To me, he says what the funny feeling is at the end of the song. “That unapparent summer air in early fall, the quiet comprehending of the ending of it all.” He’s talking about derealization and whatnot throughout the song, so that funny feeling is just understanding that everything is falling apart and you don’t even have the emotional capacity to care or be worried anymore. Life doesn’t even feel like real life at that point. That’s how I interpret it.
For a moment I was confused about you struggling with connecting to the meaning because I usually think you’re so on Bo’s wavelength and then it hit me like “oh! This is just a mentally healthy person who doesn’t experience feelings of constant dread and disassociation!” So good for you!
@@jfranklin42same, hits far too close to home. I honestly don't like that people didn't respond more to this song, because it's the one I associate with the most.
= existential anguish It's actually a really clever song. On the surface it seems so random, but there is that underlying feeling that is so difficult to define, but we are all feeling it to some extent: whether it's fear of climate change; manufactured hatred of online celebs; progressivism; mass shootings; wealth inequality, etc. We don't know what's coming next, but there's a feeling deep inside of us that we're heading in the wrong direction. And it doesn't matter what your political beliefs are - we're all feeling it. We all know something bad is coming... What can you say? We were overdue? But it'll be over soon... just wait.... Edit: the last few lines make me think about Covid (which the song was made during) and how it can easily be applied to that - how we were overdue, and how it will be over soon. It almost feels positive. But then when you apply the same lines to the idea of a Civil War or climate change, it switches to being very depressing and fatalistic. What's most depressing is that if Covid was a trial run for whatever we can expect in the future, the way we all terribly handled it is indicative of how bad things will be next.
Yes. Exactly. This song always lands me somewhere between apathy and nausea. That funny feeling, I guess. It feels like the world has been ending for years but now it's just coming faster. It's hard to feel anything about it because we've been feeling it for so long. Nothing is shocking anymore. The whole world is at each other's throats and I'm just waiting for the world to end.
I love watching reactions to this song. I think it’s one of those songs where if you know that feeling, then you really, really know. As someone who has panic attacks and occasional dissociative episodes, I understood this song immediately on my first listen and was crying by the midway point. Every day, we’re bombarded with stories of kids running lemonade stands to pay for their brain surgeries and people obsessing over Pete Davidson having hot girlfriends and news that the Amazon Rainforest now creates more CO2 than it eliminates and how we can’t pass any substantive laws about anything because politicians get more donations when their base is angry and that Starbucks is adding a new rainbow hazelnut latte to the menu. And it all makes me feel crazy because I just want to scream into the void for eternity, but instead I have to just go to work because I still need to pay for, like, rent and my Netflix account even though society is clearly collapsing all around us and, oh my god, is ANYONE ELSE PAYING ATTENTION TO ANY OF THIS?? Feeling like the only one, or maybe like the only one who can’t successfully compartmentalize it all, is a weird fucking feeling, and I’ll go to my grave grateful for this song making me feel less alone.
yep yep yep. I've found that my friends who have experience with anxiety and depression are as attached to this song as I am, while I've had people just get confused when I talk about it, as if it really didn't mean That Much to them and it's just....yeah. wow. that funny feeling and the dread and anxiety that comes with it really cannot be put into words better than this song. my first time listening to it I started crying and didn't touch it for a month. then I listened to it during a really bad day and again and again and found that it gave me an outlet for my anxiety? like it allowed me to feel my anxiety safely. if that makes sense.
Thank you for articulating what I could not when my boyfriend asked me why this song makes me cry. It's a song about quiet desperation and silent dread
what sucks is that no matter what day it is now, that phrase will always be true, everyday we're just barreling 1000 mph at extinction and just not doing anything. and all most of us can do to even be able to do activism is just take care of yourself
i get you and your explanation. cause ive felt the way you have. if im honest, i play this song to let my family get/understand a bit what my mind is like/what it's like on my worst days dealing with adhd and anxiety. this song and comments like this also make me feel not alone so thank you
For me the feeling is that something is wrong. Something big. So big that we, as a single person, can't do anything to stop it. It's an anxious dread. I think it ties into his other song "All Eyes On Me" when he says, "You say the ocean's rising like I give a shit You say the whole world's ending, honey, it already did"
Because I'm not seeing enough positivity in this comment section: I think you've done a really good job at analysing this on the fly. Your idea that these things are ironic is actually pretty on point, I just don't think it applies to absolutely all of it. But then again analysis is about interpretation not a 'correct' answer, and this song is REALLY hard to analyse quickly. There's just too much going on to figure it out, per se. I'd probably be less impressed if you came out from one listen saying 'Yes, this song is definitely about this' because that wouldn't feel genuine and/or just wouldn't be fully correct. In short, another great video.
Every time I listen to this song, things get a bit clearer. It’s just a self contained list of things varying from innocuous to outright existential that each in their own way make you think “something isn’t quite right here” or “this feels odd”. Essentially, everything on the list makes you feel weird, but probably no use looking into it, we’ll die soon, who cares. It’s clever by just not explicitly tying everything together outside of each just encapsulating that “funny feeling”. I enjoy the overall “bit” more with each listen
My take on this is that the meaning is in "googling derealisation". _That's_ the funny feeling he's experiencing, and he's making you feel it too by being vague and chaotic in the lyrics
Yo I have fallen down a rabbit hole of your videos, you are one of the best reaction channels and are the only one I’ve seen understand meanings behind videos that aren’t already obvious. Keep doing what your doing this is great
I think the "funny feeling" is the realization that we're doing things on purpose that are ruining us. Or maybe doing things that we know are ass-backwards, but we don't change them regardless.
I agree but think maybe he doesn't believe change is possible anymore. Witnessing all the ass-backwards decisions but also seeing that they further strengthen the position of those making them and prevent or weaken any kind of opposition he may well believe that the shipped has long since set sail and the course is set. Either way great song.
So the "7 years" specifically is a number likely chosen due to the current climate-clock. There was a very famous study that specifically mentioned 7 years from the point of release as the limit for being able to reduce the effects of climate change. I'd imagine that's what he's referring to.
I primarily thought the 7 years thing was about an asteroid heading towards Earth, with the whole song being about existential dread, doom, or the whole meaningless-ness of it all.
First listen I glossed over this line but some reason this time it had me stop dead. "There it is again. That funny feeling" "A book on getting better, hand delivered by a drone"
“Whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door” for me means you have all the knowledge from your devices and the internet but you still don’t care about the ocean at your door ( Sea levels rising due to global warming)
This get especially highlighted when immediately followed by the lyric about 7 more years to go. It has always hit me hard. Kind like, yes, you have the whole knowledgebase, a mighty computer in your hand and there's nothing that you do about the fact that your house will be drowned. And don't you worry - if now the ocean's at your door, in 7 years your house definitely will be underwater, if we continue like this.
That Funny Feeling is about the feeling you get when things happen that are just so weird (reading p*ornhub's terms of service), sometimes backwards (following the traffic rules in GTA V), but sometimes even everyday things (going for a drive). They just make you question things, and the more he goes into the song the more we get that "dissociating" feeling, the existential dread that Bo and all gen-z unfortunately experience. I think the song points out Bo's dissociation/derealization and his almost delusional thoughts he and a lot of other people felt during quarantine which was, well, that the world was actually ending, and he's quietly but painfully accepted it.
I doubt existential dread and dissociation are gen z limited (last I checked I am though I swear it was gen y in my geography textbook). The more you observe and learn the harder it is to not have some reaction. Some of my friends choose to ignore anything inconvenient and wont have deep discussions anymore. Others will gladly talk about the absurdity of so very many things but then go back to paying games, reading or watching fiction in any free time I assume because its overwhelming. Personally I satirize and joke about horrible horrible things. It makes some people uncomfortable and some more comfortable. For me I think it creates a layer of separation that I need to function while being aware of such absurdities. When it's difficult to use hyperbole in comedy because the truth surpasses your hyperbolic vocabulary it can be hard to keep that separation. There is an active investigation (looking at use of public funds, inappropriate use of position as a high profile public servant, scope of powers, and results since inception of this anti terror service (50% of charges were politically motivated and I believe only 12% of all charges political or otherwise lead to conviction). There wasn't any coverage by mainstream news outlet: tv or internet until the case was withdrawn awarding court fees to the defendant and a record in public domain. Possibly something to do with Murdoch monopoly in au/us/uk. In Au murdoch owns 70% media the rest is mixed between Costello's fairfax and 2 government owned broadcasting compaines. After the prosecution withdrew their case and the politician retired citing mental health. This took nearly a year, with a great legal team and qc who fought for free speech during vietnam. and crowd funding. Without that or without so many mistakes made while being filmed by the terror unit and politician...would it have gone through hierarchy of courts at all or another man x scenario using the private court without publication or documentation? A slippery slope and watching the police commissioner's answers to it was incredibly unsettling. When asked what evidence was used to justify a violent arrest without a warrant or even a psychologists assessment he admitted that it was at the request of the politician and they needed to act immediately to prevent psychological harm. This was met with skepticism and the commissioner finished by saying approximately: You'll have to decide what we are to do but if we want to stop kids and adults killing themselves because of social media then we need to act. Dystopian yet?
Bo is a millennial though, and bordering on an older millennial (1990). Being around the same age this song definitely encapsulates the overbearing sense that things have just spiraled out of control. The funny feeling that we're living through another 'catastrophic once in a lifetime world event" ... another catastrophic pandemic... another mass shooting etc. I think That Funny Feeling is an overwhelming sense that it really doesn't matter what we do now... it's all falling apart around us. And we're still expected to get up, go to work, and participate in the a society that's falling apart.
@@LostInTheEchelon yeah I know bo is a millennial, but he's always tried to emapthize with the youth and gen-z, thats why i think with that song he actually is trying to tell us "hey, i understand what you're going through, we're in this together". He's talked about relating to teenagers a lot in the past. Obviously its also displaying his own emotions and thoughts the way he personally experienced them.
I think the "funny feeling" is a way of saying that you don't know how to feel about things and in the song he list of some of the things that align with that deffinition. This could mean a '"happy and sad" feeling but also a "confused and accepting" feeling. I can't talk for Bo but I belive the meaning is to say that we need to decide what we feel about the things around us and through that choose how to deal with it and if not we are doomd.
That "7 more years to go" line is about the predicted "point of no return" where it's predicted in about 6 years now, we'll have done so much damage to the earth we can't undo it
This was my absolute favorite / most impactful song off of my first few rewatches of Inside. He had me hooked from the very second line: "In honor of the revolution, half off at the Gap". To me, this song absolutely captured exactly what I was feeling during a good chunk of 2020 starting in about May or June or so, where everything is just so painful, so chaotic, so distressing, so you're trying to stay updated on the news but not being able to handle it and just watching cheesy RUclips/social media to escape it and feeling weird about it.
this song is interesting in that to people of a certain kind understand and relate to it immediately, whereas in others it sparks a feeling of existential dread with no clear start or end, which is exactly the point
I love this song, it encapsulates the feeling of the meaning creeping up on you the more, funny, things are exposed to you. I watched David Attenborough's documentary about tipping points and it kinda crushed my heart when he said "scientists predict we have 7 years before there's no turning back." They were made in the same year.
Man some how i actually understand almost every line of this song and really should probably do a full breakdown to it. Bc so many people miss so much in this.
He's mostly talking about the downfall of society. "That Funny Feeling" is that impending doom, where you might not be able to say exactly WHAT is causing the downfall, but you feel that the darkness is right around the corner. He's just listing seemingly unrelated things, but they're all variations of the death of society and culture.
This song, your comments, and the comments underneath this video all made me realize and piece together a feeling that I had had fragments of. Words can't describe it, even a song can't, but if you pay attention then you just might feel it yourself, and it's powerful, yet elusive and hard to grasp.
Ive seen several reactions to this and it seems to me like people with a healthy mental state/who haven’t experienced what he’s singing about tend to feel like this is a really random song, so not connecting to the song on a deep level like many do is actually a good sign 🙃
This is possibly Bo’s most dense song, it’s very interesting to see people try to dissect it on one listen because for some it takes several listens to “get”. I remember when Inside initially came out there were tons of posts speculating what “funny feeling” he’s actually talking about.
Hey, I haven't been seeing your videos bc the last songs you were reacting weren't my style. But I am happy to see that you're still doing great and you're enjoying what you see. Hope to see you continuing like that!
@@padraiglyons5574 I watch pretty much everything, but it's just that the last songs weren't what I liked so it's been a while. I still like to see him react tho, it's very entertaining and funny sometimes
how do so many people miss the point of this song? I feel like im taking crazy pills. I've followed Bo since maybe 2008ish. The first time I heard this song, it was instantly my favorite. By far. It's such a deep and beautiful song.
This is probably my favourite track from Inside. I think the funny feeling is just an overall sense of everything being subtly wrong. Every line refers to some different way in which humanity is becoming disordered. We prefer to apply quick and easy patches to make the bigger problems easier to ignore. Corporations peddle easy answers to more and more complex questions. We act as though everything is fine, when we know that it's not. We find comfort and escapism in the mundane things (terms of service, traffic laws) because chaos is the new normal. Day to day life continues: We wake up, we go to work, we come home and consume media until we go to sleep. All this, despite the fact that life itself (for humanity at least) is in a death spiral. The song climaxes with a happier tone, while Bo sings "Hey, what can you say? We were overdue but it'll be over soon." This is jarring because it refers to the end of humanity. However, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the natural world would thrive in our absence. This is both deeply depressing but somewhat beautiful. "That funny feeling" is an amalgamation of all of these emotions: Existential dread, derealisation and "mono no aware:" The understanding that everything will one day cease to exist.
Dude I’m so impressed you analyzed it and interpreted this song as much as you did on first listen! Definitely brought up points I hadn’t even thought about after a ton of listens. Awesome reaction!
The funny feeling when Suffi doesn't get a Bo song. lol I know you're usually pretty good with Bo's songs, I'm surprised this was a tough one for you. It was a heavy song though, and your thoughts were in a good direction. Watching this as a part of the special was an absolute gut punch. The lyrics are so complex and clever and haunting. Existential dread.
It's funny how you're usually so on top of the interpretations and meanings of songs, but this one sort of flew over your head! No worries, it flew over my head too on the first listen ❤
i think he got it, but the things he thought were random were supposed to be things that give you “this funny feeling” it’s not irony, he just didn’t understand the references. but the world ending is definitely part of it. it’s just all of those things. including the pandemic also suffi, robert eiger is like the head of Disney
same here.. you have to kinda live with a bunch of existential dread already otherwise this song probably seems weird... (aka suffis mental health is way too intact for this :D)
@@lisa_vxng very true! I watched this special during like, the happiest time of my life so far, so I was almost a little pissed because I'd wanted a true comedy (like his previous work that is still thought provoking but a lot more straight forward). I came back to visit it during a more difficult time and it all made more sense to me. ❤
Fun fact. The “20,000 years of this, 7 more to go” line wasn’t random. According to the climate clock, at the current rate of things (At the time of this songs release), the world would be unrepairable in 7 years. So it wasn’t random. It was statistics.
At 11:22 I nodded and said out loud (in a room by myself) "That's it. You got it." This is my interpretation as well. Others have said this, but you're good at this. Seriously I wish you success.
the line about following all of the traffic laws in grand theft auto, at least how i interpreted, is about feeling like you have so little control over your life or what other people do in the real world, that you follow the rules in a game where you’re supposed to break them just to feel a little bit of control and comfort in a world where everything is so chaotic and people are always breaking the rules. the whole song is really about existential dread, related to the decaying of the environment or not, and the little things that are ironic or bizarre enough to get someone thinking about how crazy the world they live in is.
To me, the “funny feeling” is anything that makes you wonder “How did things get so weird?” Hence “Reading Pornhub’s terms of service, going for a drive, and obeying all the traffic laws in Grand Theft Auto 5.” They’re things no one would normally do, but they’d give you a strange sense of normalcy in the current chaos of life. When life is so weird you turn to escapism to experience normalcy, there’s a massive problem in the world.
My interpretation of this song: It's mainly about all the twisted and/or irrelevant things happening in the world, that occupy our minds because the internet delivers them directly to us (the whole world at your fingertips). He then sneaks in some actual issues of a catastrophic scope that need addressing AND soon (mass shootings, global warming, lack of overdue social changes; culminating in the end of the world/our lives as we know it). "That funny feeling" being the feeling you get when you are confronted with these large scale issues you have no way of fixing by yourself, aka. severe anxiety. (Which in my case feels like a twist in my chest and a lump in my throat that make me almost tear up.) I don't know about other people in general, but in my case THIS song makes me feel "that funny feeling" whenever he throws in these very real issues, which is why I love the song so much. Edit: "20000 Years of this, 7 more to go" refers the the climate clock, which is climate experts best estimation of the point until which we need to have fixed climate change, or we will have driven the planet beyond repair.
The way I understood it, was that there are all of these pointless things that are occurring around us, for the most part, but we have such bigger things to worry about as the song goes on
I believe that the "the whole world at your fingertips" means your phone, like when he said in Welcome to the Internet "it was always the plan to to the world in your hands" aaand the "the ocean at your door" it's about the global warming consequences
I think there is one big thing pretty much everyone missed in this song, and that's the ending. It's has double meaning, like a lot of Bo's stuff. It's not only that we humans were overdue and now it's the end. But also that people who have those funny feelings have them come and go, and we were overdue and now the funny feeling is here, but don't worry it will be over soon, and things will look better and brighter. I truly believe so many people missed this. It has an optimistic ending. You got the funny feeling, but it shall pass, and things will be better.
this is one of my favorite songs of bo’s to watch people react to, because if you don’t immediately know what feeling he’s referencing, you’re in for a fucking tornado of a thought process. none of the topics he references are _directly_ linked to one another, but there’s this indescribable feeling that comes with considering them. the feeling of derealization and dissociation both feel, to me, the same way thinking about something like a mass shooting at a mall or the fact logan paul filmed a dead man’s body feels. it’s heavy, and murky, and too odd for words, but it’s definitely the same, and bo absolutely nails it.
"you can't force them (billionaires) to fund something like that" mmmm I mean you can, by taxing them appropriately and then using that money for those projects XD
@@iainmcguire7190 that's again up to governments having the actual will to legislate in a way that doesn't let them find holes. The reason why billionaires can use layers to scape laws is mostly because the laws have been made to allow for that to happen.
I think the song talks about different things that give us a funny feeling we can't really describe, hence the name. It can be about little things like driving carefully in GTA5 and important things like the fact that we might all die in 7 years and we are responsible.
"The ocean's at your door" I interpret that as being trapped & a comment on the climate. The whole world's at your fingertips, sure, but the ocean's at your door.
This song is one of those that seems fully open to interpretation. Most art is, but this piece especially. The way I took it, we have all of these things happening around us, and they are thrown at us all at once sometimes. Interlaced between them we have terribly awful things, such as climate change and mass shootings. "The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door," seems to be referring to the ice caps melting due to climate change. We are in an unprecedented age of globalization, and yet soon enough we won't be able to act upon that because right outside of our door won't be our neighbor, it'll be this ocean (literal or figurative, your choice). The song wraps up with self reflection, as if it all seems too late. Between all of the stuff thrown at us on a daily basis, the very last thing we sought to do was look at ourselves. "Googling derealization, hating what you find." EDIT: It all, also, seems to work towards just trying to feel *something*. The Grand Theft Auto line prior to the derealization line. All of the song working towards this ending of "Well, what can we really do? We were overdue and that's all there is to it." It's a slow, seemingly random progression but one that I think a lot of people could connect with :)
Thank you for another amazing reaction! I also had a boggled first impression of this song but I think you picked it out perfectly! I also agree its that "funny feeling" you get from going through life, kinda numbed out by all these mundane things that are sometimes horrible (like a mass shooting, but its now so common you feel numb to it) but at the same time the climate disaster is approaching. "The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door" I take to mean being on your phone/internet while the ocean keeps rising from climate change. "20,000 years of this, 7 more to go" I think also fits the climate disaster. The "climate clock" (a count-down of how long we have left before we cant repair the damage done to the planet) was at 7 years left when he wrote this, and 20,000-10,000 years ago was roughly the dawn of human agriculture, when we really started manipulating and changing the planet. So I think your reaction and thoughts were on point! I think it's supposed to give you that exactly confused/odd feeling. Thank you for reacting to this! I really enjoyed it
Ah, Existential Dread the Musical! To the "that funny feeling" is just that gut sense you get when something isn't quite right, isn't as it should be. I think all the things Bo lists give him that feeling. Things like the "live-action" Lion King that was still animated and Carpool Karaoke, which I assume he has the same objection to as he does Celebrity Lip-Syncing. I definitely think the end is supposed to be about the end of humanity.
On the "7 more [years] to go" part -- there is a Climate Clock that is counting down how long we have left to limit global warming before it is irreversible, and currently it's at just over 7 years. That's likely at least partially what he's referring to.
I think when he says “female kernel sanders easy answer civil war” it’s more set up like this: “female kernel sanders? each answer: civil war.” And I take that as a company (KFC for this example) proposing a new idea for their brand that seems more inclusive to other groups of people, and that one branding question alone send the whole country into a civil war based on left wing and right wing ideas on those types of topics. So for example the left fully agreeing because they like the representation of women and then the right disagreeing because there’s no need to change traditions or whatever. So basically I think he’s saying that these small topics don’t need to cause such violent discussions and disagreements amongst ourselves. Yes we can disagree but we don’t need to split the whole country in two.
That funny feeling.. The realization that everything is wrong, everything is rapidly declining and there's nothing you as a single person can do to stop it. That feeling of existential dread.
'We were overdue, but it'll be over soon' could also reflect the pandemic. That we were overdue for some plague-like pandemic, but we're just saying that it'll be over soon like we're either accepting our fate or ignoring the actuality that we need to be responsible for what we do and being the solution, rather than just relying on someone else to solve it.
To me the funny feeling is seeing our affect on the world. Everything we’re doing wrong. “The world at your fingertips the ocean at your door” we own the world but we’re destroying it. It’s like seeing stuffed animals with a mask, not inherently bad or wrong just… a funny feeling of seeing what’s normal to us now.
Something to remember is this was created not only mid Pandemic, but also when he finally got well enough to end his own "quarantine". It was like he hid from life out of fear and panic, and when he decided there is nothing to be afraid of, life said yeah there is
I believe the “female colonel sanders” line was a reference to Reba McEntire being colonel sanders in a few commercials and a bunch of people got up in arms about it. And I think the “reading pornhubs terms of service” is supposed to be ironic based on some of pornhubs shady and exploitative practices that end up screwing the actors/workers out of money. Sort of like “you’re reading the terms of service but you don’t actually care what this business is doing behind the scenes”
Civilization is obviously coming to a close, the 20,000 years applies to more modern human history. He's talking about all the unhealthy strange consequences of human civilization reaching a bottleneck, both psychologically and environmentally.
"The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all" is basically what I believe is what he means by "That Funny Feeling". Full disclosure: I've seen Inside a ridiculous amount of times (upwards of seven, conservatively speaking) as many have and there is so much there-- that no one other than Bo can fully know--to catch that most can't catch in one pass. Especially if you know Bo Burnham's story from teenager to 30 years old. It's existential dread in a song. It is beautifully sad.
I love that we all can interpret this song differently. To me, this song is a collage of very human and recognizable pieces of current culture to showcase the insignificance. We have created and done so much in our 20,000 years and in the last 20 our world has become so connected and yet so segmented and distant that we can’t at all sustain it. The world is being destroyed through environmental factors but also the human existence has become so commodified and divisive that we are too busy finding meaningless things to argue over instead of facing reality. All those things are easier and more entertaining to talk about that we will eventually lose sight of true threat and see the end. It’s one of the best pieces from him lyrically and it hit me hardest in the whole special. He’s really a genius and this special is an introspective masterpiece that gives every viewer so much to contemplate. I will support this man in anything he does. He’s the musical George Carlin and I’m here for it.
From my perspective I've always seen this song as like watching it all and it not feeling real. And you get so anxious of it that you don't feel real giving you "that funny feeling". I've had DPDR for like 4 years and this song is such a good way of seeing it and representing it. It's like everything is so astonishing and surprising that it's like a movie. Unreal. Though I think Bo is meaning that he is dissociating because of the anxiety and worry for the world and how it is being dragged down. He talks about he has the world at his fingertips while the world is turning to ruin. He referring to the internet and how he can access almost everything like guns and in pollution and all these other things us as people contribute to the ending.
It’s realIzing all of these things that are problematic, but not having the mental capacity to do anything about it. The derealization lyric really is what did it for me. Around the start of the Covid I started noticing a rapid decline in my mental health. This song helped me realize that.
I think he’s talking about how incomprehensible everything is, and how impossible it is to get a handle on the contradictions and minutia and vastness of the problems we face. It’s just shutting down in the face of all the madness of the world as it scrolls by towards its inevitable collapse.
This was great to listen to as you expressed your thoughts and uncertainties. RUclips algorithm showed me your take on from gods perspective and I subbed. I never thought I'd enjoy reaction videos but It's been interesting seeing someone else experience media you love. Do you stream at all? Before this the closest to reaction vids was when a streamer I was watching was taking a day off and friends and other streamers had made a list together with random links, mostly absurd memes, very arty or absurdist short videos or animation. Then views and subs contributed links. It was different because it was all unique so I guess I was reacting at the same time but also because its streaming its not passive and there's constant discussion with the streamer and other viewers. I look forward to checking out some of your other videos and seeing if things im not familiar with are as entertaining as the Bo Burnham reaction I've seen from you.
I think an interesting example of "that funny feeling" is the feeling we (or at least I and many others) had in 2020 before covid hit. We were all vaguely aware of the shit going on in the world and now that I look back I realised I could feel something big coming but couldn't comprehend what.
For me this seems be a song about how depression can suddenly come to you. And the listing aspect kind of reads as like a RUclips feed. How it just voices around how it'll go from mundane things like I think it was a gq or a buzzfeed video about obeying the laws in GTA v and Logan Paul to global pollution or mass shootings. And you can just be browsing RUclips to suddenly getting that "funny" feeling creeping on you whether it be brought on by your feed by it bring things to you or just suddenly feeling it while going for a drive. The ending also goes with this as it's kinda ironic with it's tone as it's like welp we were over due for bout of depression but hey it'll be over soon. As someone who goes through this a lot this song perfectly captures it and it slowly became one of my favorites from the show. Right behind all eyes on me.
He’s talking about all the things we do that don’t necessarily make sense and some of them we just do it and it forms into self destruction and some of them we do it cause it’s a funny feeling, we don’t know why we do it we just do and we will keep doing it even if the human race depends on it we keep doing it, it’s a funny feeling It’s weird how we keep doing self destructive things or doing things that don’t need to be done we self sabotage ourselves and we’re very aware of it but we still continue to do it and we’re not actually trying to find a solution to those things even though we say we are
I think it's that general underlying uneasy feeling that a lot of us probably have. Just crazy shit, stacked upon crazy shit, and it's all so much that it's just kind of like we're just numb to it all now but we know everything is insane. Like being stuck on an out of control ride.
To me this is almost like a more earnest take on “welcome to the internet”… a list of things you might see in your feed on social media, the dumb, the funny, the sad, the utterly tragic. What makes this song more earnest is the perspective, where “welcome to the internet” was performed in the internet’s voice, this is from the pov of Bo himself. It’s about the utter inundation of information, how one becomes numb to it all because it’s just all too much to process and the obvious toll on mental health it all has. I think the “funny feeling” is perhaps the feeling that the world is coming to an end and Bo’s complacency about it.
To me, he says what the funny feeling is at the end of the song. “That unapparent summer air in early fall, the quiet comprehending of the ending of it all.” He’s talking about derealization and whatnot throughout the song, so that funny feeling is just understanding that everything is falling apart and you don’t even have the emotional capacity to care or be worried anymore. Life doesn’t even feel like real life at that point. That’s how I interpret it.
That is exactly how I see this song!!
@@RoseMairie same for me... I just could never put it into words haha
Well said sir
Or in short: "apathys a tragedy and boredom is crime"
It's global warming
For a moment I was confused about you struggling with connecting to the meaning because I usually think you’re so on Bo’s wavelength and then it hit me like “oh! This is just a mentally healthy person who doesn’t experience feelings of constant dread and disassociation!” So good for you!
As someone who instantly connected with this song, your comment hits a bit close to home 😅
@@jfranklin42same, hits far too close to home. I honestly don't like that people didn't respond more to this song, because it's the one I associate with the most.
= existential anguish
It's actually a really clever song. On the surface it seems so random, but there is that underlying feeling that is so difficult to define, but we are all feeling it to some extent: whether it's fear of climate change; manufactured hatred of online celebs; progressivism; mass shootings; wealth inequality, etc. We don't know what's coming next, but there's a feeling deep inside of us that we're heading in the wrong direction. And it doesn't matter what your political beliefs are - we're all feeling it. We all know something bad is coming... What can you say? We were overdue? But it'll be over soon... just wait....
Edit: the last few lines make me think about Covid (which the song was made during) and how it can easily be applied to that - how we were overdue, and how it will be over soon. It almost feels positive. But then when you apply the same lines to the idea of a Civil War or climate change, it switches to being very depressing and fatalistic. What's most depressing is that if Covid was a trial run for whatever we can expect in the future, the way we all terribly handled it is indicative of how bad things will be next.
You encapsulated my exact opinion in this comment. This is exactly how this song reads to me also.
Yes. Exactly. This song always lands me somewhere between apathy and nausea. That funny feeling, I guess. It feels like the world has been ending for years but now it's just coming faster. It's hard to feel anything about it because we've been feeling it for so long. Nothing is shocking anymore. The whole world is at each other's throats and I'm just waiting for the world to end.
@@hannahsparks320 If this song were a movie, it would be Don’t Look Up
They’ve been saying covid will be over soon for two years
@@jamesallen2909 What does that have to do with the song?
I love watching reactions to this song. I think it’s one of those songs where if you know that feeling, then you really, really know. As someone who has panic attacks and occasional dissociative episodes, I understood this song immediately on my first listen and was crying by the midway point.
Every day, we’re bombarded with stories of kids running lemonade stands to pay for their brain surgeries and people obsessing over Pete Davidson having hot girlfriends and news that the Amazon Rainforest now creates more CO2 than it eliminates and how we can’t pass any substantive laws about anything because politicians get more donations when their base is angry and that Starbucks is adding a new rainbow hazelnut latte to the menu. And it all makes me feel crazy because I just want to scream into the void for eternity, but instead I have to just go to work because I still need to pay for, like, rent and my Netflix account even though society is clearly collapsing all around us and, oh my god, is ANYONE ELSE PAYING ATTENTION TO ANY OF THIS??
Feeling like the only one, or maybe like the only one who can’t successfully compartmentalize it all, is a weird fucking feeling, and I’ll go to my grave grateful for this song making me feel less alone.
💖
yep yep yep. I've found that my friends who have experience with anxiety and depression are as attached to this song as I am, while I've had people just get confused when I talk about it, as if it really didn't mean That Much to them and it's just....yeah. wow. that funny feeling and the dread and anxiety that comes with it really cannot be put into words better than this song.
my first time listening to it I started crying and didn't touch it for a month. then I listened to it during a really bad day and again and again and found that it gave me an outlet for my anxiety? like it allowed me to feel my anxiety safely. if that makes sense.
Thank you for articulating what I could not when my boyfriend asked me why this song makes me cry. It's a song about quiet desperation and silent dread
what sucks is that no matter what day it is now, that phrase will always be true, everyday we're just barreling 1000 mph at extinction and just not doing anything. and all most of us can do to even be able to do activism is just take care of yourself
i get you and your explanation. cause ive felt the way you have. if im honest, i play this song to let my family get/understand a bit what my mind is like/what it's like on my worst days dealing with adhd and anxiety. this song and comments like this also make me feel not alone so thank you
For me the feeling is that something is wrong. Something big. So big that we, as a single person, can't do anything to stop it. It's an anxious dread.
I think it ties into his other song "All Eyes On Me" when he says, "You say the ocean's rising like I give a shit
You say the whole world's ending, honey, it already did"
Because I'm not seeing enough positivity in this comment section: I think you've done a really good job at analysing this on the fly. Your idea that these things are ironic is actually pretty on point, I just don't think it applies to absolutely all of it. But then again analysis is about interpretation not a 'correct' answer, and this song is REALLY hard to analyse quickly. There's just too much going on to figure it out, per se. I'd probably be less impressed if you came out from one listen saying 'Yes, this song is definitely about this' because that wouldn't feel genuine and/or just wouldn't be fully correct.
In short, another great video.
I agree. It took me a few watches before it started hitting for me.
Every time I listen to this song, things get a bit clearer. It’s just a self contained list of things varying from innocuous to outright existential that each in their own way make you think “something isn’t quite right here” or “this feels odd”. Essentially, everything on the list makes you feel weird, but probably no use looking into it, we’ll die soon, who cares. It’s clever by just not explicitly tying everything together outside of each just encapsulating that “funny feeling”. I enjoy the overall “bit” more with each listen
My take on this is that the meaning is in "googling derealisation". _That's_ the funny feeling he's experiencing, and he's making you feel it too by being vague and chaotic in the lyrics
Yo I have fallen down a rabbit hole of your videos, you are one of the best reaction channels and are the only one I’ve seen understand meanings behind videos that aren’t already obvious. Keep doing what your doing this is great
I appreciate it
I think the "funny feeling" is the realization that we're doing things on purpose that are ruining us.
Or maybe doing things that we know are ass-backwards, but we don't change them regardless.
I agree but think maybe he doesn't believe change is possible anymore. Witnessing all the ass-backwards decisions but also seeing that they further strengthen the position of those making them and prevent or weaken any kind of opposition he may well believe that the shipped has long since set sail and the course is set. Either way great song.
Bob Iger was the CEO of Disney, he's now the chairman of the board.
edit: I also think late-stage capitalism is a big theme in the song as well.
So the "7 years" specifically is a number likely chosen due to the current climate-clock.
There was a very famous study that specifically mentioned 7 years from the point of release as the limit for being able to reduce the effects of climate change.
I'd imagine that's what he's referring to.
I primarily thought the 7 years thing was about an asteroid heading towards Earth, with the whole song being about existential dread, doom, or the whole meaningless-ness of it all.
First listen I glossed over this line but some reason this time it had me stop dead.
"There it is again. That funny feeling"
"A book on getting better, hand delivered by a drone"
Yeah that's fucking brutal.
“Whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door” for me means you have all the knowledge from your devices and the internet but you still don’t care about the ocean at your door ( Sea levels rising due to global warming)
Yes exactly! One of the most standout and hard hitting lines other than the line about mass shootings
This get especially highlighted when immediately followed by the lyric about 7 more years to go. It has always hit me hard. Kind like, yes, you have the whole knowledgebase, a mighty computer in your hand and there's nothing that you do about the fact that your house will be drowned. And don't you worry - if now the ocean's at your door, in 7 years your house definitely will be underwater, if we continue like this.
That Funny Feeling is about the feeling you get when things happen that are just so weird (reading p*ornhub's terms of service), sometimes backwards (following the traffic rules in GTA V), but sometimes even everyday things (going for a drive). They just make you question things, and the more he goes into the song the more we get that "dissociating" feeling, the existential dread that Bo and all gen-z unfortunately experience. I think the song points out Bo's dissociation/derealization and his almost delusional thoughts he and a lot of other people felt during quarantine which was, well, that the world was actually ending, and he's quietly but painfully accepted it.
I doubt existential dread and dissociation are gen z limited (last I checked I am though I swear it was gen y in my geography textbook). The more you observe and learn the harder it is to not have some reaction. Some of my friends choose to ignore anything inconvenient and wont have deep discussions anymore. Others will gladly talk about the absurdity of so very many things but then go back to paying games, reading or watching fiction in any free time I assume because its overwhelming.
Personally I satirize and joke about horrible horrible things. It makes some people uncomfortable and some more comfortable. For me I think it creates a layer of separation that I need to function while being aware of such absurdities. When it's difficult to use hyperbole in comedy because the truth surpasses your hyperbolic vocabulary it can be hard to keep that separation.
There is an active investigation (looking at use of public funds, inappropriate use of position as a high profile public servant, scope of powers, and results since inception of this anti terror service (50% of charges were politically motivated and I believe only 12% of all charges political or otherwise lead to conviction).
There wasn't any coverage by mainstream news outlet: tv or internet until the case was withdrawn awarding court fees to the defendant and a record in public domain. Possibly something to do with Murdoch monopoly in au/us/uk. In Au murdoch owns 70% media the rest is mixed between Costello's fairfax and 2 government owned broadcasting compaines.
After the prosecution withdrew their case and the politician retired citing mental health. This took nearly a year, with a great legal team and qc who fought for free speech during vietnam. and crowd funding. Without that or without so many mistakes made while being filmed by the terror unit and politician...would it have gone through hierarchy of courts at all or another man x scenario using the private court without publication or documentation? A slippery slope and watching the police commissioner's answers to it was incredibly unsettling. When asked what evidence was used to justify a violent arrest without a warrant or even a psychologists assessment he admitted that it was at the request of the politician and they needed to act immediately to prevent psychological harm. This was met with skepticism and the commissioner finished by saying approximately: You'll have to decide what we are to do but if we want to stop kids and adults killing themselves because of social media then we need to act.
Dystopian yet?
Bo is a millennial though, and bordering on an older millennial (1990). Being around the same age this song definitely encapsulates the overbearing sense that things have just spiraled out of control. The funny feeling that we're living through another 'catastrophic once in a lifetime world event" ... another catastrophic pandemic... another mass shooting etc. I think That Funny Feeling is an overwhelming sense that it really doesn't matter what we do now... it's all falling apart around us. And we're still expected to get up, go to work, and participate in the a society that's falling apart.
@@LostInTheEchelon yeah I know bo is a millennial, but he's always tried to emapthize with the youth and gen-z, thats why i think with that song he actually is trying to tell us "hey, i understand what you're going through, we're in this together". He's talked about relating to teenagers a lot in the past. Obviously its also displaying his own emotions and thoughts the way he personally experienced them.
This song brings me to tears every time. Some of us didnt need to google derealization.
Exactly.
I am actually surprised how many people don't know what it is.
What was even more sad is how many people understood but didn't know there was a word for it.
I think the "funny feeling" is a way of saying that you don't know how to feel about things and in the song he list of some of the things that align with that deffinition. This could mean a '"happy and sad" feeling but also a "confused and accepting" feeling. I can't talk for Bo but I belive the meaning is to say that we need to decide what we feel about the things around us and through that choose how to deal with it and if not we are doomd.
That "7 more years to go" line is about the predicted "point of no return" where it's predicted in about 6 years now, we'll have done so much damage to the earth we can't undo it
This was my absolute favorite / most impactful song off of my first few rewatches of Inside. He had me hooked from the very second line: "In honor of the revolution, half off at the Gap". To me, this song absolutely captured exactly what I was feeling during a good chunk of 2020 starting in about May or June or so, where everything is just so painful, so chaotic, so distressing, so you're trying to stay updated on the news but not being able to handle it and just watching cheesy RUclips/social media to escape it and feeling weird about it.
this song is interesting in that to people of a certain kind understand and relate to it immediately, whereas in others it sparks a feeling of existential dread with no clear start or end, which is exactly the point
I love this song, it encapsulates the feeling of the meaning creeping up on you the more, funny, things are exposed to you.
I watched David Attenborough's documentary about tipping points and it kinda crushed my heart when he said "scientists predict we have 7 years before there's no turning back." They were made in the same year.
One of the most devastating songs ever written
Man some how i actually understand almost every line of this song and really should probably do a full breakdown to it. Bc so many people miss so much in this.
I feel the same that you feel about this song lol I can relate and I actually think I understand it
He's mostly talking about the downfall of society. "That Funny Feeling" is that impending doom, where you might not be able to say exactly WHAT is causing the downfall, but you feel that the darkness is right around the corner. He's just listing seemingly unrelated things, but they're all variations of the death of society and culture.
This song, your comments, and the comments underneath this video all made me realize and piece together a feeling that I had had fragments of. Words can't describe it, even a song can't, but if you pay attention then you just might feel it yourself, and it's powerful, yet elusive and hard to grasp.
Ive seen several reactions to this and it seems to me like people with a healthy mental state/who haven’t experienced what he’s singing about tend to feel like this is a really random song, so not connecting to the song on a deep level like many do is actually a good sign 🙃
This is possibly Bo’s most dense song, it’s very interesting to see people try to dissect it on one listen because for some it takes several listens to “get”. I remember when Inside initially came out there were tons of posts speculating what “funny feeling” he’s actually talking about.
Hey, I haven't been seeing your videos bc the last songs you were reacting weren't my style. But I am happy to see that you're still doing great and you're enjoying what you see. Hope to see you continuing like that!
Same, it seems i only watch the bo reactions from this channel
@@padraiglyons5574 I watch pretty much everything, but it's just that the last songs weren't what I liked so it's been a while. I still like to see him react tho, it's very entertaining and funny sometimes
how do so many people miss the point of this song? I feel like im taking crazy pills. I've followed Bo since maybe 2008ish. The first time I heard this song, it was instantly my favorite. By far. It's such a deep and beautiful song.
This song separates those that pretend to be deep and those that understand "that funny feeling"
I enjoy watching reactions to this video. Seeing the realization of what he is saying. A deeply sad and spot on song.
This is probably my favourite track from Inside. I think the funny feeling is just an overall sense of everything being subtly wrong. Every line refers to some different way in which humanity is becoming disordered. We prefer to apply quick and easy patches to make the bigger problems easier to ignore. Corporations peddle easy answers to more and more complex questions.
We act as though everything is fine, when we know that it's not. We find comfort and escapism in the mundane things (terms of service, traffic laws) because chaos is the new normal. Day to day life continues: We wake up, we go to work, we come home and consume media until we go to sleep. All this, despite the fact that life itself (for humanity at least) is in a death spiral.
The song climaxes with a happier tone, while Bo sings "Hey, what can you say? We were overdue but it'll be over soon." This is jarring because it refers to the end of humanity. However, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the natural world would thrive in our absence. This is both deeply depressing but somewhat beautiful. "That funny feeling" is an amalgamation of all of these emotions: Existential dread, derealisation and "mono no aware:" The understanding that everything will one day cease to exist.
Dude I’m so impressed you analyzed it and interpreted this song as much as you did on first listen! Definitely brought up points I hadn’t even thought about after a ton of listens. Awesome reaction!
The funny feeling when Suffi doesn't get a Bo song. lol I know you're usually pretty good with Bo's songs, I'm surprised this was a tough one for you. It was a heavy song though, and your thoughts were in a good direction. Watching this as a part of the special was an absolute gut punch. The lyrics are so complex and clever and haunting. Existential dread.
It's funny how you're usually so on top of the interpretations and meanings of songs, but this one sort of flew over your head! No worries, it flew over my head too on the first listen ❤
i think he got it, but the things he thought were random were supposed to be things that give you “this funny feeling” it’s not irony, he just didn’t understand the references.
but the world ending is definitely part of it. it’s just all of those things. including the pandemic
also suffi, robert eiger is like the head of Disney
@@reactwatcher Yeah he got the gist if it! I meant more initially, his face was pure confusion- as was mine in the first listen! ❤
same here.. you have to kinda live with a bunch of existential dread already otherwise this song probably seems weird... (aka suffis mental health is way too intact for this :D)
@@lisa_vxng very true! I watched this special during like, the happiest time of my life so far, so I was almost a little pissed because I'd wanted a true comedy (like his previous work that is still thought provoking but a lot more straight forward). I came back to visit it during a more difficult time and it all made more sense to me. ❤
Fun fact. The “20,000 years of this, 7 more to go” line wasn’t random. According to the climate clock, at the current rate of things (At the time of this songs release), the world would be unrepairable in 7 years. So it wasn’t random. It was statistics.
At 11:22 I nodded and said out loud (in a room by myself) "That's it. You got it."
This is my interpretation as well. Others have said this, but you're good at this. Seriously I wish you success.
Personally, I think this song is about how like anxiety attacks can come from many different things, and that is the funny feeling bo is talking about
Thank you for reacting to this . I know you stopped reacting to Bo a while ago and was hoping to see more of your reaction do him .
the line about following all of the traffic laws in grand theft auto, at least how i interpreted, is about feeling like you have so little control over your life or what other people do in the real world, that you follow the rules in a game where you’re supposed to break them just to feel a little bit of control and comfort in a world where everything is so chaotic and people are always breaking the rules. the whole song is really about existential dread, related to the decaying of the environment or not, and the little things that are ironic or bizarre enough to get someone thinking about how crazy the world they live in is.
you're the first person on YT to break down the "female colonel sanders" line in the same way i took it when i first heard it, and i love that
Seven years refers to the time that climatologists agree we have before climate change becomes irreversible.
To me, the “funny feeling” is anything that makes you wonder “How did things get so weird?”
Hence “Reading Pornhub’s terms of service, going for a drive, and obeying all the traffic laws in Grand Theft Auto 5.” They’re things no one would normally do, but they’d give you a strange sense of normalcy in the current chaos of life. When life is so weird you turn to escapism to experience normalcy, there’s a massive problem in the world.
My interpretation of this song:
It's mainly about all the twisted and/or irrelevant things happening in the world, that occupy our minds because the internet delivers them directly to us (the whole world at your fingertips). He then sneaks in some actual issues of a catastrophic scope that need addressing AND soon (mass shootings, global warming, lack of overdue social changes; culminating in the end of the world/our lives as we know it). "That funny feeling" being the feeling you get when you are confronted with these large scale issues you have no way of fixing by yourself, aka. severe anxiety. (Which in my case feels like a twist in my chest and a lump in my throat that make me almost tear up.)
I don't know about other people in general, but in my case THIS song makes me feel "that funny feeling" whenever he throws in these very real issues, which is why I love the song so much.
Edit: "20000 Years of this, 7 more to go" refers the the climate clock, which is climate experts best estimation of the point until which we need to have fixed climate change, or we will have driven the planet beyond repair.
The way I understood it, was that there are all of these pointless things that are occurring around us, for the most part, but we have such bigger things to worry about as the song goes on
I believe that the "the whole world at your fingertips" means your phone, like when he said in Welcome to the Internet "it was always the plan to to the world in your hands" aaand the "the ocean at your door" it's about the global warming consequences
Flexing on us with his mental stability, not being able to understand that these are things that cause what Bo feels throughout Inside
I think there is one big thing pretty much everyone missed in this song, and that's the ending. It's has double meaning, like a lot of Bo's stuff.
It's not only that we humans were overdue and now it's the end. But also that people who have those funny feelings have them come and go, and we were overdue and now the funny feeling is here, but don't worry it will be over soon, and things will look better and brighter.
I truly believe so many people missed this. It has an optimistic ending. You got the funny feeling, but it shall pass, and things will be better.
Bo is a genius, there’s no way to understand hardly any of his songs in one listen, or fifty.
this is one of my favorite songs of bo’s to watch people react to, because if you don’t immediately know what feeling he’s referencing, you’re in for a fucking tornado of a thought process. none of the topics he references are _directly_ linked to one another, but there’s this indescribable feeling that comes with considering them. the feeling of derealization and dissociation both feel, to me, the same way thinking about something like a mass shooting at a mall or the fact logan paul filmed a dead man’s body feels. it’s heavy, and murky, and too odd for words, but it’s definitely the same, and bo absolutely nails it.
it kinda has a nostalgic vibe
60s hippie vibe, maybe?
"you can't force them (billionaires) to fund something like that" mmmm I mean you can, by taxing them appropriately and then using that money for those projects XD
except billionaires tend not to pay taxes they don't feel like paying, by employing legions of tax specialists to obfuscate their liability
@@iainmcguire7190 that's again up to governments having the actual will to legislate in a way that doesn't let them find holes. The reason why billionaires can use layers to scape laws is mostly because the laws have been made to allow for that to happen.
I think the song talks about different things that give us a funny feeling we can't really describe, hence the name. It can be about little things like driving carefully in GTA5 and important things like the fact that we might all die in 7 years and we are responsible.
"The ocean's at your door" I interpret that as being trapped & a comment on the climate. The whole world's at your fingertips, sure, but the ocean's at your door.
This song is one of those that seems fully open to interpretation. Most art is, but this piece especially. The way I took it, we have all of these things happening around us, and they are thrown at us all at once sometimes. Interlaced between them we have terribly awful things, such as climate change and mass shootings. "The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door," seems to be referring to the ice caps melting due to climate change. We are in an unprecedented age of globalization, and yet soon enough we won't be able to act upon that because right outside of our door won't be our neighbor, it'll be this ocean (literal or figurative, your choice). The song wraps up with self reflection, as if it all seems too late. Between all of the stuff thrown at us on a daily basis, the very last thing we sought to do was look at ourselves. "Googling derealization, hating what you find."
EDIT: It all, also, seems to work towards just trying to feel *something*. The Grand Theft Auto line prior to the derealization line. All of the song working towards this ending of "Well, what can we really do? We were overdue and that's all there is to it." It's a slow, seemingly random progression but one that I think a lot of people could connect with :)
moar bo
he wasnt being ironic, was listing things that give off a funny feeling in the world now days.
Thank you for another amazing reaction! I also had a boggled first impression of this song but I think you picked it out perfectly! I also agree its that "funny feeling" you get from going through life, kinda numbed out by all these mundane things that are sometimes horrible (like a mass shooting, but its now so common you feel numb to it) but at the same time the climate disaster is approaching.
"The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door" I take to mean being on your phone/internet while the ocean keeps rising from climate change. "20,000 years of this, 7 more to go" I think also fits the climate disaster. The "climate clock" (a count-down of how long we have left before we cant repair the damage done to the planet) was at 7 years left when he wrote this, and 20,000-10,000 years ago was roughly the dawn of human agriculture, when we really started manipulating and changing the planet.
So I think your reaction and thoughts were on point! I think it's supposed to give you that exactly confused/odd feeling. Thank you for reacting to this! I really enjoyed it
15:10 to be fair they are trying to make humanity a multi planet colony incase 1 goes wrong the other planet can still live on
Ah, Existential Dread the Musical! To the "that funny feeling" is just that gut sense you get when something isn't quite right, isn't as it should be. I think all the things Bo lists give him that feeling. Things like the "live-action" Lion King that was still animated and Carpool Karaoke, which I assume he has the same objection to as he does Celebrity Lip-Syncing. I definitely think the end is supposed to be about the end of humanity.
On the "7 more [years] to go" part -- there is a Climate Clock that is counting down how long we have left to limit global warming before it is irreversible, and currently it's at just over 7 years. That's likely at least partially what he's referring to.
I think when he says “female kernel sanders easy answer civil war” it’s more set up like this: “female kernel sanders? each answer: civil war.”
And I take that as a company (KFC for this example) proposing a new idea for their brand that seems more inclusive to other groups of people, and that one branding question alone send the whole country into a civil war based on left wing and right wing ideas on those types of topics. So for example the left fully agreeing because they like the representation of women and then the right disagreeing because there’s no need to change traditions or whatever.
So basically I think he’s saying that these small topics don’t need to cause such violent discussions and disagreements amongst ourselves. Yes we can disagree but we don’t need to split the whole country in two.
That funny feeling.. The realization that everything is wrong, everything is rapidly declining and there's nothing you as a single person can do to stop it. That feeling of existential dread.
'We were overdue, but it'll be over soon' could also reflect the pandemic. That we were overdue for some plague-like pandemic, but we're just saying that it'll be over soon like we're either accepting our fate or ignoring the actuality that we need to be responsible for what we do and being the solution, rather than just relying on someone else to solve it.
To me the funny feeling is seeing our affect on the world. Everything we’re doing wrong. “The world at your fingertips the ocean at your door” we own the world but we’re destroying it. It’s like seeing stuffed animals with a mask, not inherently bad or wrong just… a funny feeling of seeing what’s normal to us now.
The music itself and the way he sings, portrays and show a cozy atmosphere brings out a funny feeling looking at some things he sings about
It is a hard song to break down tbf, but once you get the meaning its actually quite deep
Something to remember is this was created not only mid Pandemic, but also when he finally got well enough to end his own "quarantine". It was like he hid from life out of fear and panic, and when he decided there is nothing to be afraid of, life said yeah there is
I believe the “female colonel sanders” line was a reference to Reba McEntire being colonel sanders in a few commercials and a bunch of people got up in arms about it.
And I think the “reading pornhubs terms of service” is supposed to be ironic based on some of pornhubs shady and exploitative practices that end up screwing the actors/workers out of money. Sort of like “you’re reading the terms of service but you don’t actually care what this business is doing behind the scenes”
Yes, about Reba.
You’ll get it bro. Really listen.
Civilization is obviously coming to a close, the 20,000 years applies to more modern human history. He's talking about all the unhealthy strange consequences of human civilization reaching a bottleneck, both psychologically and environmentally.
Coming to a close is an exageration, though a fairly substantial decline seems almost certainly inevitable at this point.
Great video man! Can you do more Bo Burnham please? I really enjoy it and checking daily if you uploaded a Bo video
"The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all" is basically what I believe is what he means by "That Funny Feeling". Full disclosure: I've seen Inside a ridiculous amount of times (upwards of seven, conservatively speaking) as many have and there is so much there-- that no one other than Bo can fully know--to catch that most can't catch in one pass. Especially if you know Bo Burnham's story from teenager to 30 years old. It's existential dread in a song. It is beautifully sad.
Love his realisations while listening to this, would have loved him to rewatch it right after :D
I love that we all can interpret this song differently. To me, this song is a collage of very human and recognizable pieces of current culture to showcase the insignificance. We have created and done so much in our 20,000 years and in the last 20 our world has become so connected and yet so segmented and distant that we can’t at all sustain it. The world is being destroyed through environmental factors but also the human existence has become so commodified and divisive that we are too busy finding meaningless things to argue over instead of facing reality. All those things are easier and more entertaining to talk about that we will eventually lose sight of true threat and see the end. It’s one of the best pieces from him lyrically and it hit me hardest in the whole special. He’s really a genius and this special is an introspective masterpiece that gives every viewer so much to contemplate. I will support this man in anything he does. He’s the musical George Carlin and I’m here for it.
From my perspective I've always seen this song as like watching it all and it not feeling real. And you get so anxious of it that you don't feel real giving you "that funny feeling". I've had DPDR for like 4 years and this song is such a good way of seeing it and representing it. It's like everything is so astonishing and surprising that it's like a movie. Unreal. Though I think Bo is meaning that he is dissociating because of the anxiety and worry for the world and how it is being dragged down. He talks about he has the world at his fingertips while the world is turning to ruin. He referring to the internet and how he can access almost everything like guns and in pollution and all these other things us as people contribute to the ending.
I feel like the whole purpose of this song is that unexplainable feeling we get when things are just that-unexplainable, good or bad.
I hope you’re doing good man I love your reactions :) keep it up man!!
That "funny" feeling is for everyone different. Fear. Panik. And much more. This song you can interpret how it fits to you
Best react I’ve seen for this song. ❤
It’s realIzing all of these things that are problematic, but not having the mental capacity to do anything about it. The derealization lyric really is what did it for me. Around the start of the Covid I started noticing a rapid decline in my mental health. This song helped me realize that.
Its the modern day " we didnt start the fire" with an overarching theme of existential dread
I think he’s talking about how incomprehensible everything is, and how impossible it is to get a handle on the contradictions and minutia and vastness of the problems we face. It’s just shutting down in the face of all the madness of the world as it scrolls by towards its inevitable collapse.
This was great to listen to as you expressed your thoughts and uncertainties. RUclips algorithm showed me your take on from gods perspective and I subbed. I never thought I'd enjoy reaction videos but It's been interesting seeing someone else experience media you love. Do you stream at all?
Before this the closest to reaction vids was when a streamer I was watching was taking a day off and friends and other streamers had made a list together with random links, mostly absurd memes, very arty or absurdist short videos or animation. Then views and subs contributed links. It was different because it was all unique so I guess I was reacting at the same time but also because its streaming its not passive and there's constant discussion with the streamer and other viewers.
I look forward to checking out some of your other videos and seeing if things im not familiar with are as entertaining as the Bo Burnham reaction I've seen from you.
I think an interesting example of "that funny feeling" is the feeling we (or at least I and many others) had in 2020 before covid hit. We were all vaguely aware of the shit going on in the world and now that I look back I realised I could feel something big coming but couldn't comprehend what.
Ooof my interpretation of this song was that it's anxiety, and when you have it, you overthink and feel like you're going to die
This song is just true melancholy, but at the same time. It brings me relief.
It's random things that give him existential dread. Ie 'That funny feeling'
For me this seems be a song about how depression can suddenly come to you. And the listing aspect kind of reads as like a RUclips feed. How it just voices around how it'll go from mundane things like I think it was a gq or a buzzfeed video about obeying the laws in GTA v and Logan Paul to global pollution or mass shootings. And you can just be browsing RUclips to suddenly getting that "funny" feeling creeping on you whether it be brought on by your feed by it bring things to you or just suddenly feeling it while going for a drive. The ending also goes with this as it's kinda ironic with it's tone as it's like welp we were over due for bout of depression but hey it'll be over soon.
As someone who goes through this a lot this song perfectly captures it and it slowly became one of my favorites from the show. Right behind all eyes on me.
Me listening to this while being scared by heavy lighting striking very close to my home 🥲
Honestly sounds like his own version of "we didn't start the fire"
I define the 'feeling' as the 'uncanny valley' but for everything
He’s talking about all the things we do that don’t necessarily make sense and some of them we just do it and it forms into self destruction and some of them we do it cause it’s a funny feeling, we don’t know why we do it we just do and we will keep doing it even if the human race depends on it we keep doing it, it’s a funny feeling
It’s weird how we keep doing self destructive things or doing things that don’t need to be done
we self sabotage ourselves and we’re very aware of it but we still continue to do it and we’re not actually trying to find a solution to those things even though we say we are
I'm pretty sure he's just listing things that make him anxious. He get that funny feeling (anxiety) every time he thinks of these different things.
I think it's that general underlying uneasy feeling that a lot of us probably have. Just crazy shit, stacked upon crazy shit, and it's all so much that it's just kind of like we're just numb to it all now but we know everything is insane. Like being stuck on an out of control ride.
To me this is almost like a more earnest take on “welcome to the internet”… a list of things you might see in your feed on social media, the dumb, the funny, the sad, the utterly tragic. What makes this song more earnest is the perspective, where “welcome to the internet” was performed in the internet’s voice, this is from the pov of Bo himself. It’s about the utter inundation of information, how one becomes numb to it all because it’s just all too much to process and the obvious toll on mental health it all has. I think the “funny feeling” is perhaps the feeling that the world is coming to an end and Bo’s complacency about it.
I think the part where he says "we were over due but it will be over soon" was referring to the pandemic
Ocean at your door. Sea levels rising.
he is talking about being stuck in your home during covid with nothing but the internet and that funny feeling after being alone with your thoughts
I like to think of it as We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel, but in this case, he's listing the fire that as humans started... maybe.
billionaires won't fund anything unless there is profit in it.