I’ve heard criticism from mostly non-white comrades about it that I don’t necessarily disagree with, but the Inside special for me was… informative. At that time, as someone in the healthcare field working 40 hr/week night shifts, constantly surrounded by Covid, constantly isolating, living alone, being turned away from hanging out with my friends because my residents were infected… Yeah, that shit sucked. A lot of the songs and sketches from the special resonated pretty heavy with me and I had to think pretty hard about myself, my life, and how fucked up things actually were after watching it. I think there’s some radicalizing potential there, too, with its popularity being so massive and with songs like “That’s How the World Works” explicitly calling to attention the means of production, necessity of revolution, colonialism etc. I think regardless of its faults, its ability to resonate so strongly with young people despite having opaquely radical themes makes it valuable, even if it tends to dip into individualist nihilism at some points.

Bo was in Promising Young Woman, one of my favorite movies of all time, and he did a phenomenal job. This is more about him as a performer, but I was pleasantly surprised to see him work so well in film. I do like his music and comedy as well, although he admits and everyone knows a lot of it has already aged like milk.

addendum: I also quit all major social media directly after seeing it. It helped finally push me over the edge into fully realizing how utterly manipulative and unhealthy it can be.