my favorite of Bo’s and I really do like a lot of his but this one takes the cake. The kid is a special talent, I’m grateful for finding his music/comedy.
I feel that this song is not about irony but more of all the terrible things in the world and we've just become numb and complacent to them... The funny feeling is our true hearts questioning the status quo of life right now.
Melancholy is the word I was looking for
"Funny/feeling"
...it hurts too bad to look at so he tries to be funny to make it easier for himself and us too, but it never actually gets easier
That funny feeling keeps coming back
That funny feeling that something is just off.
i feel like the simplest meaning is like nihilism thinking everything will end soon, the feelings associated and the signs society is declining
Articial Intelligence.....There it is again that funny feeling.
I always took that funny feeling to be depression.
I feel the main theme is absurdism and how it seems to define life (especially in America) in the first quarter of the 2000s. You learn pretty quick as a kid that the world has a lot of problems that adults struggle to solve, but it’s not until you become an adult that you realize just how ridiculous and nonsensical so many of those problems are. At best it hits you with a sense of bewilderment and maybe even amusement, but at worst it can make you wonder if there’s any point to anything or if life itself is just one elaborate joke. And yet even in the face of constant absurdism we still need to go to work, pick up the kids from school, make dinner, etc. To me, ‘that funny feeling’ is begrudging acceptance. The world may be a circus but it’s a circus where I still have to make rent in 14 days, so I guess I’m gonna have to learn to live with the clownery and spectacle.
We've grown up in such an irony-poisoned culture that we don't feel comfortable saying something sincerely about the ways we're destroying ourselves, our gut-impulse has become making jokes and memes instead, whilst we yearn for it to all be over.
I wouldn't quite call it existential dread, more existential burnout or ennui. It's a funny feeling.
"The ocean at your door" "20,000 years of this, 7 more to go"
I think these are both references to the point of no return for carbon emissions in the atmosphere reaching a runaway level for global warming, etc.
"Hey, what can I say, we were overdue. But it'll be over soon (humanity? Life as we know it? Modern society?), just wait.."
To me it's about how we're trading all the things we need for the things we want.
Laughing on a sinking ship
To me this song is about the odd feeling you get when you see something completely "normal" and suddenly it clicks in your head how bizarre it is that our society has evolved to allow for such a thing to exist. The world becomes harder and harder to navigate, we have children dying in schools and we have UA-cam stars filming suicide victims, and we encounter it all while juggling our own personal struggles with the world
I'm almost certain the feeling is simply despair
just the inverse of hope
To me the song is about all the normal things we’re experiencing in this digital age, so much of it so seemingly benign and unassuming. The funny feeling is that existential dread, like I think all of this is wrong, I think things are really seriously not ok. Meanwhile, entertainment keeps on churning and capturing our attention and you’re just stuck with that feeling that we’re barreling towards our end but everyone is so thoroughly distracted that I guess you just resign to the fact that the world will end soon and that’s just that.
At the beginning of this video when he is saying he can't play guitar or sing he is making fun of the guy who brings his guitar to the campfire and tries to get people to let him play
The song is a poignant commentary on the absurdity and contradictions of modern life, particularly in the context of digital culture and the pandemic era.
The "funny feeling" referenced in the song can be interpreted as a sense of unease or existential dread that arises from these contradictions. Burnham calls out various aspects of modern society in his lyrics, from the commodification of rebellion to the paradox of using technology to escape from the problems technology itself has exacerbated.
The song reflects a deep sense of disillusionment and alienation, a feeling of being overwhelmed by the paradoxes and absurdities of the world we live in. It's a powerful commentary on the human condition in the digital age, capturing the feelings of confusion, helplessness, and disconnection that many people experience.
Like much of Burnham's work, "That Funny Feeling" uses humor and satire to comment on serious societal issues, presenting a critical view of the world while also acknowledging the complexity and often contradictory nature of modern life.
I think the theme is existential dread stemming from late-stage capitalism
It's a quiet and calm acceptance of the end of the world. (This was during the height of the pandemic)
"That funny feeling" is a subtle sense of something profoundly wrong with all these things in our reality.
The funny feeling has to be existential dread right.
For me, the song is about all of the things we seem to value as a society - celebrities, brands, consumerism - and how none of them are going to save us from whatever eventually wipes us out as a species, whether it's climate change, nuclear war, or something else. And I think Bo's mental health got really messed up from thinking about that.
It’s the end of the work as we know it…. And I feel fine lmao 😂😂😂
multilayered, but i think its about retreating into depression and isolation because of the world and society's progress, or lack thereof. lyrics aren't technically ironic, but a sad bitter juxtaposition, misdirection coupled with dark omens. beautiful song about a sad and complicated topic