“It’s a beautiful day to stay inside.”

This was the second time I had watched Bo Burnham’s “Inside,” and once again it was illuminating. I have found this work to be one of the most emotionally invoking of any type of digital content that I have consumed in a long time. The COVID-19 pandemic has left me, and I’m sure many others, with this aching sense of isolation while simultaneously experiencing a global tragedy. In what is a unifying melancholy affair, the pandemic has forced people, companies, and entire communities to reevaluate what human connection means in a digital age where six feet is needed for survival, staying inside is expected; yet, human contact and emotional togetherness has been never more craved. This is what modern technologies attempt to provide us, with tools to try and fill the void of former normalcy.

This hour and twenty-seven-minute comedy special uses different modalities to encapsulate the feelings that all of us are enduring at a very unique point in time. This film uses various forms of visual techniques to provide commentary and parody the never-ending emergence of content provided by the 21st-century mecca, the Internet. What I think think this special has left me with is a newfound curiosity for what exactly does the human experience means for the digital age, particularly now. I look to three simple words, “apathy’s a tragedy,” in Bo Burnham’s song, “Welcome to the Internet.”

“Apathy’s a tragedy.”

Throughout this song, a manic message is proposed. Overstimulation and instant accessibility have left the current Generation Z with an apathetic look at life. Performance is required, but for no reason – just as life is seemingly meaningless as well. Satisfaction for the audience members who never have enough and yet want nothing for self-improvement are left with a tool that provides everything you could ask for at a tap of a screen. But I wonder if apathy is a coping mechanism for this machine that was thrust upon us without permission. Everything… all of the time… just thrown at you with lightning speed. How does one function without developing a shield made from a weaponized stupor? I think this was exacerbated by the pandemic, and digital technology was one of the only vices available to us at any time.

Bo Burnham mid-performance during his Netflix special “Inside.”

As a generation, we have had no say in how big data takes our information. We have been given something and been told that without it we cannot survive in the modern world. But there is almost no choice in the matter, especially as a pandemic tears us all apart. Polarization is exacerbated by the internet, just like numbness. Fears are heightened and also put at ease. And in this time, it seems impossible to escape. We are analyzed and our information is bought without knowing consent, but we recognize it is a price we must pay for the terrifyingly beautiful thing we call the world wide web. It is our haven and escape from the horrors of everyday life but inevitably is a part of everyone’s downfall. And I think that is a message that Burnham in many ways is trying to expose. There is acknowledgment and hypocrisy in his teachings, but his warnings are all too real. There is acceptance of meaninglessness, but even so, we are forced to feel what he is going through. A direct contradiction to his declaration of apathy, but perhaps that is the point. Digital culture allows us to feel with another human being we have never met, even if the relationship is a pixelated falsity – maybe tragic apathy is not a lifetime sentence.

“There it is again. That funny feeling. That funny feeling.”

And so, if that is the case – perhaps there must be a call to redefine the meaning of connection and authenticity in the virtual age. Just because the relationship with Burham is fabricated does not lessen the impact of emotions. So, that poses the question, what defines the reality of connection? Is it the acknowledgment of the connection between both parties? Or is it the emotions the relationship leaves you with? Even if the opposing partner is ignorant of those feelings. I think to deny people the reality of their feelings just because certain information is falsified or not reciprocated, is to deny the individual’s life experience. I almost equate this type of relationship to one-sided love, just because one party does not feel the same way does not negate the feelings of whoever is in love. Applying this concept to the digital age means understanding others’ depth of emotions without needing to have experienced it yourself.