1. Abygail Jones
Bieber vs. Burnham
During a particular show in Los Angeles,
CA in a local theatre, Largo at the
Coronet, Bo unexpectedly found himself
performing for Justin Bieber himself,
who, the entire song (Repeat Stuff)
effectively pokes fun at. When comparing
Bo’s Repeat Stuff music video to those of
Bieber’s, there are some very distinct
similarities, for example: the car scene
from Bieber’s song, ‘Boyfriend’ appears
in Repeat Stuff – the only difference
being, there’s a sacrificial scene at one
point in Burnham’s particular rendition.
In the short space of 5 minutes, 7 seconds, Burnham manages to break down the barriers
between comedy and some real world media issues.
Musical comedian, Bo Burnham (Robert Pickering Burnham) managed to single handedly
kick pop music and the king of pops ‘heir to the throne’, Justin Bieber whilst they were well
and truly down.
His song, ‘Repeat Stuff’ from his current tour, ‘What.’ addresses manipulative love songs
made by ‘corporately owned pop stars’, aimed at teenage girls – it also points out the
destructive media cycle and everything wrong with love songs today – this goes from topics
like: vague explanations to Satanism in under a minute.
Burnham described the ‘destructive media cycle’ on Conan, May 3 rd 2013. It’s essentially:
teenage girls end up with self esteem issues due to the medias ‘expectations’, they then turn
to pop stars who reassure them on their looks in a very vague, non-specific way, i.e. ‘to make
sure that they spread it like the plague so I describe my dream girl as really, reall y vague…’
(Taken from Repeat Stuff) and because the fans are so obsessed with the celebrity, they find
themselves buying the magazines all over again, this creates a very vicious, repeated circle.
Bo also addresses this topic in his book of poetry, ‘Egghead: Or you Can’t Survive on Ideas
Alone’ in a poem called, ‘Ashley’, where a teenage girl hung posters from magazines around
her room as the poem concludes with, ‘All of her heroes were finally nearer. Her whole room
looked perfect – except for the mirror’
Although there was no response from Justin about the incident, Burnham seems to assume
he took offence and during his appearance on Conan, took the opportunity to publically
apologize with, ‘Bieber, if you’re watching, I’m uh, sorry; it wasn’t personal.’
There is a lot of satanic messages throughout Burnham’s ‘Repeat Stuff’ which also addresses
the 1980’s religious conspiracy over satanic messages in rock music, put there through the
technique of ‘backmasking’ (Reversing audio and placing it in music) however, Bo isn’t quite
so discrete with it.
What needs to be fully recognized is that Bo Burnham is a satire comedian and he often
addresses taboo topics and whilst his stage personal is loud, cocky an arrogant – his offstage
persona, is friendly, shy a d easy going – the jokes that he makes whilst seen as offensive,
usually makes points of is stated in the name of comedy.
Even though it was risky to take a right hook swing at pop music and call out flaws, it seems
that at the end of the day it’s pop music: - 0, Bo Burnham: - 1.
