Bo Burnham has been a bit quiet lately, but it would seem he’s been busy behind the scenes. He just uploaded about an hour of footage that was filmed during the making of his 2021 Netflix special Inside. Referred to as Inside Outtakes, you can find the new compilation of footage on his YouTube channel.
Bo Burnham has had a bit of an unusual career trajectory. He was known for goofy yet clever rhymes on YouTube in his early days. Those videos made him a star, but that didn’t come without a price. Looking back on Bo’s early work, it’s pretty clear that he was just some young kid in his room, saying the edgiest stuff he could think of in the smartest way possible. Almost the rest of his career has consisted of him grappling with that. He’s done everything from comedy specials to even directing a film.
Each one of his specials moving forward showed growth, both in his craft and in his sense of self. He put away the shock humor for something more personal, and potentially more painful. His output became sparser. His rise to superstardom had obviously gotten to him. Perhaps the culmination of that so far is his special Inside.
Inside is essentially a journey inward, into Bo as a person; into the decaying facade of a late-stage capitalist world in decline. We see Bo taking on things like the internet, his former self, internalized racism, and a whole slew of other topics which can quickly become uncomfortable. But Bo deals with all of these things masterfully, in the best way he knows how. That’s through humor.
Recorded entirely in his house during the early pandemic quarantine of 2020, the special sees a reflective Bo face-to-face with many of his own demons. He also deals with some of the demons in our culture, the collective psyche of everyone who also spent that time “inside.”
Bo took to Instagram to announce Inside Outtakes, saying:
a year ago today, i released a special called inside. i’ve spent the last few months editing together material that i shot for the special but didn’t end up using. it will be on my youtube channel in one hour. i hope you enjoy it.
You can find The Inside Outtakes on Bo’s Youtube channel right here.
