Just cant place it

1. Abygail Jones
Bieber got Bo Burnt
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. In the short space of 5
minutes, 7 seconds, Burnham
manages to break down the barriers
between comedy and some real world
issues.
On August 25th 2013, during a particular
show in Los Angeles, CA at a local theatre, Largo at the Coronet, Burnham unknowingly
found himself performing for Justin Bieber and (now ex) girlfriend Selena Gomez, the catch
being: one of his new songs (Repeat Stuff) from his new tour, What. Is entirely based on
poking fun at the pop music industry and pointing out it’s flaws; the main subject of these
accusations seems to be Bieber. When comparing the music video for the song to that of
Bieber’s ‘Boyfriend’ there are some very obvious connections and similarities, for example:
the car scene from Bieber’s ‘Boyfriend’ appears in Burnham’s ‘Repeat Stuff’, except in
Burnham’s particular rendition, there appears to be a sacrificial ritual going on.
Although there was no response on Bieber’s behalf about the incident, Burnham seems to
assume he took offence and during an appearance on Conan – May 3rd 2013 – took the
opportunityto publically apologize to Biebswith, ‘Bieber, if you’re watching, I’m, uh, sorry; it
wasn’t personal.’
The song, Repeat Stuff, addresses manipulative love songs created by ‘corporately owned
pop stars’ for personal gain, it points out that theyare generallyaimed at teenage girls using
a destructive media cycle, somehow, in under the space of a minute, Burnham manages to go
from ‘lovey dovey’ lyrics to straight up Satanism.
Lets talk about this Satanism factor a little bit, there are many satanic messages throughout
the song and during his time on Conan, Burnham does state that he ‘sort of’ implies that
Bieber is ‘working for Satan or whatever.’ We can evaluate this by looking at some lyrics
from the song; just after the second verse, whilst ‘Repeat stuff’ is being repeated in the
background, these wonderfully unique lyrics make an appearance: ‘I am the servant of
darkness, I am the void…’ which is clearly stating that whatever character Bo is
impersonating, in this case, Justin Bieber, is Satan. This is further proved by, ‘I take many
shapes, this is one of them’ and of course, what Bieber song/parody wouldn’t include ‘swag’
at the end.
Letsgo back to the destructive media cycle, this is essentiallythe idea that: teenage girlsend
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, really 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
addressesthistopic in his book of poetry, ‘Egghead: Or you Can’t Survive on IdeasAlone’ in a
poem called, ‘Ashley’, where a teenage girl hungposters from magazinesaround her room as
the poem concludes with, ‘All of her heroes were finally nearer. Her whole room looked
perfect – except for the mirror’

2. Abygail Jones
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 and 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.