Even I, a person outside Inside—the special mostly fell flat for me—was moved to sympathy by the desperately self-conscious agony of its protagonist.
In trying to better understand the zeitgeisty nerve it hit—combing fan forums, eavesdropping on loving discussions of it online—I’ve been struck by the number of viewers for whom the special captured some essential aspect of their experience of this past year, with a specificity and precision that made them feel seen, recognized, understood.
People liked that, just as they liked his stunt as gamer and avatar, and his song about “That Funny Feeling” on the peristaltic context collapse of the internet, including the exhausting “backlash to the backlash to the backlash” cycle of which I dread this piece may form a part.
A lot of viewers responded to the ultra-relatable misery of that figure trapped in that tiny studio, sleeping in a messy bed, living on cereal, desperately tormented and desperately alone.
Opinions will differ on this: Does it matter that Burnham was not actually trapped in cramped, depressing, uncomfortable spaces that a lot of people actually and nonmetaphorically occupied? Or that he’s conflating immensely interesting artistic and existential questions with mundane but urgent material ones? I realize this sounds like a “privilege” argument and in a certain sense it is: I do question the choice to situate the story of your misery in squalid conditions not your own to make your suffering seem greater.
People have argued over whether works like David Sedaris’ should be called nonfiction given their relaxed approach to the truth, but most agree that you can exaggerate upward to make a story funnier.
James Acaster—the British comic whose remarkable 2019 show Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 feels like a useful point of comparison for Inside—was not in fact going into the Witness Protection Program as he repeatedly insisted in his older 2016 show Reset.
Would Nanette land the same way if Gadsby—while truly struggling with mental health—didn’t actually get assaulted in the devastating encounter that special starts off joking about? What if Birbiglia didn’t have a kid or a sleep disorder but felt those conditions best captured his inner state? Would Cold Lasagne hit differently if—though tormented by anxiety—Acaster never actually had a girlfriend who left him for Mr. Bean? If the aggrieved fan reactions to John Mulaney divorcing his wife demonstrate anything, it’s that people cling to apparently autobiographical aspects of comedy specials they thought were true—like Mulaney adoring his spouse—even when the shows aren’t remotely serious or especially confessional.
I know my answer: If the inciting incident or “plot” is merely metaphorical, then a confessional special’s impact declines, no matter how eloquent its portrayal of anxiety or dread or self-loathing.
The best parts of the special flesh out his peculiar and fascinating position as a talented creator with a creator’s unattractive but very real need for validation—for example, when he starts screaming at the audience he hopes is watching but suspects of being on their phones.
If Instagram women use filters and staging to make their lives seem better—and accidentally make them seem frivolous or insubstantial—Inside is no less artificial when it uses not just cameras but setting to make Burnham’s life seem worse.
Maybe what Burnham had to say about guilt and isolation and boredom and vanity and hopelessness and anxiety was profound enough to annihilate any irksome mismatches between the irony and the truth.