I think it’s time to talk about my favorite comedian of all time: Bo Burnham. I first saw Bo on his YouTube channel when I was really young. He was just a kid singing in his room at his piano about the things other people wouldn’t dare to say. My older brother loved watching his videos, and looking up to him, I naturally started watching them too. I knew the words to one of his first songs, “I’m Bo Yo,” when I was 8 because of how much I heard it around my house.
Needless to say, Bo Burnham has grown a lot since his days of simple YouTube videos. He’s released multiple comedy specials, been acting in movies and T.V. shows, has written a book of poems titled Egghead, and has even written, directed, and released his own film, Eighth Grade. It is without a doubt that at 28 years old, Bo has garnered more attention across all mediums of entertainment for himself than most other “experienced” comedians.
All of this attention can be really good for a comedy career, too. More people watching your content means a bigger fanbase, which means more revenue and more space to explore your artistic limits. All of this attention, though, comes at a cost. With the spotlight on you for almost your entire life, a performer in any capacity is under constant pressure to produce content frequently. A big fanbase can be something that launches a comedian into success, while simultaneously making them fearful of ever letting them down.
Bo has had to deal with this since he was 16.
In a lot of most recent work, Make Happy, he recognizes the influence that his fans have on him, and most of his bits have to do with performance. Though it is the most heavily saturated special with jokes of this nature, they can be found in all of his work, from his earliest special.
A great deal of Bo Burnham’s fame stems from his unique brand of comedy. When he tours the country with his comedy, he doesn’t just do stand-up routines or sets, they’re performances. He tells jokes and stories and plays music and sings and puts on a worthwhile show for his audience. But Bo explicitly tells the audience that it’s all a show multiple times throughout each of his three released specials.
In his earliest work, WORDS, WORDS, WORDS, Burnham has an entire song about this, titled “Art is Dead.” Toward the end of the special, he sings, “I must be demented / To think that I’m worthy of all this attention / Of all of this money you worked really hard for / I slept in late while you worked at the drug store.” In this song, he showcases his recognition of his own place in comedy. He sees the overwhelming amount of attention he has received because of the art that he produces. Burnham doesn’t think that he’s worthy of his fans’ praise because his act is just that: an act. He isn’t telling true stories on the stage, he isn’t speaking honestly, and to the audience, it’s just his style, but to Bo, it feels like a facade.
In his next special, what., the show only touches lightly on this concept of the reality of art until the end of the show. At the end, he performs a song where there are three different personalities talking to him about his recent success: a friend of someone who knew him in high school that thinks he’s “an arrogant prick”, a manager who tries to rebrand Bo as something he’s not, and an old schoolmate who pretends to have been close with him.
These three characters each talk for a bit in their own style and voice, giving Bo their unnecessary opinions on his life before the end of the song. This is where respective to the order mentioned above, they say, “We think you’ve changed bro,” “We know best,” and “You suck.” This repeats a couple times until they shorten their speech again simply to, “We think,” “We know,” “You.” Burnham insinuates here that because of the act that he puts on for an audience, nobody truly knows who he is. He has made a conscious effort to keep from revealing his authentic self to the audience in his comedy. In doing so, he has made people who think they have a hold on his personality, realize that they truly don’t.
Running with the theme of introspection at the end of a show, at the end of his most recent comedy special, Make Happy, Bo Burnham performs another song about performance. This one is a half-song, half-Kanye-Esque-rant. In this, he equates his situation in comedy with getting a burrito at Chipotle and having it be too full. This burrito is at the point where the tortilla can’t fit all of the ingredients inside of it. He writes, “I wouldn’t have gotten half of the shit if I knew it wasn’t gonna fit in the burrito! Alright?… Man, I wouldn’t have got half of it”. What Burnham says is that he wouldn’t have asked to be this famous, or maybe even have entered the world of comedy in the first place if he knew what it would entail. If it were going to be such a significant stressor in his life, then he wouldn’t have striven for a career in comedy.
He says later in the song that he loves, hates, needs, and fears his audience. Bo is torn between his desire to perform and the detrimental toll that it takes on his mental state. He tells this to the audience, but it is again veiled by the thin parody of Kanye West, so it still appears as comedy and not a cautionary message about the effects of putting celebrities on a pedestal.
Throughout his three specials and these three songs, in particular, Bo Burnham consistently discusses the adverse effects of performing on performers. It may be something that can be avoided by quitting altogether, but for many like Bo, that’s not an option. It’s hard to give up something that you know, and something that you’re good at. At the height of their careers, many other comedians have continued to generate content and specials. I don’t know of many people in any profession that quit at their peak. But, that’s what Bo has done, at least for the time being.
He hasn’t released a new special or even talked about touring again in over three years now. Part of me knows that I want him to be making more content. Still, another part of me knows that he needs to grow creatively before he returns too suddenly to comedy. And Bo has taken this time off to gain experience in other facets of media. He has talked in interviews about his movie as a way for him to collaborate with others and take a break from the subject of his art being himself.
Bo Burnham’s career is something that aspiring comedians should look up to and take notes on. It’s incredible, all of the work that he has put into his work and his comedy. He has poured much of his heart and mind into everything he’s done, and he deserves all of the acknowledgment he’s gotten and more. I just hope that he’s happy.
Watch Bo Burnham’s Make Happy on Netflix here:
Watch Bo Burnham’s what. on YouTube here:
Listen to WORDS, WORDS, WORDS on Spotify here:
The Comedy Corner 
Love this post! You have great taste in comedy, Bo is the best
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