Bo Burnham is one of the most unique comedians out there right now, and without a doubt my favourite. He always brings a unique perspective and subversion to what he's talking about, while also putting on an entertaining show that most comedians and musicians could never live up to. The thought and effort that he puts into every song and bit makes his shows a truly unique thing to watch, even in the recorded format.
Make Happy doesn't just succeed at comedy; because Burnham has never drawn the line at "just telling jokes". The typical kinds of stories that comedians tell feel "disingenuous" to him, so rather than just perform a set, he gives a performance about performing. Performing is what he knows best, and he can do it like no-one else. He covers so many different styles of music, movement, and thought in an hour that it takes a few viewings of the special to fully appreciate every moment. Make Happy is meticulously planned, and feels like something entirely new and different. Although it feels like much more, Make Happy is a comedy special at its core, and Burnham's comedy is just as on point as it's always been. His best moments come from his great use of subversion; just when it looks like a joke is moving in a certain direction, Burnham completely flips it on its head. He also brings unique perspectives and viewpoints to everyday things that always make me laugh. The combination of hilarious songs and one-liners flow really well, and not a single joke falls flat. It's kind of amazing how quickly he can go from funny to serious, and then back to funny without losing any momentum.
In the end, Bo Burnham's Make Happy is his best special. It feels like a culmination of everything that he's done before; all of the skills that the's built over the past decade coming together into one final blaze of glory. On a technical and comedic level, the show is flawless, and I can only imagine how intense it would have been to experience those final moments live, because I got chills just watching it on my laptop. This is a special I'm going to be revisiting quite a bit in the future.
Make Happy doesn't just succeed at comedy; because Burnham has never drawn the line at "just telling jokes". The typical kinds of stories that comedians tell feel "disingenuous" to him, so rather than just perform a set, he gives a performance about performing. Performing is what he knows best, and he can do it like no-one else. He covers so many different styles of music, movement, and thought in an hour that it takes a few viewings of the special to fully appreciate every moment. Make Happy is meticulously planned, and feels like something entirely new and different. Although it feels like much more, Make Happy is a comedy special at its core, and Burnham's comedy is just as on point as it's always been. His best moments come from his great use of subversion; just when it looks like a joke is moving in a certain direction, Burnham completely flips it on its head. He also brings unique perspectives and viewpoints to everyday things that always make me laugh. The combination of hilarious songs and one-liners flow really well, and not a single joke falls flat. It's kind of amazing how quickly he can go from funny to serious, and then back to funny without losing any momentum.
Make Happy is mostly about deconstruction. Burnham takes apart the "beat fetishism" of hip-hop by rapping children's songs, the laziness and pandering of stadium country songs by "a bunch of millionaire metrosexuals who've never done a hard day's work in their life", and the empty inspiration in Top 40 hits with a song whose chorus tells the audience to kill themselves. Genres of music aren't the only thing being deconstructed; Burnham also attacks Lip Sync Battle ("the death of culture"), and even picks apart his own comedy bits in the middle of them. There's an air of anger from Burnham throughout most of the special. A staple of his stage personality has always been annoyance towards the audience, whether it's against hecklers or people who are singing along with him. But in Make Happy, it's hard to tell if it's all an act and part of his stage persona, or if it's legitimate frustration breaking through into the show.
The unsurety of happiness is the key message of this special, and the ending really sells that message. After an impassioned speech to the audience about how you should live your life without an audience if you can, he outlines all of his problems in an autotuned rant (a reference to Kanye West). The problems begin with things like not being able to fit his hand into a Pringles can and a burrito he ordered at Chipotle falling apart. But it then turns to his love/hate relationship with the audience, and the instability that the pressures of pleasing them and staying true to himself is causing. One line in particular, "Come and watch the skinny kid with a steadily declining mental health and laugh as he attempts to give you what he cannot give himself" really hit hard. It felt like a punch to the gut when he said "I should probably just shut up and do my job" and then return to the jokes, repeating them again and again to the music. It felt like he was giving us all an insight to the cycle he's trapped in, and the anger that he has towards the entertainment industry in general. It's an explosion of passion and energy.
Make Happy is a very introspective show, and leaves the viewer with a lot to reflect on. Ideas like what really makes us happy, and whether it can ever truly be attained. Should we look to celebrities and performers as inspirations because we could never express ourselves on their level? Should we all just accept the same crap that's shoveled onto us from the entertainment industry without any effort? Can we find happiness in any of it, or should we separate ourselves from everything to find it. I didn't start Make Happy expecting just a silly comedy show, because Bo Burnham has always delivered much more than that. And true to form, the climax of the show is touching, powerful, impressive, and leaves a lot to reflect on. After the show itself ends, the special cuts to a song that asks us "Are you happy?" It's a question that demands an answer, and that answer can be hard to find.
Burnham leaves us with the question "Are you happy?", and now we're going to have to figure that out without his help. By all accounts, this is his last stand-up show (at least for the forseeable future), and he left on the perfect note. Make Happy is Bo Burnham's masterpiece; a unique, complex, emotional, perfect show. It even ends with him walking away into a bright, more peaceful place, and the sight of that, whether it was true to his real life or not, put a smile on my face. I've been a fan of Bo Burnham for years, and I really want to see more shows like this one in the future. Maybe another comedian will come along with a similar style, but I don't think anyone will be able to reach the same heights as Burnham.
Burnham says "I was privileged, and I got lucky, and I'm unhappy". I only hope that he can find happiness in whatever he does in the future, because he has consistently made me happy with his work since I first discovered him.
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