Bo Burnham on Performing and Living Without an Audience
As a blogger, podcaster, marketer, wannabe comedian, entrepreneur person this was a really powerful thing to watch. Here’s the quote in text:
“I was born in 1990 and I was raised in America when it was a cult of self expression. And I was just taught, you know, express myself and have things to say and everyone will care about them. And I think everyone was taught that and most of us found out no one gives a shit what we think. So we flock to performers by the thousands cuz we’re the few who have found an audience. And then i’m supposed to get up here and say ‘follow your dreams’ as if this is a meritocracy? It is not, OK. I had a privileged life and I got lucky and I’m unhappy. They say it’s like the “me generation.” It’s not. The arrogance is taught, or it was cultivated. It’s self-conscious, that’s what it is; conscious of self. Social media is just the market’s answer to a generation that demanded to perform. So the market said, ‘here, perform everything to each other all the time for no reason.’ It’s prison. It’s horrific. It is performer and audience melded together. What do we want more than to lay in our bed at the end of the day and just watch our life as a satisfied audience member. I know very little about anything, but what I do know is that if you can live your life without an audience you should do it. And now you’re thinking, ‘how the fuck are you gonna dig the show out of this weird hole?’”
