bo burnham : “ the funniest thing ” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ( a book on getting better ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by jay advodei ⌂ 1 bo burnham: “the funniest thing” Socko: An INSIDE Story edition 1 st edition of bo burnham: “the funniest thing” independently published October 10 th , 2023 via Amazon KDP 2 nd edition published 2024 3 rd edition published May, 2025 4 th edition published November 25th, 2025 “ bo burnham: INSIDE ” © 2021 Attic Bedroom Corp. bo burnham: “the funniest thing” © 2023, 2024, 2025 Jay Advodei The Author acknowledges that this book was written on the traditional unceded territory of the Nacirema Peoples who have stewarded this land for generations. The Author is not affiliated with Bo Burnham or Netflix. ISBN: 9798262431199 2 ☺ Opening the Book Opening the Book “ Don't worry, I'm hilarious. ” Bo Burnham 1 Thank you for opening this book. I hope you enjoy it. If this is your first time reading “ the funniest thing ,” please turn to the Endnotes on page 431, 2 and get your second bookmark ready. You should read this book with two bookmarks. This book is unfinished, and is presented “as is.” It represents an attempt to de - scribe something fundamentally indescribable. Some chapters are complete, some consist of outlines, drafts, or notes, and others are at present only placeholders. The Author reserves the right to make alterations, additions, and abrogations to the canonical text with or without notice. The Author also reserves the right to never update the book ever again. We'll see which one happens. This book assumes that the Reader is familiar with certain topics, while it dwells at length on explanations of others. The Reader is expected to pause to research and catch up when necessary. Note that the Author could be wrong . (But of course I don't think I am.) This book is written with no particular audience in mind, and discusses contro - versial subject matter that may be upsetting to some Readers. Some parts may res - onate with you, and some may not. Nevertheless, if you read this book, your life will never be the same again. Everything is going to be okay. Got it? Good. Now get INSIDE 3 Although of course you end up becoming yourself. David Foster Wallace 4 for Aly for me for you for bo for mum and dad for everything 5 ⌂ 6 Tables of Content Tables of Content ♪ ♪ “ “ I wanna start, um, adapting movies into books. Um, because I think that some I wanna start, um, adapting movies into books. Um, because I think that some movies are best read, like movies are best read, like ... ... Kazaam Kazaam ” ” Bo Burnham Bo Burnham 3 3 the funniest thing the funniest thing Opening the Book ................................................................................................................ 3 Tables of Content ................................................................................................................. 7 Book 1: Joking at a Time Like This ................................................................................ 13 Entering the Room ............................................................................................................. 15 Netflix Presents .................................................................................................................. 18 Content, Pt. 1: A Year Ago ............................................................................................... 19 Content, Pt. 2: Open Wide ................................................................................................ 27 The INSIDE Waltz, Pt. 1: Title Card ................................................................................ 36 The INSIDE Waltz, Pt. 2: Opening Credit ...................................................................... 38 The INSIDE Waltz, Pt. 3: Camera Test ........................................................................... 39 Comedy, Pt. 1: WTFIGO? ................................................................................................. 54 Comedy, Pt. 2: The Call to Adventure ........................................................................... 63 Comedy, Pt. 3: A Jew Walks Into a Bar .......................................................................... 71 Comedy, Pt. 4: A Special Kind of White Guy ............................................................... 75 Comedy, Pt. 5: Self-Reflected ........................................................................................... 77 Comedy, Pt. 6: Privilege for the Good ............................................................................ 82 ♪ Ha ha ha. 7 Comedy, Pt. 7: American White Guys ........................................................................... 87 Comedy, Pt. 8: Agent of Change ..................................................................................... 98 Comedy, Pt. 9: Important Jokes ..................................................................................... 110 Comedy, Pt. 10: A House Full of Smoke ...................................................................... 125 Comedy, Final: The Centre of Attention ...................................................................... 144 An Open Window ........................................................................................................... 151 Mirror Talk (Whatever This Is) ...................................................................................... 152 Book 2: This Isn't About You ......................................................................................... 159 FaceTime with My Mom (Tonight) ............................................................................... 161 Ordinary Grey Days, Pt. 1: The Threshold and the Flight ........................................ 184 Ordinary Grey Days, Pt. 2: Hierophany ...................................................................... 193 Ordinary Grey Days, Pt. 3: Santa Catalina Island ...................................................... 201 How the World Works, Pt. 1: Set and Setting ............................................................. 204 How the World Works, Pt. 2: Suggestions and Secrets ............................................. 213 How the World Works, Pt. 3: Sock Puppets and Simulacra ..................................... 224 How the World Works, Pt. 4: Preamble in Red .......................................................... 233 How the World Works, Pt. 5: Simple Narratives (The Pedagogy of INSIDE ) ....... 253 How the World Works, Final: Self-Actualization ....................................................... 289 Social Brand Consultant, Pt. 1: An Area of Grey ........................................................ 305 Social Brand Consultant, Pt. 2: The Black Square of INSIDE .................................... 307 Social Brand Consultant, Pt. 3: Overdue Social Reckoning ...................................... 309 Social Brand Consultant, Pt. 4: The Right Side of History ........................................ 311 Social Brand Consultant, Final: Echoes of the Call .................................................... 313 White Woman's Instagram ............................................................................................. 315 Book 3: Some Deeper Meaning or Something ............................................................. 326 The Hall of Mirrors, Pt. 1: Nightlight ........................................................................... 328 The Hall of Mirrors, Pt. 2: Daylight .............................................................................. 334 8 STFU .................................................................................................................................. 336 Unpaid Intern ................................................................................................................... 337 Reaction Video ................................................................................................................. 338 Bezos I ................................................................................................................................ 339 [Title Redacted] ................................................................................................................ 342 Sexting ............................................................................................................................... 343 Thank You Video (Knife) ................................................................................................ 345 Book 4: Much More to Say About It ............................................................................ 346 Look Who's Inside Again ............................................................................................... 348 Looking Back .................................................................................................................... 349 Problematic ....................................................................................................................... 350 Smoke and Mirrors .......................................................................................................... 351 Two Minutes to Midnight (Six Months Inside) .......................................................... 352 30 ........................................................................................................................................ 355 30, Aftermath: Red Alert/Wellness Check .................................................................. 356 Don't Kill Yourself (I'm Not Going to Kill Myself) .................................................... 357 Book 5: A Little Bit of Everything ................................................................................ 358 Intermission (Window Washer) .................................................................................... 360 Don't Wanna Know ......................................................................................................... 361 Video Game ...................................................................................................................... 362 Sleep ................................................................................................................................... 363 Shit ...................................................................................................................................... 364 All Time Low .................................................................................................................... 365 Welcome to the Internet .................................................................................................. 366 Book 6: At Your Door ...................................................................................................... 368 Finish This Special ........................................................................................................... 370 Bezos II .............................................................................................................................. 371 9 Tragedy Plus Time ........................................................................................................... 372 Live Comedy in Crazy Times ........................................................................................ 373 That Funny Feeling .......................................................................................................... 376 One Year INSIDE ............................................................................................................. 378 Book 7: The Other Side ................................................................................................... 402 Mirror Talk (Confession) ................................................................................................ 404 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 1: Get Your Fucking Hands Up ................................................. 405 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 2: Where Everybody Knows ...................................................... 411 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 3: A Funny Story .......................................................................... 412 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 4: The Funniest Thing, Reprise .................................................. 413 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 5: The Ocean ................................................................................. 415 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 6: Pray For Me .............................................................................. 416 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 7: I'm Talking to You, Get the Fuck Up!!!!!!! ............................ 417 All Eyes On Me: Finale ................................................................................................... 418 The INSIDE Waltz, Reprise ............................................................................................ 419 Goodbye, Pt. 1: Possible Ending Song .......................................................................... 421 Goodbye, Pt. 2: How It Ends .......................................................................................... 422 Goodbye, Pt. 3: Laughing in the Background ............................................................. 423 Goodbye: Grand Finale ................................................................................................... 424 The Light Outside, Pt. 1: Leaving the Room ............................................................... 425 The Light Outside, Pt. 2: Through the Door ................................................................ 426 The Light Outside, Pt. 3: Deus ex Camera ..................................................................... 427 INSIDE Again ................................................................................................................... 428 Any Day Now (End Credits) ......................................................................................... 429 Endnotes and Citations ................................................................................................. 431 The INSIDE Outtakes Interludes Table of Content The Beginning ......................................................................................................................... 433 Bezos III ................................................................................................................................... 436 The Future ............................................................................................................................... 438 10 The First Month ...................................................................................................................... 440 Content BTS ............................................................................................................................ 442 Morning ................................................................................................................................... 449 Comedy BTS ........................................................................................................................... 453 Feel Good ................................................................................................................................ 459 Facetime/Jeans ....................................................................................................................... 472 Brand/HTWW/Little Joke Song/Moist ............................................................................. 481 Bezos II Alt .............................................................................................................................. 509 Read a Book or Something .................................................................................................... 511 Five Years ................................................................................................................................ 521 Trying to Be Funny ................................................................................................................ 522 White Woman's Instagram BTS ........................................................................................... 523 The Podcast ............................................................................................................................. 526 Bezos I BTS .............................................................................................................................. 527 Sexting/Teeth/Be Yourself .................................................................................................. 527 Biden ........................................................................................................................................ 528 Youtube Kid ............................................................................................................................ 528 Problematic Alt ....................................................................................................................... 528 Spider ....................................................................................................................................... 529 Now .......................................................................................................................................... 529 This Isn't A Joke ..................................................................................................................... 529 Goodbye/30 BTS .................................................................................................................... 529 Camera ..................................................................................................................................... 529 The Drone ................................................................................................................................ 530 Shit BTS .................................................................................................................................... 531 The Perfect Peanut Butter Sandwich ................................................................................... 531 Who Knows ............................................................................................................................ 531 Welcome to the Internet BTS ................................................................................................ 531 The Dump ............................................................................................................................... 532 This Feeling ............................................................................................................................. 532 That Funny Feeling Alt Angle .............................................................................................. 532 Time Passing ........................................................................................................................... 533 Bezos IV ................................................................................................................................... 533 mise en abyme ........................................................................................................................ 533 All Eyes On Me BTS ............................................................................................................... 533 All Eyes On Me Alt ................................................................................................................ 552 Stopping .................................................................................................................................. 552 Goodbye Alt ............................................................................................................................ 555 The Chicken ............................................................................................................................ 556 The ICU ................................................................................................................................... 556 The End .................................................................................................................................... 561 All Eyes On Me: The Funniest Thing, Reprise Entering the Room/ Jesus Christ Superstar .......................................................................... 534 Netflix Presents/ Slate Star Codex ...................................................................................... 536 Content/ Eco ........................................................................................................................... 536 The INSIDE Waltz/ Understanding Media .................................................................. 536 Comedy/ www.sunsigns.org ................................................................................................ 537 An Open Window/ NIV ........................................................................................................ 538 11 Mirror Talk (Whatever This Is)/ Community ....................................................................... 538 FaceTime With My Mom (Tonight)/ Maps of Meaning .............................................. 538 Ordinary Grey Days .............................................................................................................. 542 How the World Works/ Scott Adams ................................................................................. 542 Social Brand Consultant/ Tim Dillon ................................................................................... 543 White Woman's Instagram/ Mrs. Erika Kirk ....................................................................... 543 The Hall of Mirrors/ Community ........................................................................................... 543 STFU ......................................................................................................................................... 544 Unpaid Intern/ The Hidden Jesus ................................................................................ 544 Reaction Video/ Community .................................................................................................. 544 Bezos I/ Made You Look .................................................................................................... 544 The Creation of INSIDE / Scott Adams ............................................................................... 545 Sexting ..................................................................................................................................... 545 Thank You Video (Knife) ...................................................................................................... 546 Look Who's Inside Again ...................................................................................................... 546 Looking Back .......................................................................................................................... 546 Problematic/ Joe Rogan ....................................................................................................... 546 Smoke and Mirrors/Nietzsche ............................................................................................ 546 Two Minutes to Midnight (Six Months INSIDE ) ............................................................... 546 30 .............................................................................................................................................. 547 Don't Kill Yourself (I'm Not Gonna Kill Myself)/ Tim Dillon ........................................... 547 Intermission/ KJV ................................................................................................................... 547 Don't Wanna Know ............................................................................................................... 547 Video Game ............................................................................................................................ 547 Sleep/folklore ......................................................................................................................... 548 Shit ............................................................................................................................................ 548 All Time Low/ Joe Rogan .................................................................................................... 548 Welcome to the Internet/ SCP-1425 ................................................................................... 548 Finish This Special/ Community ............................................................................................ 550 Bezos II .................................................................................................................................... 550 Tragedy Plus Time ................................................................................................................. 550 Live Comedy In Crazy Times .............................................................................................. 551 That Funny Feeling/ Tim Dillon ............................................................................................ 551 One Year INSIDE .................................................................................................................... 551 Mirror Talk (Confession)/ KJV ............................................................................................. 552 All Eyes On Me ....................................................................................................................... 552 The INSIDE Waltz, Reprise ................................................................................................... 552 Goodbye .................................................................................................................................. 552 The Light Outside .................................................................................................................. 552 INSIDE Again ......................................................................................................................... 552 Any Day Now ......................................................................................................................... 552 ⌂ 12 Book One Joking at a Time Like This This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. ☺ Douglas Adams , The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ☺ DON'T PANIC 13 ⌂ 14 ⌂ Entering the Room Entering the Room “ Oh good, it’s just us. ” Bo Burnham 4 I don’t know what it’s going to be like to write this book. I don’t know what it’s going to be like to read it. I can already tell that it's going to be weird. I know that it's going to change me. Now ... I remember how it began. I need to find out how it ends. January 1 st , 2022 Who am I? You can call me Jay. I’m 27 years old. I'm Canadian. I'm a White Male. And I've watched “ bo burnham: INSIDE ” on Netflix twenty-six times. Once for each letter of the alphabet. That might seem strange, but I have a good reason. When INSIDE came out on May 30 th last year, I fell under its spell at once. I was already primed to notice its subtle clues, and follow its hidden direc - tions. I was prepared to embark on a secret journey of healing, and learning, and discovery. Now I’m ready to tell you all about it. And I’m ready to go a little crazy in the process. So why did you pick up this book? Most likely you’re curious. You watched “ bo burnham: INSIDE .” You probably wouldn’t be reading this if you hadn’t. Maybe you’ve sat through the Special a hundred times, and maybe you’ve only watched it once. Either way, you were curious enough to open this book. How deep does this rabbit hole go, and what might we find at the bottom of it? What’s all of this going to be about? Well. “ A musical comedy special shot and performed by Bo Burnham, alone, over the course of a very unusual year. ” 5 And a little bit of everything else I can think of to go along with it. Now. We sit back, relax, take a deep breath, and press play. And the Special begins. 15 Light slowly reveals a Room, like a curtain rising over a stage. The floor of the Room is polished wood . The walls are pale, and converge into a shape like ⌂. There is a dresser pushed against the left wall, and a heavy mirrored desk on the right. In the middle of the Room is an electronic piano, and a wooden chair. ♪ On the back wall, in the upper-right corner, there's an air conditioning unit. ☺ The right wall is one bare expanse; the left wall is broken up by the presence of a win - dow. Finally, set into the left corner of the back wall, is the door. Slightly ajar, it lets in the light from outside. That is what we see in the Room. Now, what is it that we hear? A soft, eerie, high-pitched ringing sound, gently rising, “ like a Shepard's Tone .” A question. What is the Room? An answer: in the dreamy language of symbols and metaphors, a Room like this contains all the complexity of the subjective human experience. One Room. Empty and clean. Brimming with opportunity and potential. A soft, eerie ringing fills the air. Curiosity builds within us, welling up as we stare at the screen, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for Bo. Our eyes move from the dresser, to the desk, to the keyboard, to the empty chair, to the wall shaped like a ⌂ . And then, to the door. There is a light outside the door. The door opens. The light outside floods the Room. Bo Burnham is the master of misdirection. Everything he writes always has some deeper meaning. When this show is framed as a comedy, we’re primed to have certain expectations. Our brains automatically produce a cognitive blind spot, and what doesn’t fit into that neat category slips under the radar and into the realm of the unconscious. In this book, I’m going to tell you what I saw when I looked past the misdirection, behind the curtain, and through the magnifying glass. And I'm going to try to bring what's unconscious, what's been forgotten, what's been ig - nored, what's been hidden, into the light of day. What first? Something we already know. The fact that INSIDE is obviously not really stand-up comedy. That’s just what we’re told to expect when we open the show on Netflix, setting up those very expectations to be later subverted. But Bo Burnham's other comedy specials weren’t really stand-up either. They were me - ticulously choreographed musical one man shows. They were deconstructions and reconstructions of genre and form. They were explorations. They were char - acter studies. They were art. INSIDE is all of that, and much, much more. INSIDE is maybe better understood as a guided meditation. A solipsistic psychic roller coaster. An ARG. A tesseract. An electronically-mediated shamanic experience that plunges us into the depths of our own souls. It’s a winding path through the ♪ The chair is a hypnotic device, the first of many such images and symbols, whose purpose is to extract a microcompliance from the viewer. We look, and wait, and we almost become impatient in our focus, and we imagine being in the Room ourselves, sitting, playing piano, waiting ... ☺ This is important. 16 iconic Room, and through the world, that we walk, metaphorically, with Bo at our sides. What is the Room? It’s the guest house in the backyard of Bo Burnham and Lorene Scafaria’s 6 Los Angeles home. ♫ It’s Bo’s workshop. The trailer for what. was filmed there, 7 all the way back in 2013. And it’s where the epilogue of Bo's last special, Make Happy , was recorded. There was a film crew then, immortalizing his last moments of professional musical performance, before he crossed the back - yard, and went home to his girlfriend and his dog. Now it’s just him, alone in the Room with a camera. Alone in the Room with all of us. What is the Room? It’s the setting of the film. It’s a symbol of Bo’s mind, unravel - ling as he works to create the Special. It’s a reflection of the world, trapped and afraid, vibrating with chaos and opportunity. And it’s a symbol of our minds; the minds of the individual audience members, and the work that Bo does deep with - in them. We will watch him create the Special, and achieve self-actualization. And when he’s finished, and the Room is empty and clean again, our own selves can be comforted, and healed, and strengthened, and realized. When we’re healed as individuals, we will become capable of healing those around us. First our families and friends. Then our communities. Our towns and cities. Our nations and our broken systems. The whole entire world. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be simple. It won’t happen overnight. It won't happen all at the same time. We might all die before it happens. But we ought to believe that we can do it anyway. If that’s something that you’re ready for, all you have to do is keep reading. Accompanied by a sound like wings, Bo steps into the Room and closes the door. ⌂ ♫ That house, built in 1919, and located at 1428 North Genesee Ave, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A., is also where A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) was filmed way back when . Lorene and Bo no longer live there; they sold the place in January of 2022, according to a public Zillow.com listing of the property. 17 ♫ Netflix Presents Netflix Presents “ I misdirect the audience, so they have no idea where they are or who they're listening to. ” Bo Burnham 8 And the show begins. 9 Amid a black background, the nondescript text “ netflix presents ” ♪ appears in a white sans-serif font in the middle of the screen. The eerie ringing that we heard a moment ago served a subtle purpose: to carve subcon - scious channels and dig subliminal grooves into our impressionable brains. Now, like canals filling up with rushing water, those grooves are flooded with the steady electronic beat of the opening number. ⌂ ♪ Right off the bat, I'll let you know that words I quote in this book that I found on the Inter - net, whether text or transcribed voice, I'll type in Arial , while words I read in a book will ap - pear in the olde typewriter font of Courier New . Dialogue from movies and TV will be rendered in Calibri. Words that I myself wrote will be typeset in Book Antiqua. Finally, quo - tations attributed to Mr. Burnham himself will appear in Helvetica . This won't be a hard and fast rule, aesthetics and the conveyance of meaning will trump anything else. The main text is set in 10.5 font. Footnotes are set in 9 and the Endnotes are in 10. Chapter headings are in 18 pt. Book Antiqua and/or Helvetica. The page is 16.99 cm or 6.69 in wide, and 24.41 cm or 9.61 in tall with inner margins of 2.24 cm, outer margins of 1.27 cm, top margins of 1.27 cm, and bottom margins of 0.89 cm. This book was drafted first in Google Docs, then typed again into OpenOffice Writer, and was published independently, though not exactly reluctantly, through Amazon KDP. When I find a suitable host for the online version of this book, I'll acknowledge that here. 18 ◙ Content Content , Pt. 1 , Pt. 1 A Year Ago A Year Ago “ I'm the guy that, you know, is already kind of shut in in his head, and now that I'm like encouraged by the government to be in my own head, that feels like not the ideal ... ” Bo Burnham 10 I believe that when Robert ♫ Pickering Burnham entered the Room in March of 2020, he did so embodying the archetype of the Heroic Trickster. ☺ Fresh-faced and open-minded, like the Fool on a Tarot card, ☻ Bo took a leap of faith and began his adventure: the solitary adventure of creating INSIDE . Now, in this cold open, this prologue of sorts, we come to him in medias res ; partway through his journey, but with a long road still ahead of him. As the song's opening beat grounds us, we open with Bo sitting in the middle of the Room, the camera's view close up to fill our screens with his presence. He's framed and illuminated by a single bright rectangular light set up on a tripod be - side him. At this flash-forward point in the narrative, Bo is already displaying the effects of prolonged isolation. His hair and beard are artfully unkempt, and his plain white T-shirt and shorts, though clean, speak of somebody who's stopped ♫ From the Old German Hrodebert , meaning “bright fame” or “glory,” Robert is Bo's legal Christian name, and with its use, we're already establishing the blurry divide between Bo's many selves: the writer/director/editor of the movie, the performer playing his parts, and the character and persona that we actually watch on the screen. ☺ Bo does much the same thing at the beginning of Make Happy , when he begins the show by rising from a hotel room bed in full clown makeup, complete with a big red nose. In mytho - logical terms, the Fool is the precursor to the Hero. ☻ With his little dog too? 19 caring about what they look like. But we always remember that this is a perform - ance. Even though Bo will appear to be being brutally honest, it must surely be blended with a cultivated fiction. Like every other facet of the Special, each aes - thetic decision that he makes, consciously or by coincidence, seems to have a pur - pose. Although, he, uhhh ... looks like he might be going a little crazy. Bo begins the opening number, “ Content ,” by having us cast our minds back in time, imagining how we would have reacted to a spoiler alert of the pandemic. “ If you'd have told me A year ago That I'd be locked inside of my home... (Ah-ah-ah!) I would've told you A year ago Interesting, now leave me alone ” The costuming for this scene brings us back to the depths of the Covid-19 lock - downs, when it felt like there was no point in getting dressed in the morning. It hits a little different for me than it might for others. I was already on the edge of my seat in December of 2019, abreast of every conspiracy theory under the moon. I was swallowing every piece of esoteric trivia that I could find, from the wildest alt-history to the most mundane commercial schemes. Like what? Glad you asked. When you walk into a grocery store, the fruits and vegetables are found at the front of the shop, so as to prime us into unconsciously assuming that everything else in the store is fresh. And then, the everyday essentials like milk and eggs are hidden away in the back corner, so we're forced to walk through the whole store, giving in to impulse buys along the way. Just like a casino, there are no windows or clocks in those stores, so we forget our connection to the outside world, waste more time, and spend more money. What else? I heard that the mirrors in depart - ment store changing rooms are specially rigged to make us look slimmer when trying on clothes. How about hostile architecture? Those benches with the jagged, uncomfortable designs that make it impossible for a homeless guy to spend the night on them? Yeah, just because the city painted a Progress Pride flag on them doesn't mean the status quo isn't being rigidly enforced. ☺ I also read of deeper, darker, more unbelievable things. How the Flat Earth con - spiracy theory could itself be the product of a psy-op to discredit other, more credible, more interesting, conspiracy theories. K ennedy and the CIA. The Titanic , insurance fraud and the Federal Reserve. How General Motors killed the first electric cars. Pizza and comets. Space lasers blasting wildfires into the California ☺ Not that I have any ideas on what to do about anything. 20