just because blackface is a canadian tradition doesnt make it ok

"thinking about the time I typed words to normaloctagon and he responded hahaha :P"

was def trying to be friendly with that response so if you didnt get that now ya do

Album Rating: 1.5

Ok some thoughts and then I'll stop (ega is partly right, I have a problem).



1) My primary gripe with this has always been that it's not funny. One or two of the bits work but mostly, it doesn't. Does anyone find the sexting song funny? One of the best bits (White women instragram) is against one of the softest targets ever. Out of all the things you could say about Bezos, that's the best joke you could come up with?



2) To be fair, I've never liked the comedy song all that much. In small doses it's ok, but I can see how this skews my perspective. To me, without the context of the special, this is just a bunch of pastiche songs that are mostly not funny and I would never even dream of listening to without the cultural relevance. I mean come on, why would I listen to this when Randy Newman exists? Or even (gasp) SNL? Some of the material is also so obvious and yet I've heard normal people talk about their calls to their mom and it's been funnier.



3) Also, tbf, props to Bo for the editing and effects he achieved on his own. The special does look incredible considering what he had to work with.



(continued on the next comment)

Album Rating: 1.5

4) Colton is saying I can't really make a call about his intentions, sincerity, etc. I understand that the show works on a few levels, I mean is the studio he sort of artfully haunts during the special might be a metaphor for his mind getting more and more fractured, etc etc. The problem is the highly personal stuff he does, like talking about getting a year older, as if he really is sitting by a clock in the night, on his own, waiting for it. If you're going to mix those very clunky pseudo literal moments into a show that is at least partly about isolation and not talk about your partner and the fact that you're not alone, makes me feel that it is in some way more performative in a negative sense. It's like when I was depressed in high school, and didn't talk about it, and had a breakdown a year and a half later. After that, I continued to battle depression, but I did start to develop a little bit of a performance vibe to it and used it aspects of it as a tool or something to manipulate people. I did not concentrate so much on getting better, but rather on getting everyone else to be very conscious of my condition. This is not something I'm proud of but I did suffer from depression (as do most people, at least at some point). I think I do not do this to any great degree anymore, for what it's worth, although it will seem like it right now. Point being is I think this show could have been far better - it's a wasted opportunity and I think there's an element of pandering that Bo knew would appeal to more people than a more lasting, holistic approach which would have actually been of great interest to me because of my other personal circumstances which I won't bore anyone any further with. Colton is correct though, I can't really know for sure what is happening on screen. But for me, it was confusing and actually made me wince watching parts of it.



5) I think that the blurring of lines in the special is not well handled, and this is why I questioned aspects of it. I keep thinking about Neil Brennan's Three Mics special. You might disagree with me, but I felt that was a very effective device and an incredibly moving show. I'll do one liners here, funny stories here, and talk about serious shit over here. And I was emotional at the end, but I did not feel especially manipulated.

wonderful musings here foggy. to respond to one of them, i did not find the special to be particularly funny. that's a big part of why i liked it! the focus seemed to me to be on exploration of his own psyche and our cultural consciousness, rather than seeking laughs (as evidenced by the song about comedy)

and kudos for being so vulnerable with pt 4.

I thought "you send a snowman / crisis averted (thank god)" was pretty funny tbh

i agree with the dancing duck ftmp

Album Rating: 4.0

The dancing duck makes some very good points.



I’d certainly accept and agree that enjoyment of this is entirely reliant on (a) you finding it funny (duh) and (b) believing (or at least quote unquote feeling) it’s more sincere than insincere, and if (a) and (b) aren’t true for you then yeah these are very generic quite shallow diy pop tunes that I would not expect anyone to place much value in.



For me the goofy and amateurish energy to some of the gags gave this a unpretentious and cringey and ultimately endearing air that I think worked well with the broader thematics (for me) and then ultimately fed into me finding this sincere and genuine (at least more than it felt choreographed) and therefore easy to connect with. I also felt that making the dividing line between what was performative and what was documentive (not a word but I’m going for it) so hazy and obscured was part of the fun, rather than an obstacle to achieving (b). But again, whether you find something funny or sincere are gut things that no amount of back of forth debate is likely to change - hence why perhaps we’re still talking about this in 2023 lol.

Album Rating: 1.5

"to respond to one of them, i did not find the special to be particularly funny. that's a big part of why i liked it!"



fair enough, that makes sense, in many ways it is also a bit like a solo play. to me it felt like it was offering too much and not delivering anywhere, and at times actively putting me off? but ega is partly right that maybe i'm being a bit mean spirited by not letting it go and dumping on this when lots of people got a lot out of it.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

I'll take that and treasure it, ducko. I'm glad that you connected it with some personal experience that explains why you get so turned off by this.



A big part of his schtick, at least in some of his stand-up, is that humor is a basically a lousy way of dealing with depression. But that's what the people want and that is just tragic.



This bit adresses it:

"Robert's been a little depressed

And so today I'm gonna try just

Getting up, sitting down

Going back to work

Might not help, but still, it couldn't hurt

I'm sitting down, writing jokes

Singing silly songs

I'm sorry I was gone

But look, I made you some content

Daddy made you your favorite

Open wide

Here comes the content."



I find it kind of heartbreaking, but I guess people dealing with actual depression may find it very provocative.

Album Rating: 2.5

Not sure I agree with it but conceding the point that you can't judge sincerity I think there's a difference between caring about whether or not this is sincere and noting that it's so stagey/theatrical in it's treatment of "real" emotions (including self-awareness, which I think is sort of Bo's biggest crutch) that the intended effect ends up being sort of blunted

Album Rating: 2.5

It's funny bc before I saw this convo was popping off again I was just thinking recently about how I feel like the cultural relevance of this special has mostly tailed off and that it really ended up being more of a pandemic totem than anything else. But maybe this proves I'm wrong.

he's been running an ad at target for the past month or two for the boxset and i hate this even more now because of it. STOP IT BO LET ME WALK TO THE BREAK ROOM IN PEACE