Bo Burnham: INSIDE - That Funny Feeling (REACTION) 

Hey, what can you say? We were overdue. Reaction starts at 0:25

The part about obeying all the traffic laws in Grand Theft Auto 5 is really the part that hit me the hardest. The GTA series has always been “that game” you play to go to a world where you can do all the things you can’t do in real life. The concept of real life being so crazy that you just want to live normally and obey traffic laws in GTA because you can’t live normally and peacefully in rl anymore, is perhaps the most horrifying line in this entire special…

My favorite part is the "female Colonel Sanders/easy answers" and I think it's kinda talking about the way that instead of taking actual steps to equality, companies cop out by making "female" versions of stuff and pretending that fixes it. Performative activism.

I heard Bo say he wanted to write something for Gen z. I finally got around to listening to this for the first time in front of my mom cause we were talking about how Gen z sees the world. When I heard “gift shop at the gun range a mass shooting at the mall” my heart dropped into my stomach and I was holding back tears as my mom was like “ha! There’s a gift shop at our gun range how funny is that!” He did what he set out to do. He wrote something only young people really understand. Old people think this song is funny.

Existential Dread, the song.

Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder where the person is afraid of places that they perceive as unsafe or they can't escape from. Frequently this manifests as a fear of leaving their home.

this one had me in tears while watching the special for the first time, especially the line "googling derealisation, hating what you find", I was extremely mentally ill as a teenager, and I remember one time googling derealisation and yeah, fuckin hating what i found. so that line really hit home for me

I think the "derealization" part really summarizes what that funny feeling is pretty well: "Derealization is a mental state where you feel detached from your surroundings. People and objects around you may seem unreal. Even so, you're aware that this altered state isn't normal." Everything just feels damned, and it feels like we're collectively refusing to process it, so it ends up just feeling surreal instead.

It’s this generation’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”

"The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all" is the most gut punching line of the whole special to me ...... I just wish it didn't resonate so much.

I personally think that “that funny feeling” is what he mentions in the last verse. “The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all”. Life is absurd. This human experience is weird and crazy. That’s just my take.

“7 more to go” is referring to the climate clock and its predictions.

"20 000 years of this, 7 more to go." "The ocean at your door." "Quiet comprehending of the ending of it all." "What can I say, we were overdue." This is a requiem to a world we are killing and I fucking can't deal.

That funny feeling is like cognitive dissonance. Basically, how we perceive and rationalize contradictory information. It can sometimes leave us feeling uneasy. I love this song.

I love this song. It seems so random until you realize that they’re all essentially trigger words for what sends Bo into an anxiety spiral.

I remember there was a time where I listened to this for hours on repeat, just sobbing my eyes out when I felt so numb that I found it hard to even feel empathy for others. This special really helped me get through a really rough patch.

There's also a sad irony to the fact he recreated an outdoor campout with friends and family scene using technology, alone, indoors. That establishing shot of the LED panel and the light coming from the projector just screams to me "this is all fake".

Impending doom is a great way to describe it

Todays mood: Bo: A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall. There it is again, that funny feeling. Chris: (Quietly) Yeah...

His voice when he says " hand delivered by a drone" it has a little robotic/drone effect on it. This song is incredible.......just wait.

This is the saddest song in the special for me, so of course its title is "That Funny Feeling." The feeling of nothing making sense. Existential dread. Constant, nagging, familiar worry that things are not right. The feeling of everything just about to go wrong. The various allutions to climate change and the end of the world and how it is all overdue is ominous as well. But he delivers it in such a warm, comforting song. Bo does so much in this special, so much that I'm moved by and thankful for.

I think you totally nailed what the “funny feeling” is. It’s like there’s all these huge problems in the world but what can any individual do? Nothing really. We need the people in power to do it and so I feel like a lot of people just go about their lives because they don’t know what to do. We can organize and try to fix things but ultimately it means nothing if the people in power don’t listen. So I think it’s like this constant existential dread in the back of our minds. And this song just verbalizes that feeling so well.

Chris you're so good at this. I see the "funny feeling" as a sense of things just being not quite right, a bit surreal. A couple of my thoughts: - loving parents, harmless fun - this one reminds me how fucking weird and surreal it felt last year to just do normal daily things when the whole world was on fire literally and metaphorically. - the backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun - has so so many applications, but it mostly reminds me of US politics and how it's now all based on hurting the "other team" rather than actually doing right by the people -7 more (years) to go - commonly interpreted as the Climate Clock which says we have that many years left to make sweeping changes as a society/species before climate catastrophe is unavoidable. I don't have much hope for that happening. There's the quiet comprehending of the ending of it all. - my favorite part is the smile he has during the end of the song. Just ...acceptance. Like, life is difficult and it's going to get WAY WORSE but it won't last forever. Humanity will kill itself off and end our collective suffering, hooray.

A little thing you should do: When you react to All Eyes On Me please begin with the scene where he stands in front of a camera before the song. It's really important for the song.

8:40 yeah the "seven more to go" is a throwback to the theory that we only have 7 (now closer to 6 since "inside" was released) till the earth hit's the so-called "self-destruction" button

this song made me tear up when i watched it in context of the whole special, it's kind of a breaking point before the collapse that follows after...White woman's instagram, Funny feeling and All eyes on me brought tears.

I learnt this song on piano, everyone be proud of me plz. Edit: I made the be proud of me thing as a joke, but i mean, thank y'all!

I didn't really feel this one at first, but I've seen the special like 15 times now and everytime I love it more. Right now it might be my favorite and it's definitely top 3

The outro of the song is heartbreaking and hopeless but at the same time it´s a beautiful piece of art,amazing

"A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall" tears me to pieces every time.

This is my favorite song of the special. I have to be careful about what kind of mood I'm in when I listen to it, though, so I don't wind up crying in my car

“Female colonel sanders, easy answer, civil war” is talking about the divide between progressive culture and conservative backlash to stuff like this. Like the Mr. Potato head or Aunt Jemima thing from last year. Something so small and petty turns into a huge social issue. The conservatives see it as some affront to their ideals and this weird nostalgic sense from the MAGA type crowd for some kind of “better time” in America, which was ironically not a better time at all for a huge portion of the American population. You can just imagine it... a commercial comes on the scene with a female colonel sanders and you have news stories of how this feminist PC culture attack on “American” ideals has one side up in arms, calling for civil war. The “easy answer” part of the line is the most chilling part of the line.

Chris: "It seems like this song is just all about irony?" You're close. Chris: "Maybe it's not ironic, maybe it's more like knowing there's all these bad things going on and we know we can change it, but we just don't?" Getting warmer. Chris: "That funny feeling is just that little thing in the back of our minds that we all know there's something wrong with the world." You pretty much got it. That's as best as I can figure it, too. Only Bo knows the full meaning of his words, of course. Maybe he'll tell us one day, or maybe he intends for us to come to our own conclusions.

political (originally communist) propaganda, especially in art or literature. agitprop was originally communist but its not limited only to communist propaganda.

To me, That funny feeling is Existential Dread. Also a lot of people are saying this is the modern day we didn't start the fire

Man i sure do love getting to feel a burning truck going at a million miles per second whilst filled with nothing but pure existential dread punching me in the gut with this song, and im not complaining one bit

I think "that funny feeling" is a combination of repressed rage, existential dread, and a mixture of shock and disbelief that we have and continue to go down this path as if we have no other options when we DO! Why are we just sitting back and accepting this reality!?! Has the nihilism completely taken over? Or is it laziness? Propaganda, perhaps? Have we now fully accepted the extinction of our species as inevitable or are we just in denial? Maybe it's a combination of the two? PS You felt it when you shook your head slightly to say no and then said "yeah" very softly when he mentioned the gun range gift shop and the shooting at the mall. That feeling. That's what this song is about. Every time you shook your head "no" and your face looked like you are about to cry. That. That funny feeling...

These last songs are some of the best in the entire special. Looking forward for watching you finish it!

I never realised until recently when someone pointed this out, but this whole song is about absurd contradictions In our lives. A "stunning 8k resolution meditation app" when you're supposed to close your eyes when you meditate. A book on getting better "hand delivered by a drone" when simply going outside and talking to people would help you much more than having a robot deliver something to you

By far and away my favourite song from the special. All Eyes on Me up next is another very good one, but I think Goodbye is also absolutely top tier

I feel like all the random things he’s mentioned throughout the song, along with all the very dark concerning things in the same sentence, all go along with the idea of derealization and disassociation as we find ourselves looking at these random things and feeling absolutely numb and detached about it all, including and especially all of the heavy and dark things. You mentioned about us all being very aware of how much things need to change and how critical the change is for not only our survival, but for the survival of the planet and everything on it, yet feeling so detached, depressed, and numb to it all that even though we understand how serious it is, we can’t find ourselves able to care about fixing ourselves, much less anything else including the world, even if it means we die along with it. It’s very interesting the things that he mentions as these are all things we do or focus on mindlessly to sort of fill the void of emotion that we all feel on a regular basis. What gets me is how it takes a very dark turn towards the end of the song that shows more of why we feel this way and why we lack the empathy and motivation to do anything, much less care about the seriousness of things that are happening while also depicting the severity of depression that we’ve all grown accustomed to and perceive as normal these days. That’s why that line at the end about “the quiet comprehending of the ending of it all” is so genius because again we are all completely aware of it all is and how critical it is that we change at this point yet again find ourselves lacking any sort of real motivation to do anything about it and essentially just excepting our fate and our deaths seeing as it goes hand-in-hand with our already existing depression and borderline suicidal thoughts and tendencies. We somehow find ourselves more comforted about the fact that we are all going to die someday, potentially in the very near future, and rather than trying to find ways to prolong our lives and futures, we would rather just die seeing as how we all perceive this potential future as nothing but more existential dread, depression, suffering, trauma, etc. instead of anything positive that could maybe come out of it. It’s a beautiful song about depression and that sense of apathy and numbness that we go through as well as going through the auto pilot phase where nothing Hass to matter because if it doesn’t matter then it can’t hurt you and if it can’t hurt you then you can go on “living“ every day until you die.

imagine flexing your guitar skills in a reaction video, the audacity (jk great thoughts as always, hope your channel keeps growing)

The last few lines about us being overdue reminds me of how people talked about the pandemic. And then to say ‘it’ll be over soon’ seems consistent. I think this is a play on those words as the pandemic is very emblematic of the song as a whole: we kinda deserve this, we could have done more to stop it, we should be doing more to stop it, it’s eventually going to destroy us - whether it’s this disaster or the next one.

Is ''that funny feeling'' the only song that has a smooth transition in the special? Kind of like how the world will have a smooth transition without human beings. Not sure if intentional but I thought that was a nice interpretation.

To me, "that funny feeling" is described perfectly in one of the first lines of the special: "What the f*** is going on?"

your videos have given me such a great different view of these songs I loved already. Thank you for sharing.

Exactly why I wanted you to react to this dude, your insight to this is song is so eye-opening. Many reactors skip past the details that you stop and ponder on so honestly... loved it.

loved this vid, this is my favorite song from the special because its so intricately written and can be viewed through a lot of different lenses and i think all interpretations are accurate in their own way. i enjoyed your take on it, for me i think that funny feeling represents existential dread

Agitprop: agitation propaganda He's talking about capitalisms comodification of revolutionary tools. Like Hot Topic selling Che Guevara Tshirts.

Dude, just found your reactions this morning and these songs are giving me goosebumps all over again watching you react to them. Easy subscribe!

This video was so good, you helped explain a lot of lines I didn't fully get and now I have such a deeper appreciation for the song, so thank you

I think "that funny feeling" is the difference between things that we experience as normal everyday life, and then the experience of being jerked out of normality and considering things that are beyond us or looming. The line that I thought was most illuminating was "in honor of the Revolution, it's half off at the GAP." Kinda set the stage for me. We are so used to experiencijg the world in unchanging terms, that even Revolution is commodified. Then he goes on to talk about how little time we have to make any change. And that Funny Feeling is that we aren't going to force a change, we are too preoccupied with life as normal that we are numb. That Funny Feeling is the realization that you want thing to be better, but you would rather other people are the ones that fight for change. Which I think he mentions with the line "self help book hand delivered by a drone."

dude you’re seriously so good at picking up on Bo’s intent and the meaning behind a lot of these songs upon first viewing it’s really impressive

The first time I watched INSIDE, at the line "The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean and your door" I started to sob and it lasted all the way through to the end. So goodonya for keeping it together so far! I love these reactions dude. Thanks.

I love that right after he GIVES you that "funny feeling" he calls it out with a chorus. That uneasy, sort of "that's funny, but not 'haha' funny, more like 'wow, damn, yeah', funny". And then he's like "THERE, there it is, that. That's it, right there. THAT funny feeling." Oh, and the irony of the "8k resolution mediation app" is that your eyes are closed while you meditate. So why does it matter if it's 8k? You're not gonna be staring at it.

i'm getting separation anxiety now that we're nearing the end of Chris Reacts to Inside

Great reaction as always I think i need to watch the whole special again for like the 6th time Its so incredible

Really enjoying your reactions, you're damned good at analyzing the text and all. keep it up!

Hey man, just dropping by to say that this is among the best reactions I've ever watched, really enjoying your videos.

Nobody can convince me that the funny feeling isn't the sense of impending doom. Gotta love a full-blown existential crisis.

It's so awesome to me that your entire channel is reacting to bo one song at a time.

This is probably the only reaction channel worth watching, with actual insights of your own on every line, and its actually good, thank you

"the whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door". Access to anything you can click on at the cost of near total isolation. Reminds me of the song I Need You So Much Closer by Death Cab for Cutie..."and thousands upon thousands made an ocean, making islands, where no islands should go".

I’m way late here but your reactions are so genuine and honest and insightful. Big fan.

Just re-suggesting what I suggested a few videos ago regarding your upcoming “all eyes on me” reaction, but you should really watch or include the couple of scenes before the actual song because it adds a lot to the song. Especially the scene right before

YAYAY IM SO EXCITED YOU UPLOADED

Man you are so good at this, thankyou for another great analysis. This song hit me so personally, I do feel like it's working on both a micro and macro level - the crushing existential dread of the world we live in, and the patterns that a decline in mental health can push us into (maybe not Pornhub, but I have totally ended up blankly reading legalese instead of doing the thing I was originally intending to do, when my brain has been particularly broken). In particular, the 'hey, what can you say' refrain definitely feels like it's talking about the seemingly inevitable doom of humanity, but it really reminded me of conversations when chronic mental illness (or physical for that matter) strikes - particularly going back to it after the All Eyes On Me story. You have a really good stretch where you dare to feel like things have improved, then the relapse hits you like a truck, there's nothing you or anyone else can do to fix it, you just have to grimace and say hey, I knew this would come back round eventually, I was lucky to have that long, and I've reached the other side before, all I can do is keep holding on.

Great video as always! Man, this song really does hit every time, its so great. Super excited to see you watch All Eyes on Me, if you liked this you'll absolutely love that one.

I am of course adding my own spin on this, but This Week I Review (or the comments in his review for the special, I forget which) said it extremely well (and honestly his review of Inside is the best review of anything that I've ever seen), that this song is essentially a song of jokes left unsaid. It hits on all the big ticket thoughts that live in your head for free, both serious and not, by making you think about them instead of actually talking about them. This song is the hidden central piece of the entire special, and is laid out in a format that simply gives you the feelings and leaves your thoughts to themselves.

I don’t know why, but this this special repeatedly brought me to tears and this song was one of the most impactful.

I think I fell in love with you while watching this haha great reaction

"Live action Lion King, Pepsi halftime show" taking the fantasy and trying to make it real while taking the real and making it fantasy.

Why is this song so haunting, beautiful, and catchy all at once

This song and Bo's art in general means so much to me cause I suffer from agoraphobia, disassociation, and derealization (among other things but that's what he mentioned in this song). It gives me chills every time. Especially because it's like he's expressing how powerless he feels as someone who wants to save the world from ending, or stop mass shooting, or even the brainwashing that the government does. I feel the same way. I cry every time I listen to this cause I understand that funny feeling a little too well.

this song always gives me that funny feeling

For me, it's 'the whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door' I could write an essay about those words

When I listen to this song I hear him mentioning matching polar opposites of what people will pay attention to. There are the things going on in this world that should draw the attention of everyone in the world and everyone should be so fixated on ( the oceans at our door, a mass shooting at the mall, etc...). Then there are the opposites, the things that people actually ARE paying attention to ( Pepsi Halftime show, Logan Paul, their phones ). We're doomed because the masses cares more about the distractions than the issues.

“Female Colonel Sander, Easy Answers” is relating to how Ai is used from Turing popular icons into different things and how it can also give out answers at the writing of a prompt.

This song broke me. This is the entire mindset of a 34-year old millenial living through the slowest apocalypse ever.

In my opinion that funny feeling is the feeling of just being numb to everything, the way we all go from one thing to another with little to no feeling about it

I feel like the song is talking about superficial fun and entertainment, how they feed it to us to make us comply with the world's irony and bitterness. Logan Paul, live-action lion king, Pepsi halftime show. We try to enjoy our time but what we consume contrasts with the real world.

When i heard the “The world at our finger tips, the ocean at your door” metaphor I figured that he was saying that just like the ocean at your door all the worlds information at your fingertips is to much to handle.

The colonel Sanders thing is about how the littlest things can cause all of us to blow up at each other over nothing

I love how he juxtaposes two conflicting ideas together to highlight just how absurd everything is in the world right now. "Gift shop at that gun range... Mass shooting at the mall". Bo is a genius.

You're correct on the "7 more to go". Climatologists estimate about 7 years before we pass the point of no return with climate change. Unfortunately I believe the estimation was at least a year ago already, maybe close to two.

I mentioned in a previous reaction that I feel like a main theme for the entire special is juxtaposition, and that gets distilled in this song. Having the whole world at your fingertips makes you feel powerful, like with the right tweet you could start a movement, but the ocean at your door makes you feel powerless, because whatever you do won't change the political deadlock that is allowing subsidies to continue pouring into the pockets of the fossil fuel fat cats. And throughout the song it just kind of feels like scrolling through you news feed. The silly and ridiculous side by side with the atrocious and depressing. And the compassion fatigue that, now around a year and a half into the pandemic, laces our every interaction with the news. That's just what I think about with this song, anyway.

I got your video recommended while browsing through Bo's songs, and remembered finding your channel when you just started with Inside reaction videos. I vaguely recalled you quitting/taking a break because it got too overwhelming? (Forgive me if I remembered wrong, a lot happened this past year) And I quickly checked your channel to see if you started uploading again, you haven't, so I just wanted to write this to say I hope you're doing well, internet stranger, your insights are still nice to listen to, and your cover of Funny feeling is still the best cover of it online. I hope you're doing what makes you happy!

that first chorus hit you in the feels bruh.. somehow I don't think you're alone

Ethan of CrankGameplays did a really good cover of this song with different lyrics that were about his struggles. It's pretty heartbreaking, but really good. The line where he referenced Unus Annus .... man

The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all.

Dude, I've seen a few of your reactions but you've really understood the song much more than most people seem to. I noticed that when apparently TikTok blew up with people's added verses and you can really tell how little some people understand the point. Which is fine enough I guess but nice to see someone actually get the point of it.

Love your reactions 💕 new sub! You should really consider reacting to his older stuff too from his other specials. Can’t wait to see where your channel goes. Good luck! ✌🏽

This song always struck me as a "the end of the world is happening" type of song. Like the end of the world just happened and this is a campfire song where the survivors are gathered around looking back at all the obvious signs that the end was coming.

I liked just because of how short your intro was. I really appreciate it. *Edit* Stayed for the reaction. It was interesting hearing your perspective.

You should cover it! Your taking voice is great and since you say you don't know how people feel about your singing voice you'd find out.

I think "that funny feeling" is the feeling you get when you "comprehend the ending of it all" and realize how pointless everything really is in terms of money, resolution, or technology. Its the feeling you get when you see the world without the rose-tinted shades, and see all the terrible and backwards things happening in the world, knowing full well that you don't have the power to stop them, and the people who do couldn't give less of a shit about them. I think "that funny feeling" is what Sock-o feels when he's not on someone's hand.

"That funny feeling" can be understood in 2 major ways: 1- that humorous feeling and 2- that uneasy/unsettling feeling. Old Bo would have made more puns but Present Bo is more sensitive to these matters. He shoves it in your face, sure, but not with the tactless abandon of yesteryears. 7 more (years) to go refers to the climate change world clock. Agoraphobia, which has been defined quite nicely already by another commenter, has skyrocketed since the pandemic started, along with other psychological disorders like depression, social anxiety disorder, etc. The line that follows interacts with this (imo) where he sings "A book on self improvement hand delivered by a drone." Interacting or at least being around people is a big goal when doing cognitive behavioral therapy (the traditional type of therapy for people with agoraphobia, though the world of psychology is ever changing). The next couplet is also interesting: Total disassociation, fully out your mind / Googling "derealization", hating what you find. Disassociation is arguably the closest you can come to being literally outside of your mind. It's a disconnection from the world, yourself, maybe even your body. It's one of the many inside/outside nods. If we looked close enough at most of the songs we can probably find a reference to the idea of insideness (& related). Hence the fully our your mind and on. Googling derealization is closer to an ironic twist as derealization is feeling disconnected from whats around you, the world, what's happening including things like what you're reading. So if you Google it and hate it, you are probably (probably) not experiencing it. That being said, these two mental states have also increased in frequency. Don't think about them as mental illnesses, theyre closer to like panic attacks. It can be sustained over a long period of time, of course (if you experience either for days or weeks, ect, then they're probably* a symptom of another mental illness causing them)

Agoraphobia is a fear of people.. so that line is talking about being caught out as an agoraphobic, feeling completely dissociated and out of your mind, then ordering a book on getting better and having it delivered personally to your door by a robot instead of a person.

This song hurts. The line about mass shootings gets me everytime. I have a friend who lives in Santa Clarita. I remember hearing about the shooting at a high school there 2 years ago and going absolutely numb, texting her to see if she was okay. It turned out she had switched schools in the town, but the time spent waiting was agony and this song always brings it up. I also find it really heartbreaking that at the end, when Bo is singing how it'll be over soon seems comforting when it's alluding to the destruction of humanity, especially that it IS comforting

Excellent commentary. You're spot on. We are screwed unless the elite get their act in gear. "That Funny Feeling" is something we are all slowly experiencing. The world is too crazy and too extreme and it feels like we're near the end. The twilight of humanity.