Bo Burnham

At the 64th Grammy Awards, Inside was nominated for Best Music Film and Best Song Written for Visual Media, winning the latter.

Three songs from the special appeared also on the Billboard charts and were certified gold in the United States, as was the accompanying album Inside (The Songs).

Robert Pickering "Bo" Burnham (born August 21, 1990) is an American stand-up comedian, musician, YouTuber, actor, and filmmaker.

Burnham's work combines elements of filmmaking with music, sketch, and stand-up comedy, often with a dramatic or tragic twist, left open to his fans for interpretation.

Robert Pickering Burnham was born in Hamilton, Massachusetts, on August 21, 1990, the son of hospice nurse Patricia and construction company owner Scott Burnham.

In 2006, Burnham created a YouTube channel, where he uploaded videos of him playing comedic songs that he created on his own, often featuring wordplay and taboo or dark subject matter.

Despite only being in his late teens, his music videos quickly went viral, making him one of the earliest YouTube stars.

Burnham began his career on YouTube in 2006.

In December 2006, he wanted to show two songs he had written to his older brother Pete, who had left the family home to attend university in New York City.

A friend suggested that he film himself performing the songs in his bedroom and post them on YouTube, which was then a relatively new website.

His song "My Whole Family..."

quickly became popular when the link to its YouTube video was shared on Break.com, soon leading to it being shared on other sites.

Accompanying himself on guitar or digital piano, Burnham continued to release self-described "pubescent musical comedy" songs and videos online as his audience grew.

Described in The Boston Globe as "simultaneously wholesome and disturbing, intimate in a folksy-creepy sort of way", Burnham wrote and released songs about white supremacy, Helen Keller's disabilities, homosexuality, and more.

All of Burnham's early videos were recorded in and around his family's home, mostly in his bedroom, and had an intentional "do-it-yourself [feel], almost like voyeurism".

Burnham's music and performances tackle such subjects as class, race, gender, human sexuality, sex, and religion.

Burnham describes his on-stage persona as a "more arrogant, stuck-up version [of] himself".

When speaking with The Detroit News about his rapping, he expressed his intent to honor and respect the perspective and culture of hip-hop music.

He began creating albums featuring his songs, such as Bo fo Sho (2008) or the self-titled album Bo Burnham (2009).

As time went on, Burnham switched his focus from YouTube to performing stand-up comedy routines, which combined his comedy songs with regular stand-up.

He made the honor roll and was involved in theater and the campus ministry program; he graduated in 2008.

He was accepted into the New York University Tisch School of the Arts to study experimental theatre, but deferred his admission for a year to pursue a career in comedy and eventually never attended.

Burnham recorded a performance in London for Comedy Central's The World Stands Up in January 2008 (aired June 30), making him the youngest person to do so at the age of 17, and signed a four-record deal with Comedy Central Records.

Comedy Central Records released Burnham's first EP, the six-Song Bo fo Sho, as an online release-only album on June 17, 2008.

While performing at the Montreal Just for Laughs festival in 2008, Burnham met with director and producer Judd Apatow.

In September 2008, he negotiated with Universal Pictures to write and create the music for an Apatow-produced comedy film which he described as the "anti-High School Musical", although he insisted that the script is not a parody of the Disney musicals, but rather an attempt to emulate the high school he attended.

Hoping to also star in the film, Burnham told Wired that he named the lead character after himself in a "not-so-subtle hint".

Burnham's first full album, the self-titled Bo Burnham, was released on March 10, 2009.

Burnham has performed his music in the United States, including Cobb's Comedy Club, YouTube Live in San Francisco, and Caroline's Comedy Club in New York City, and internationally in London and Montreal.

In a March 2009 interview with Boston's Weekly Dig, he said that he was spending eight hours a day writing the music for the film and spending his evenings writing the script.

He released three comedy specials, Words Words Words (2010), what. (2013), and Make Happy (2016).

In August 2010, Burnham was nominated for "Best Comedy Show" at the 2010 Edinburgh Comedy Awards after his inaugural performance (of Bo Burnham: Words, Words, Words).

He instead received the "Panel Prize", a £5,000 prize for "the show or act who has most captured the comedy spirit of the 2010 Fringe".

He also worked on the music and script for a scrapped comedy film, and created and starred in the MTV mockumentary series Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous (2013) along with publishing the poetry book Egghead: Or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone (2013).

His mother's work was covered in a 2014 episode of This American Life.

He has an older sister named Samm and an older brother named Pete, both of whom work for their father's construction company.

Burnham was raised Catholic and attended St. John's Preparatory School in Danvers, Massachusetts, where he received a free education as his mother was the school's nurse at the time.

After Make Happy, Burnham announced his intention to step away from live performance in 2016, which he later revealed to be due to him suffering from anxiety and experiencing panic attacks on stage.

He went on to make his filmmaking debut as the writer and director of the drama film Eighth Grade (2018) and began directing other comedians' comedy specials, as well as co-starring in the dark comedy thriller film Promising Young Woman (2020).

Burnham returned to performing with his fourth comedy special, Inside (2021), which he created in his home without a crew or audience during the COVID-19 pandemic; it was released by Netflix to widespread acclaim and was nominated in six categories at the 73rd Emmy Awards, winning Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, Outstanding Music Direction, and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special.