Bo Burnham - Reaction - White Woman's Instagram

My favourite part is how he used aspect ratio to tell part of the story. The majority of the video is in instagram’s aspect ratio. Then, when the character starts talking about their mother, the aspect ratio starts to widen to show the real person. Showing honesty. No longer putting on a show for social media. And then, going back to the “I have an apartment, I have a boyfriend and I’m crazy about him,” etc hits and the sort of “performance” of social media comes in, the aspect ratio starts to go back to Instagram settings and is fully back by the time the character is talking about goat cheese salad again. Such a clever way to add to the storytelling.

What’s interesting about this song, is that it does poke fun at the “basic white girl” tropes, because sure they’re a bit shallow. However, it also points out how shallow seeming people also are real people too. They have struggles and pain just like anyone else.

The way he follows the caption under her mom's picture (which makes me cry every time) with "gOAt chEEsE sAlAd" 🖐🏽

The damn ‘27’ birthday balloons and then “I’d been a decade” mean she lost both parents when she was early 17. Hurts man.

Listening to Bo describe his inspiration for making his movie Eighth Grade impacts how I interpret this song. He talked about seeing a teenage girl sitting at the mall looking at her phone, looking sad. But then she would pop up and smile real wide to take a selfie before retreating back to her former hunched posture. And everyone else was seeing those polished pictures of her, but he was witnessing the real her without the camera. In some ways, I think this song is a grown-up version of that, and during the middle section we get to see the real person with real pain behind the airbrushed photos.

It’s pretty great how a single few seconds of a silly song can completely reconceptualise it. Without that middle part, the song is a parody poking fun at artificial women on social media. With the middle part, it becomes a jab at you for being judgemental and taking away people’s humanity. You almost get lured into this song by laughing with him at the first part before he essentially turns the song back at you and says: hey, these are people you’re laughing at.

Even the people this song parodies, must appreciate how much time Bo spent setting up the poses for this song.

Regarding the part about our mom a lot of people don't realize or notice that it happens kind of in the middle of the song, it gets you kind of emotional because it's a sad emotional moment... And then you notice right after that moment is over, it says a goat cheese salad, a backlit hammock yada yada yada. This is just like Instagram, everything's lovely lovely perfect look at me look at me, every once in awhile you see the truth coming out behind somebody, real feelings real sadness, then their next post is right back to a cafe latte or whatever. I think that was his point.

Right before he tells the story, he's seen pointing up to the numbers "27" which insinuates their age. Then in the story he says "it's been a decade since you been gone" to his mom and then tells his mom to tell his dad that he misses him as well. So their parents died when they were 17 and had to go into adult hood and the rest of their lives alone. Really shows how sad someone could be but their social media wouldn't show it. Amazing work by Bo on this.

Fuck finally someone gets the whole of the song on the first try. Not everyone got the "give a kiss to dad"

Knowing someone through social media is like not knowing them at all. Reminds me of that Martin Luther King quote: “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

You picked up exactly what I did! Bo is a tremendous artist, I’m loving your reactions.

The best part of nearly everything Bo does is he doesn’t bully people or judge them. He plays with your expectations, preconceived notions, and even prejudices in order to make you understand how alike we all truly are and to point out deep emotional stuff we all feel buried under the layers, masks, and lies we all tell or are told. Bo lives rent free in your head and gives you tours of things you didn’t even know were in there.

This song sums up the Inside special very well. Performative art blurred with real world problems.

Aspect ratio change - away from the IG square when we pull back and see the real woman behind the curated feed and the return to 1:1 on goat cheese salad... It's effing brilliant.

Bo's voice is unironically really good! :) Great analysis btw!

I hate Instagram too cause it just makes you feel like everyone in perfect except u but this song kind of shows both sides

The thing to understand about instagram is that it's okay to want what others have, just as long as you're strong enough to be happy with what you've achieved for yourself already. Sure, that other person might have a bigger house, but your house is something you worked hard for, and their bigger house could never be your house, and your house can still grow.

This is another one of my favorites., and another great reaction. Like you said about this being more of a song about humanizing the person behind the account. I'm not sure if you spotted the aspect ratio change in the serious section almost like that one yearly post where she opens up a little and you get to see what they're really dealing with in life then it just immediately switched right back to the "basic" posts as that day was finished. When he sings give a hug and kiss too dad I always interpreted that like he had just died at that moment rather than him being dead already and she was like "give him one last hug & kiss for me"

Can we all take a second to appreciate how handsome suffi is , ok goodbye ☺️