Bo Burnham Says No to Nostalgia

YOUTUBE MAY HAVE CURSED US WITH ENDLESS UNBOXING VIDEOS and a particular style of vocal fry, but it also gave us distinctive comedic voices like that of Bo Burnham. Speaking en route to the mammoth VidCon vlogger convention, Burnham says he’s not cynical about the website.

“I think it can do real good or real damage,” he says. “All of these things are very powerful media that run very deep. We just have to be conscious of how significant they are; they’re not just fun trends, they’re deep-running things.”

Burnham’s fantastic debut feature, Eighth Grade, is a coming-of-age dramedy that incorporates social media in seamless and natural ways. Unable to connect with her peers IRL, 13-year-old Kayla (Elsie Fisher) takes solace in maintaining a poorly viewed YouTube channel of her own. Though the film demonstrates just how disparate her real life is from one onscreen, Burnham says he’s not trying to be critical.

“I sometimes think the self you wish you were is a more honest version of who you are,” he suggests. “I really didn’t want to take a stance on something or lecture anybody or finger-wag — really more just portray what I think it feels like.”

Though the themes are familiar, Burnham insisted on making Eighth Grade feel as contemporary as possible. “I like nostalgic movies, but I wanted it to feel like we’re living this with her, not remembering it,” he explains. That meant looking outside of his own memories to tell the story. “I’m disconnected two-fold — because I was never a 13-year-old girl, but I was never a 13-year-old right now. Both of those things lend themselves to a really specific experience.”

Of course, Burnham’s research brought him back to the internet. “It was a lot of researching,” he explains. “Kids are posting everything about themselves online.”