Bo Burnham is trending today and not for the reason you might think. It’s because an old speech about social media he did during a press tour for his 2018 movie Eighth Grade is getting a lot of attention, and a lot of people are realizing just how smart he really is.
In the rant, Burnham explains that social media companies want to “colonize every minute of your life.” He made the comparison of how people colonized the earth to expand business and influence and now there’s no more land so it’s happening with human attention.
These companies, he said, are publicly traded and need to show growth to flourish and appease shareholders. Twitter is not profitable so it’s in the business of monopolizing every second of your life. And that’s not a good thing at all.
That’s just a short summary but you can watch the whole thing below:
A lot of the comments take umbrage with the quote above the video that says “Wow. Didn’t know Bo Burnham was a real one. Couldn’t be more relevant.”
One person said this is just everyone catching up to him.
“I don’t know how you could be a bo burnham fan in 2022 and NOT already know that he is dialed the fuck in like, have you SEEN “inside”??? did you LISTEN to the lyrics? it’s the pain of a man who knows we’re all dying for someone else’s dollar and wishes there was more to be done.”
Others are simply in awe of his cogent speech and insightful takes on society.
“im on the side of tiktok where it’s @boburnham doing interviews that are essentially (TED) talks. he’s so intelligent & so well spoken. he articulates opinions that i’ve had about life & have never been able to communicate to myself or others. it’s so refreshing & enlightening.”
Someone else shared that Burnham “has both funny and smart things to say. And his point that media is designed to try to colonize our time and attention is something we don’t talk about enough.”
Here are some other takes on Burnham’s take.
These go on for miles. There are quite a few who were worried their favorite comedian was canceled when they saw him trending, but were pleasantly surprised. Burnham has yet to comment publicly about the video blowing up, but if he does we’ll keep you posted.