I was never a Burnham fan because I was a sensitive baby feminist in the early oughts. Now I’m a grown-up feminist and I still hate his early work. I didn’t even know — or care — about Inside until many of my favorite people with very good tastes recommended it. It’s a beautiful work of art with clever humor and devastating reality. He confronts his past and offensive jokes in the song “Problematic,” begging God and the audience for forgiveness. He captures the weirdness of things like Instagram and sexting and YouTube and Twitch streaming, as well as the horrific impacts of white supremacy and climate change and Jeff Bezos. One important note, in case you haven’t watched it yet: he discusses his experiences with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. So take care with your viewing, especially for the last half hour or so. I need to stop listening to the soundtrack on repeat for a minute, so here are some book recommendations to pair with my favorite songs from the special.
Books to Pair With Bo Burnham’s Inside
For further reading, be sure to check out these comics about mental illness, these funny self-help books, these books about racism, and these environmental books. Start off with a side-busting bit of laughter! It’s the way to heal the world! Seriously, Sam Irby saved my early pandemic days with this book. She’s like a counterpoint to Burnham’s early identity, and her essays about poop and mental health are chef’s kiss. Listen, in this world of digital madness, you gotta make time for the important things, like FaceTiming with your mom even when she keeps her thumb over the camera. Make Time will help you get there. Because in case you didn’t know, the world (or at least America) runs on the chaotic decisions of white men. Read up and let yourself fill with rage about the history our history books neglected to teach us. Obviously the bangingest song in the special, “White Woman’s Instagram” deserves a book that captures all the chaos of boss girl influencer culture in one snappy piece of satire. Leigh Stein’s Self Care is the only book that does the job. The title really says it all, but, you know. We were unpaid interns and now we’re overworked millennials experiencing burnout! “Barely people, somehow legal,” lol! Anne Helen Petersen covers the reality of millennial burnout from every corner: the culture that raised us, the economy that devastated us, and the desperate need to change it all. No ferris wheels here, but it’s still worth the price of admission. Talia Hibbert is one of the best romance writers right now and I can’t get enough of her sexy books. The time to do better is now and always. Use Crystal Marie Fleming’s book to educate yourself and see all the ways you and the people around you have been problematic in your life! And then correct it. If this is the song you relate to the most (like me! hello!), you need to read a Matt Haig book. Either this one or Reasons to Stay Alive. “Are you feelin’ what I’m feelin’? I haven’t had a shower in the last nine days” and also you are a worthy human who deserves a chance to get better. Don’t give up yet. It’s pretty common for funny people to have depression, and John Moe’s podcast-turned-book interviews loads of comedians and celebrities about their mental health and coping mechanisms. It’s heavy, but an important read. Language nerds, this one’s for you. Just like the carnival-esque synth music, Gretchen McCulloch’s book is a twirling ride through the evolution of language thanks to the internet’s dizzying speed of change. LOLcats! Keyboard smashes! This book covers all of the “a little bit of everything, all of the time” about the internet. The geological era of the human, the Anthropocene, is a wild one. John Green’s latest book rates the things in the world that are distinctly human, and this acoustic song is like a shorter version of it, sans reviews. “A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall,” indeed. I could listen to this song on repeat for hours. And I have! The pinnacle, the part that demands to be sang along to at full volume, gets me every time: “You say the ocean’s rising, like I give a shit. You say the whole world’s ending, honey, it already did.” But maybe there’s still time to reverse the damage. Read this book about how each of us can help. Zadie Smith’s collection of essays about the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic are my go-to reference for what that time was like. “It’ll stop any day now…” repeating forever and ever.
