bo burnham : “ the funniest thing ” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ( a book on getting better ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by jay doyle ⌂ 1 ☺ 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 this book, please turn to the Endnotes on page 366. 2 If you have read this book before, you may proceed however you wish. This book is an incomplete work in progress. Some chapters are fin - ished, some consist of outlines, drafts, or notes, and others are at present only placeholders. The Author reserves the right to make alter - ations, additions, and abrogations to the text with or without notice at any time. This book assumes that the Reader is familiar with some topics, while it dwells at length on explanations of others. Please feel free to pause to research something at any time. This book is written with a diverse audience in mind, and discusses controversial topics, figures, events, and subject matter that may be up - setting to some readers. Nevertheless, it is designed to open your eyes and change your life. Everything is going to be okay. Got it? Good. Now get INSIDE 2 ⌂ 3 INSIDE 1968 edition 1 st edition of bo burnham: “the funniest thing” published October 10 th , 2023 via Amazon KDP Bo Burnham: INSIDE © 2021 Attic Bedroom Corp. bo burnham: “the funniest thing” © 2023, 2024, 2025 Jay Doyle Back cover photo © 2023 Jay Doyle The Author is not affiliated with Bo Burnham or Netflix. This book was written on the traditional unceded territory of the Nacirema, Naidanac, Cebeuq, and Suonegidni Nations. Paperback ISBN: 9798283601564 Hardcover IS BN: 9798281876599 4 “ [Epigraph redacted.] ” ♫ 3 Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ♫ It isn't “ DON'T PANIC. ” 5 ⌂ 6 for Aly for me for you for bo for mum and dad for everything 7 Table of Content Table of Content ♫ ♫ Opening the Book ............................................................................................. 2 Table of Content ................................................................................................ 8 Book 1: Joking at a Time Like This ............................................................. 14 Entering the Room .......................................................................................... 16 Netflix Presents ............................................................................................... 20 Content, Pt. 1: A Year Ago ............................................................................ 21 Content, Pt. 2: Open Wide ............................................................................. 30 The INSIDE Waltz, Pt. 1: Title Card ............................................................. 40 The INSIDE Waltz, Pt. 2: Opening Credit ................................................... 42 The INSIDE Waltz, Pt. 3: Camera Test ........................................................ 43 Comedy, Pt. 1: WTFIGO? .............................................................................. 61 Comedy, Pt. 2: The Call to Adventure ........................................................ 72 Comedy, Pt. 3: A Jew Walks Into a Bar ....................................................... 81 Comedy, Pt. 4: A Special Kind of White Guy ............................................ 85 ♫ Ha ha ha. 8 Comedy, Pt. 5: Self-Reflected ........................................................................ 87 Comedy, Pt. 6: Privilege for the Good ......................................................... 92 Comedy, Pt. 7: American White Guys ........................................................ 98 Comedy, Pt. 8: Agent of Change ................................................................ 110 Comedy, Pt. 9: Important Jokes .................................................................. 125 Comedy, Pt. 10: A House Full of Smoke ................................................... 144 Comedy, Final: The Centre of Attention ................................................... 167 An Open Window ........................................................................................ 175 Mirror Talk (Whatever This Is) .................................................................. 177 Book 2: This Isn't About You ...................................................................... 186 FaceTime with My Mom (Tonight) ............................................................ 188 Ordinary Grey Days, Pt. 1: The Threshold and the Flight ..................... 216 Ordinary Grey Days, Pt. 2: Hierophany ................................................... 226 Ordinary Grey Days, Pt. 3: Santa Catalina Island ................................... 236 How the World Works, Pt. 1: Set and Setting .......................................... 240 How the World Works, Pt. 2: Suggestions and Secrets .......................... 250 How the World Works, Pt. 3: Sock Puppets and Simulacra .................. 263 How the World Works, Pt. 4: Prelude In Red .......................................... 264 How the World Works, Pt. 5: Simple Narratives .................................... 267 How the World Works, Pt. 6: Rich Fucking White People .................... 272 How the World Works, Pt. 7: Synthesis and Self-Actualization ........... 273 Social Brand Consultant, Pt. 1: In Black and White ................................ 274 Social Brand Consultant, Pt. 2: INSIDE the Black Square ...................... 275 Social Brand Consultant, Pt. 3: Overdue Social Reckoning ................... 276 Social Brand Consultant, Pt. 4: The Right Side of History ..................... 277 9 Social Brand Consultant, Pt. 5: Racism in Theory ................................... 278 Social Brand Consultant, Final: Echoes of the Call ................................. 279 White Woman's Instagram .......................................................................... 280 The Hall of Mirrors, Pt. 1: Nightlight ........................................................ 288 The Hall of Mirrors, Pt. 2: Monomyth ....................................................... 291 The Hall of Mirrors, Pt. 3: An Incredibly Smooth Transition ................ 294 Book 3: Some Deeper Meaning or Something .......................................... 295 The Hall of Mirrors, Final: Daylight .......................................................... 297 STFU ............................................................................................................... 299 Unpaid Intern ................................................................................................ 300 Reaction Video .............................................................................................. 301 Bezos I ............................................................................................................. 302 [Title Redacted] ............................................................................................. 303 Sexting, Pt. 1 .................................................................................................. 304 Sexting, Pt. 2 .................................................................................................. 305 Sexting, Pt. 3 .................................................................................................. 306 Sexting, Final ................................................................................................. 307 Thank You Video (Knife) ............................................................................ 308 Book 4: Much More to Say About It ......................................................... 309 Look Who's Inside Again ............................................................................ 311 Looking Back ................................................................................................. 312 Problematic .................................................................................................... 313 Smoke and Mirrors ....................................................................................... 314 Two Minutes to Midnight (Six Months Inside) ....................................... 315 30 ..................................................................................................................... 318 10 Red Alert (Wellness Check) ........................................................................ 319 Don't Kill Yourself (I'm Not Going to Kill Myself) ................................. 320 Intermission, Pt. 1: Fade to Black ............................................................... 321 Book 5: A Little Bit of Everything ............................................................. 322 Intermission, Pt. 2: Window Washer ......................................................... 324 Don't Wanna Know ...................................................................................... 325 Video Game ................................................................................................... 326 Sleep ................................................................................................................ 327 Shit .................................................................................................................. 328 All Time Low ................................................................................................. 329 Welcome to the Internet .............................................................................. 330 Finish This Special ........................................................................................ 333 Book 6: At Your Door ................................................................................... 334 Bezos II ........................................................................................................... 336 Tragedy Plus Time ....................................................................................... 337 Live Comedy in Crazy Times ..................................................................... 338 That Funny Feeling ....................................................................................... 339 One Year Inside ............................................................................................. 341 Book 7: The Other Side ................................................................................ 342 Mirror Talk (Confession) ............................................................................. 344 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 1: Get Your Fucking Hands Up .............................. 345 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 2: Everybody Knows ................................................ 346 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 3: A Funny Story ....................................................... 347 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 4: The Funniest Thing .............................................. 348 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 5: The Ocean .............................................................. 350 11 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 6: Pray For Me ........................................................... 351 All Eyes On Me, Pt. 7: I'm Talking to You, Get the Fuck Up! ................ 352 All Eyes On Me: Finale ................................................................................ 353 The INSIDE Waltz, Reprise ......................................................................... 354 Goodbye, Pt. 1: Possible Ending Song ....................................................... 355 Goodbye, Pt. 2: How It Ends ....................................................................... 356 Goodbye, Pt. 3: Laughing in the Background .......................................... 357 Goodbye: Grand Finale ................................................................................ 358 The Light Outside, Pt. 1: Leaving the Room ............................................ 359 The Light Outside, Pt. 2: Through the Door ............................................. 360 The Light Outside, Pt. 3: Deus ex Camera .................................................. 361 INSIDE Again ................................................................................................ 362 Any Day Now (End Credits) ...................................................................... 363 Endnotes and Citations ................................................................................ 366 ⌂ 4 12 ⌂ 13 Book One Joking at a Time Like This “ Although of course you end up becoming yourself. ” David Foster Wallace 14 15 ◘ Entering the Room Entering the Room “ Oh good, it’s just us. ” Bo Burnham 5 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 I sit down at the old laptop again to write this. 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 directions. 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 16 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. ” And a little bit of everything else I can think of to go along with it. N ow. We press play, and the Special begins. Light slowly fills 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 elec - tronic 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 ex - panse; the left wall is broken up by the presence of a window. 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. A question. What is the Room? An answer: in the dreamy language of symbols and metaphors, a Room like this can be anything. One Room. Empty and clean. Brimming with 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 fills the Room. Bo Burnham is the master of misdirection. Everything he writes always has some deeper meaning. When this show is categorized as stand-up comedy, we’re primed to have certain expectations. Our brains auto - matically produce a cognitive blind spot, and anything that 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 behind the misdirection. And I'm going to try to bring what's unconscious, what's been forgotten, what's been ignored, what's been hidden, into the light of day. ♪ 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 ... 17 What first? Something we already know. The fact that INSIDE is obvi - ously 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 meticulously choreographed musical one man shows. They were deconstructions and reconstructions of genre and form. They were explorations. 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 electronic - ally-mediated shamanic experience that plunges us into the depths of our own souls. It’s a winding path through the 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 Los Angeles home. ♫ It’s Bo’s workshop. The trailer for what. was filmed there, 6 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 profes - sional musical performance, before he crossed the backyard, 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, unravelling 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 within 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. 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. ♫ 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 . 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. 18 Accompanied by a sound like wings, Bo steps into the Room and closes the door. ⌂ 7 19 ♫ 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. 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 subconscious channels and dig subliminal grooves into our impressionable brains. Now, like canals filling up with 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 Internet, I'll type in Arial , while words I read in a book will appear in Courier New . Dialogue from movies and TV will be rendered in Calibri. Words I wrote will be typeset in Book Antiqua. Finally, quotations attributed to Mr. Burnham himself will appear in Helvetica . This book was drafted first in Google Docs, then typed again into OpenOffice Writer, and was published in - dependently through Amazon KDP. Honestly, thank you for that, Mr. Bezos, it's a great service which I've enjoyed using for a long time. 20