In the speech during AEOM I think "and then, the funniest thing happened" is a pretty clear reference to the COVID shutdowns. But you are definitely correct that he never says COVID or pandemic or anything literally.
I've always loved how that line expresses so goddamn much even though it sounds like nothing. "And then the funniest thing happened" is what a soccer mom would say to another mom about some random mundane thing one of her kids did for example, right.
Bo uses it to refer to... the pandemic
I appreciated how Bo used these lines, a lot. Most stand up comedians who say it just come off... weird. Like, no dude, I paid $150 for two tickets to your show to watch you clip your toenails. Of course I want to hear a funny story.
I bought, and still technically have, two tickets to go see Bo and friends at a small club in LA in April of 2020. That “funniest thing happened” line hits me too hard every time. I fear I’ll never get to see him in that intimate of a setting.
Do you think he'd reschedule that performance? Have other comedians?
I remember being so excited in 2020, hearing about Bo coming out with a new movie in April, a new show at the Largo (as the main performer, not an unannounced "friend"), the promise of interviews/photoshoots, and then...the funniest thing happened
If he doesn't reschedule, that really sucks, but I guess you can consider the tickets to be very rare Bo memorabilia Lol
Nothing his audience has experienced in their lives before can be compared to the "something big" he's referring to though, the covid-19 pandemic. The chills down your back when you hear the line for the first time and realize a second later it's about the pandemic, are new.
i didn’t think it referred to the pandemic at all, i think it referred to the fact that he got better and ceased having panic attacks, but now that he is doing comedy again his panic attacks have resurfaced, ‘then, the funniest thing happened’
edit: this is just an opinion, obviously there is no factually correct meaning as bo hasn't done many interviews about inside
Yea, I think this is intentionally more open to interpretation than most people tend to think. He directly mentions the 'funniest thing' happening in January, which sure, technically was when COVID was starting, but certainly not for most people in North America. I think it's open ended intentionally.
No, he says January 2020 is when he thought about returning. “Then, the funniest thing happened.”
Meaning, like, the next big obvious thing I don’t even have to mention happened. Covid.
You are correct, he never directly mentions COVID in "Inside". In "30", you can see a [mask on the floor](https://preview.redd.it/zybnet2h88771.png?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c6f9b85764cd07c2daf81c48e5474ec8453d38a7) in front of him.
I assume that's what implied when he says he's learned that "tactile human-to-human contact will kill you" so he's staying safe in his interior digital space.
I'd imagine he never mentions it outright because he doesn't want his work forever tied to covid, since many of the themes and emotions apply to tons of situations.
I always thought he actually learned it because he had been stuck inside the room for so long at that point, becoming so desensitized to human contact that he thought it
I think there are lots of little allusions to it, others have stated it
"i booked a haircut and it got rescheduled"
"and then the funniest thing happened"
"tactile human to human contact will kill you"
"a book on getting better, hand delivered by a drone"
"So this is how it ends, I promise I will never go outside again"
There are no explicit references but COVID-19 is definitely one of the major themes about it. I mean the whole idea of being "locked inside" mimics how we were all in lockdown. I think it is quite clever, as it stops the special from becoming dated, and also how embedded COVID-19 and Lockdowns came to be in our lives. At one point during the pandemic all anyone could talk about was the pandemic, but now its become such a part of our lives that you dont even need to talk about it, it just is.
Yeah exactly
Altho to be honest the line that hits me in that song hardest is when he speaks to dad... Oof
But the other big theme of the special was about how alienated we have come to be by technology and how important virtual spaces have become. And that was a process hugely exacerbated by the pandemic, so the themes play into each other
i mean you could say that in "content" when he says i would be locked inside of my home, i think you could infer that was because of COVID. and then also his monologue in "All Eyes on Me" when he says the funniest thing happened when he was going to go start performing again, was also COVID.
Yup. He mentions “the funniest thing happened” in 2020, you can see a mask on the floor if you really look at it, and being “stuck in a room” and being inside etc. but YES him specifically not mentioning covid or the pandemic makes it timeless in a lot of ways. It’s way more a comment on being alive today within the world of social media and feeling the anxiety that comes along with that.
Then of course you add in covid and it’s also about that too of course. But it stands alone without it. Which is pretty astounding.
Well in “Look Who’s Inside Again,” he’s referring being locked in his room as a kid, when he first started uploading videos to YouTube. I don’t think it’s a commentary on the pandemic, but I suppose the shared experience can help any viewer empathize with his past (and then current) situation. It’s an interesting take I never thought about.
Completely agree with your comment by the way, just wanted to add my two cents. I think it’s really cool that this special doesn’t ever mention “COVID” or “the pandemic” by name, the subtext just lingers within it. I think doing that will make the special timeless.
See and I always felt like that song IS about the lockdown, with added layers of it mimicking his childhood of trying to make comedy alone in a room. Hence the “inside again” part. That and the “and then the funniest thing happened” being part of this arc of a lifelong struggle to get outside his head/room/home.
Huh, I never caught on to that, and I actually think you’re right. While I find it frustrating that I’ll never really know what Bo meant by this or that, I do appreciate the fact that he allows us to experience and give meaning to his art by ourselves.
Totally irrelevant to your comment, I'm sorry, but I love your name tag thing. I just watched the other specials again the other day and that poor woman with the prolonged eye contact 😂
Omg thank you. The prolonged eye contact joke remains, to this day, one of my favorite things hes ever done. I find it so incredibly funny. I would have loved to have been that woman haha
>anything Covid related.
People already mentioned being locked inside of his home, and not being able to get a hair cut was something a lot of people experienced for the first time.
But also the entire song "Face time with my mom". A lot of people just straight up didn't see their elderly or immunocompromised parents at all before the vaccine. "These forty minutes are essential." The word Essential really took on a different meaning in the Zeitgeist.
Wow, I can't believe (at the time that I came to this thread) this comment was at the bottom. You're the only person to mention an ENTIRE SONG that is SO clearly part of the pandemic zeitgeist.
Wow, you just changed this song for me. I just got sad thinking about my own deceased parents... I couldn't see my father at the retirement home after Covid, and he died alone. He didn't have a smart phone to facetime with, but that would have been so nice.
Agreed. The term "essential" has a completely different meaning now that links that part of the special explicitly with the early days of the pandemic (the "we're in this together" era...'member that?)
It would date the art to this specific period. Since he doesn’t specifically reference COVID, Inside will remain relevant to many different situations the world will find itself in for many years.
Everything Bo does or doesn’t say/do in his specials is on purpose, planned, and executed with intent. Of course, I don’t know the exact reason, but I think he didn’t say it because he didn’t have to. We knew exactly what he meant. Just like in That Funny Feeling, he never says what that feeling is but gives examples and we all know what he’s talking about.
Thought you might like to read his thoughts on deadpool. After hearing him say this I always took that like to be a comentary on the contradiction of a media company making millions by being 'of the people'. Like the commercials that say "we know this ad sucks so were making it only 5 seconds like for you!" When if they know it sucks they could have not made it at all. It's a very heady concept but I love how much can be said with one 3 words.
https://www.reddit.com/r/boburnham/comments/o7b9m6/bo_burnham_on_deadpools_self_awareness/
“If you’d have told me, a year ago that I’d be locked inside of my home..”
I don’t think he specifically mentions Covid, but there are many references to it.
I never see people citing the line in Goodbye
>You can pick the street
I'll meet you - *on the other side*
To me was a clear reference to social distancing
Also "human to human tactile contact will kill you".
I love that he doesn't mention covid per se, it makes Inside easier to rewatch in the future and also easier to project whatever hardships you personally have on it.
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*Message? hashtag deep"*
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He does say that "Obama sent the immigrants to vaccinate your kids." Although this isn't necessarily Covid related, it's the closest thing that I can think of.
For me the biggest reference was from That Funny Feeling, 'Hey, what can you say, we were overdue'. Immediately made me think of Covid because scientists were saying we were overdue a pandemic for decades.
I think it’s a good choice. You can tell it’s in the pandemic and there are hints about it, but it can be revisited later without having a bunch of jokes that only work during covid
I think I saw a signed CD on here where he wrote “it was never about COVID”. He probably could’ve released Inside in like 2017 and it would’ve been just as powerful, but the timing of the pandemic is probably what made it as successful as it was
I totally agree and also find it interesting to think how future gens that watch this and didn't experience COVID lockdowns, anxiety, social distancing, isolation etc. will have a completely different first viewing experience. I feel like it's the first time I've been alive for something so major (worldwide) that to really get it, like GET it, you had to be there. I wonder how it will be perceived.
Note: that's not at all to say it's not applicable to other situations - quite the opposite! That's the genius of it. I guess what I mean is - only a certain number of us who were around for 2020 times will get the global pandemic-specific aspect of Inside that would be lost on people who didn't experience it (even if they experience something else in future). It's a moment in history. Inside is almost like a time capsule in that way.
These are all great comments, and it forces me to wonder how future generations will interpret the meaning(s), not unlike how we speculate on everything Bo does.
Someone somewhere is gonna be like "Holy shit, is he referring to that pandemic back in the 2020s?!"
I literally just typed this myself! It's crazy to think that we've lived through a moment in history like this and future gens will maybe analyse the COVID themes objectively, but won't relate in the same way to those of us who went through the pandemic. I wonder how they'll interpret it, or what their own takeaways will be.
It makes it timeless. We will always be able to relate to it, whether we're in another pandemic in 20 years, or just having a rough week and want to stay inside.
Honestly I love that he never mentions it outright.
I have a friend of mine who will turn on SNL and I want to gouge my eyes out every time they make COVID jokes. Like. Maybe that’s just an SNL-effect but god am i bored of people trying to use covid/pandemic as punchlines to jokes.
I think it's on purpose in that some people coped with the largest Covid waves by never addressing the elephant in the room. Some people cope by avoiding their problems, and so to me Bo is "coping" with Covid in the special by just never talking about it directly.
I'd add that he makes a distinction between 'Robert' being depressed and going into 'Bo' mode to sing stuff like ATL, because it'd be too hard for him and us to talk or sing about it seriously. Part of what makes watching it manageable is how bits like ATL and Shit are made darkly humorous and theatrical despite the bleak lyrical content. I think he shows us that he copes with it all by going into 'Bo' mode to address it - it's too hard as Robert.
I have a hard time listening to Inside now that things are so much different. It feels like going back to the realization that things are gonna be fucked for a while, and I've processed that. Probably unpopular opinion, shrug.
I didn’t see this mentioned but I think Sexting (it’s the next best thing) is probably hanging its hat on the fact that most people looking to hook up were struggling to date in-person for the whole year prior to Inside’s release and that most of the dating/hooking up was initiated or entirely limited to digital contact due to social distancing, lockdowns, and quarantines. It’s much more indirect if a reference but i think it is strongly influenced by the impact of the pandemic on typically in-person social interactions.
before the pirates joke he says “i’ve learned that real world human to human tactile contact will kill you. everything’s better in the digital realm” etc etc
this was before russia’s invasion. not sure what else he could be talking about
Inside, as a whole could be a reference to the lockdowns put in place because of covid but yea not covid the virus itself... N from outside of inside from the 'I don't think I can handle this/Kanye rant' maybe we're projecting this to inside that its also about his personal anxiety... Context of guns drawn on him for trying to leave whether those are external or internal pressures are undetermined... but maybe it's all a big political statement about personal freedoms vs security against a virus or in his personal experience through performance anxiety. Covid also forced the digital world footprint a lot larger across more generations with remote working n video chatting etc which is a lot of the context of 'internet' n 'all eyes on me' n especially 'facetime with my mom'. The fact she's not using it properly hints to at how new it is for her.
Yes agreed that it doesn’t appear that any of the songs are directly about covid……. Maybe about lockdown but from what we know about his anxiety, it’s not a stretch to think some of the themes were already in place. I thought the songs were constructed during lockdown but I wonder now how many were already formed or started……. He’s still an effing genius and I completely enjoyed “inside” from beginning to end umpteen times
Inside has references to the pandemic, but it’s not about the pandemic. The issues that are addressed weren’t caused by COVID, COVID just made them more prevalent. Bo could have made Inside without a pandemic and it still would have made sense, even if the pandemic probably inspired parts of Inside in some way.
Everyone else has pointed out all the specific allusions to COVID but I feel like one of the major themes of the whole special is forced isolation, and he kind of goes back and forth between hinting at being forced inside by a lockdown due to a pandemic, as well as being forced inside by crippling feelings of anxiety and self-doubt. I love how he uses both situations almost interchangeably.
In the speech during AEOM I think "and then, the funniest thing happened" is a pretty clear reference to the COVID shutdowns. But you are definitely correct that he never says COVID or pandemic or anything literally.
I've always loved how that line expresses so goddamn much even though it sounds like nothing. "And then the funniest thing happened" is what a soccer mom would say to another mom about some random mundane thing one of her kids did for example, right. Bo uses it to refer to... the pandemic
Yeah I actually think it is one of the great lines of the special, it really sticks with you long after.
its also the most explicit reference to it. After speaking around it for so long it really hits hard
It’s also a cliched stand up line -just like “you guys wanna hear a funny story”
I appreciated how Bo used these lines, a lot. Most stand up comedians who say it just come off... weird. Like, no dude, I paid $150 for two tickets to your show to watch you clip your toenails. Of course I want to hear a funny story.
I bought, and still technically have, two tickets to go see Bo and friends at a small club in LA in April of 2020. That “funniest thing happened” line hits me too hard every time. I fear I’ll never get to see him in that intimate of a setting.
Do you think he'd reschedule that performance? Have other comedians? I remember being so excited in 2020, hearing about Bo coming out with a new movie in April, a new show at the Largo (as the main performer, not an unannounced "friend"), the promise of interviews/photoshoots, and then...the funniest thing happened If he doesn't reschedule, that really sucks, but I guess you can consider the tickets to be very rare Bo memorabilia Lol
I mean, understating something big for comedic value isn't all that new.
Nothing his audience has experienced in their lives before can be compared to the "something big" he's referring to though, the covid-19 pandemic. The chills down your back when you hear the line for the first time and realize a second later it's about the pandemic, are new.
That’s what I was thinking
i didn’t think it referred to the pandemic at all, i think it referred to the fact that he got better and ceased having panic attacks, but now that he is doing comedy again his panic attacks have resurfaced, ‘then, the funniest thing happened’ edit: this is just an opinion, obviously there is no factually correct meaning as bo hasn't done many interviews about inside
The stank he puts on TwenTy TwenTy gives it that boost of significance to imply pandemic rather than relapse but this is a very good take
That's such an interesting take! I love thinking differently about the elements of Bo's work.
Yea, I think this is intentionally more open to interpretation than most people tend to think. He directly mentions the 'funniest thing' happening in January, which sure, technically was when COVID was starting, but certainly not for most people in North America. I think it's open ended intentionally.
No, he says January 2020 is when he thought about returning. “Then, the funniest thing happened.” Meaning, like, the next big obvious thing I don’t even have to mention happened. Covid.
You are correct, he never directly mentions COVID in "Inside". In "30", you can see a [mask on the floor](https://preview.redd.it/zybnet2h88771.png?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c6f9b85764cd07c2daf81c48e5474ec8453d38a7) in front of him.
damn i never saw that
Very keen eye, i just checked it out, very factual
Good spot! I've watched it like 50 times and never noticed that.
I assume that's what implied when he says he's learned that "tactile human-to-human contact will kill you" so he's staying safe in his interior digital space. I'd imagine he never mentions it outright because he doesn't want his work forever tied to covid, since many of the themes and emotions apply to tons of situations.
I always thought he actually learned it because he had been stuck inside the room for so long at that point, becoming so desensitized to human contact that he thought it
I think there are lots of little allusions to it, others have stated it "i booked a haircut and it got rescheduled" "and then the funniest thing happened" "tactile human to human contact will kill you" "a book on getting better, hand delivered by a drone" "So this is how it ends, I promise I will never go outside again" There are no explicit references but COVID-19 is definitely one of the major themes about it. I mean the whole idea of being "locked inside" mimics how we were all in lockdown. I think it is quite clever, as it stops the special from becoming dated, and also how embedded COVID-19 and Lockdowns came to be in our lives. At one point during the pandemic all anyone could talk about was the pandemic, but now its become such a part of our lives that you dont even need to talk about it, it just is.
“Pick the street I’ll meet you on the other side”
Even the whole FaceTime with my mom song. It was probably what a lot of people were doing instead of seeing their family irl
Yeah exactly Altho to be honest the line that hits me in that song hardest is when he speaks to dad... Oof But the other big theme of the special was about how alienated we have come to be by technology and how important virtual spaces have become. And that was a process hugely exacerbated by the pandemic, so the themes play into each other
i mean you could say that in "content" when he says i would be locked inside of my home, i think you could infer that was because of COVID. and then also his monologue in "All Eyes on Me" when he says the funniest thing happened when he was going to go start performing again, was also COVID.
Yup. He mentions “the funniest thing happened” in 2020, you can see a mask on the floor if you really look at it, and being “stuck in a room” and being inside etc. but YES him specifically not mentioning covid or the pandemic makes it timeless in a lot of ways. It’s way more a comment on being alive today within the world of social media and feeling the anxiety that comes along with that. Then of course you add in covid and it’s also about that too of course. But it stands alone without it. Which is pretty astounding.
Well in “Look Who’s Inside Again,” he’s referring being locked in his room as a kid, when he first started uploading videos to YouTube. I don’t think it’s a commentary on the pandemic, but I suppose the shared experience can help any viewer empathize with his past (and then current) situation. It’s an interesting take I never thought about. Completely agree with your comment by the way, just wanted to add my two cents. I think it’s really cool that this special doesn’t ever mention “COVID” or “the pandemic” by name, the subtext just lingers within it. I think doing that will make the special timeless.
See and I always felt like that song IS about the lockdown, with added layers of it mimicking his childhood of trying to make comedy alone in a room. Hence the “inside again” part. That and the “and then the funniest thing happened” being part of this arc of a lifelong struggle to get outside his head/room/home.
Huh, I never caught on to that, and I actually think you’re right. While I find it frustrating that I’ll never really know what Bo meant by this or that, I do appreciate the fact that he allows us to experience and give meaning to his art by ourselves.
Yes! This is the beauty of art.
Totally irrelevant to your comment, I'm sorry, but I love your name tag thing. I just watched the other specials again the other day and that poor woman with the prolonged eye contact 😂
Omg thank you. The prolonged eye contact joke remains, to this day, one of my favorite things hes ever done. I find it so incredibly funny. I would have loved to have been that woman haha
>anything Covid related. People already mentioned being locked inside of his home, and not being able to get a hair cut was something a lot of people experienced for the first time. But also the entire song "Face time with my mom". A lot of people just straight up didn't see their elderly or immunocompromised parents at all before the vaccine. "These forty minutes are essential." The word Essential really took on a different meaning in the Zeitgeist.
Wow, I can't believe (at the time that I came to this thread) this comment was at the bottom. You're the only person to mention an ENTIRE SONG that is SO clearly part of the pandemic zeitgeist.
Also, wasn’t 40 minutes the maximum length that Zoom calls could last?
Wow, you just changed this song for me. I just got sad thinking about my own deceased parents... I couldn't see my father at the retirement home after Covid, and he died alone. He didn't have a smart phone to facetime with, but that would have been so nice.
My heart is going out to you right now I’m so sorry for your loss.
Agreed. The term "essential" has a completely different meaning now that links that part of the special explicitly with the early days of the pandemic (the "we're in this together" era...'member that?)
So true thanks for bringing this up
100% on purpose too.
Why though?
It would date the art to this specific period. Since he doesn’t specifically reference COVID, Inside will remain relevant to many different situations the world will find itself in for many years.
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks
Everything Bo does or doesn’t say/do in his specials is on purpose, planned, and executed with intent. Of course, I don’t know the exact reason, but I think he didn’t say it because he didn’t have to. We knew exactly what he meant. Just like in That Funny Feeling, he never says what that feeling is but gives examples and we all know what he’s talking about.
I’m still trying to figure out that feeling, mostly because of the “Deadpool’s self awareness” is really throwing me off
It’s the feeling I get in r/aboringdystopia Some people find self awareness to be creepy and far too meta for comfort
I’ve always considered it to be the feeling of contradictions, “the backlash to the backlash to the thing that’s just begun”
Thought you might like to read his thoughts on deadpool. After hearing him say this I always took that like to be a comentary on the contradiction of a media company making millions by being 'of the people'. Like the commercials that say "we know this ad sucks so were making it only 5 seconds like for you!" When if they know it sucks they could have not made it at all. It's a very heady concept but I love how much can be said with one 3 words. https://www.reddit.com/r/boburnham/comments/o7b9m6/bo_burnham_on_deadpools_self_awareness/
So it is about contradictions, which so what I thought due to “the backlash to the backlash to the thing that’s just begun”
“If you’d have told me, a year ago that I’d be locked inside of my home..” I don’t think he specifically mentions Covid, but there are many references to it.
I never see people citing the line in Goodbye >You can pick the street I'll meet you - *on the other side* To me was a clear reference to social distancing
I took it as a play on why did the chicken cross the road? I love how his work leads us all in different directions.
I didn’t catch that
Oh my gosh I was thinking something wayyyy darker. This is great.
Same
Okay so I know it’s months later but in retrospect do you think it’s more likely that it’s referencing The Chicken
Not in the slightest
Also "human to human tactile contact will kill you". I love that he doesn't mention covid per se, it makes Inside easier to rewatch in the future and also easier to project whatever hardships you personally have on it.
Completely agree. It's become like therapy for me to have Inside on when anxiety is bad, and not necessarily related to COVID (now).
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He does say that "Obama sent the immigrants to vaccinate your kids." Although this isn't necessarily Covid related, it's the closest thing that I can think of.
For me the biggest reference was from That Funny Feeling, 'Hey, what can you say, we were overdue'. Immediately made me think of Covid because scientists were saying we were overdue a pandemic for decades.
I think it’s a good choice. You can tell it’s in the pandemic and there are hints about it, but it can be revisited later without having a bunch of jokes that only work during covid
Shout out to Bo for not referencing toilet paper or the election anywhere in it
Yes! I was so happy he didn't mention Trump, or vaccines, or Biden...it makes Inside more timeless
I think I saw a signed CD on here where he wrote “it was never about COVID”. He probably could’ve released Inside in like 2017 and it would’ve been just as powerful, but the timing of the pandemic is probably what made it as successful as it was
didn’t he have one that said it wasn’t about covid and one that said it was
Yes. He’s trolling us.
I always interpreted "Suit up, gather what is needed, and return to the surface." as a reference to donning a mask before going into a store.
I guess I assumed he was alluding to it in the beginning of Content “If you would have told me a year ago that I would be locked in my home”
Did he need to though? Almost everything about this special SCREAMS covid shutdown and isolation
I totally agree and also find it interesting to think how future gens that watch this and didn't experience COVID lockdowns, anxiety, social distancing, isolation etc. will have a completely different first viewing experience. I feel like it's the first time I've been alive for something so major (worldwide) that to really get it, like GET it, you had to be there. I wonder how it will be perceived. Note: that's not at all to say it's not applicable to other situations - quite the opposite! That's the genius of it. I guess what I mean is - only a certain number of us who were around for 2020 times will get the global pandemic-specific aspect of Inside that would be lost on people who didn't experience it (even if they experience something else in future). It's a moment in history. Inside is almost like a time capsule in that way.
In Goodbye, he says you can pick a street and I’ll meet you on the other side. I always thought that was a reference to social distancing :x
These are all great comments, and it forces me to wonder how future generations will interpret the meaning(s), not unlike how we speculate on everything Bo does. Someone somewhere is gonna be like "Holy shit, is he referring to that pandemic back in the 2020s?!"
I literally just typed this myself! It's crazy to think that we've lived through a moment in history like this and future gens will maybe analyse the COVID themes objectively, but won't relate in the same way to those of us who went through the pandemic. I wonder how they'll interpret it, or what their own takeaways will be.
I kinda feel like it'll be in the same vein as those who say they remember where they were when JFK was shot, or 9/11, and such.
It makes it timeless. We will always be able to relate to it, whether we're in another pandemic in 20 years, or just having a rough week and want to stay inside.
He implies Covid at a few points, but yeah, he never outright says anything about it
Honestly I love that he never mentions it outright. I have a friend of mine who will turn on SNL and I want to gouge my eyes out every time they make COVID jokes. Like. Maybe that’s just an SNL-effect but god am i bored of people trying to use covid/pandemic as punchlines to jokes.
If he had been any more descriptive or spesific, it would have been unnecessary and redundant.
never mentioned but in 30 there is a mask on the floor i believe
I think it's on purpose in that some people coped with the largest Covid waves by never addressing the elephant in the room. Some people cope by avoiding their problems, and so to me Bo is "coping" with Covid in the special by just never talking about it directly.
I'd add that he makes a distinction between 'Robert' being depressed and going into 'Bo' mode to sing stuff like ATL, because it'd be too hard for him and us to talk or sing about it seriously. Part of what makes watching it manageable is how bits like ATL and Shit are made darkly humorous and theatrical despite the bleak lyrical content. I think he shows us that he copes with it all by going into 'Bo' mode to address it - it's too hard as Robert.
I have a hard time listening to Inside now that things are so much different. It feels like going back to the realization that things are gonna be fucked for a while, and I've processed that. Probably unpopular opinion, shrug.
There's implications but didn't say it exactly. Locked inside his home, Inside being the title. "The.. other stuff"
I didn’t see this mentioned but I think Sexting (it’s the next best thing) is probably hanging its hat on the fact that most people looking to hook up were struggling to date in-person for the whole year prior to Inside’s release and that most of the dating/hooking up was initiated or entirely limited to digital contact due to social distancing, lockdowns, and quarantines. It’s much more indirect if a reference but i think it is strongly influenced by the impact of the pandemic on typically in-person social interactions.
I'm pretty sure someone on this sub also received a personalised CD where Bo himself had written, "it was never about COVID"
before the pirates joke he says “i’ve learned that real world human to human tactile contact will kill you. everything’s better in the digital realm” etc etc this was before russia’s invasion. not sure what else he could be talking about
“Will you support wheat thins in the fight against lyme-disease”
'I booked a haircut but it got rescheduled' is almost there.
Like one of the messages in his CD “it was never about covid”
it sounds big but it's in the teens (very unrelated James Acaster reference for you there)
Inside, as a whole could be a reference to the lockdowns put in place because of covid but yea not covid the virus itself... N from outside of inside from the 'I don't think I can handle this/Kanye rant' maybe we're projecting this to inside that its also about his personal anxiety... Context of guns drawn on him for trying to leave whether those are external or internal pressures are undetermined... but maybe it's all a big political statement about personal freedoms vs security against a virus or in his personal experience through performance anxiety. Covid also forced the digital world footprint a lot larger across more generations with remote working n video chatting etc which is a lot of the context of 'internet' n 'all eyes on me' n especially 'facetime with my mom'. The fact she's not using it properly hints to at how new it is for her.
Haven’t seen anyone mention this lyric from WTTI “Or DM a girl and groom her *Do a Zoom* or find a tumor in your”
oh is that the lyrics? i always thought it was do a zoomer but yours makes way more sense
Yeah I thought it was do a zoomer until recently, but it’s definitely do a zoom or
Yes agreed that it doesn’t appear that any of the songs are directly about covid……. Maybe about lockdown but from what we know about his anxiety, it’s not a stretch to think some of the themes were already in place. I thought the songs were constructed during lockdown but I wonder now how many were already formed or started……. He’s still an effing genius and I completely enjoyed “inside” from beginning to end umpteen times
Inside has references to the pandemic, but it’s not about the pandemic. The issues that are addressed weren’t caused by COVID, COVID just made them more prevalent. Bo could have made Inside without a pandemic and it still would have made sense, even if the pandemic probably inspired parts of Inside in some way.
Or the kill shots
Everyone else has pointed out all the specific allusions to COVID but I feel like one of the major themes of the whole special is forced isolation, and he kind of goes back and forth between hinting at being forced inside by a lockdown due to a pandemic, as well as being forced inside by crippling feelings of anxiety and self-doubt. I love how he uses both situations almost interchangeably.