Bo Burnham: Make Happy (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #13 extract: Bo Burnham: Make Happy (2016)

I'm not much of a fan of Bo Burnham and his kind of comedy, though I do like it quite a bit and can appreciate him as a significant (though not entirely new) example of modern stand-up comedy. 

I see two major faults in Make Happy. The first is the audience that Burnham plays to; they're, without much of a better way of putting it, incredibly teenager-esque in an off-putting manner (see other peoples' reviews). The second problem with this special is fed and emphasised by this. Burnham is self-aware, yet communicates his sometimes profound ideas in a very basic way. A lot of his comedy then boils down to pop observations that basically say "life is hard", but with some grip on a reality that says, "so what?", in a positive manner. The theme of critique that I'd use to assess this special is then, without wanting to be completely dismissive, immaturity. 

Whilst I did laugh quite a few times at this special, which I've already seen once before, I've been left wondering how Burnham will evolve as the years go by. I hope he doesn't become a 21st century Bill Hicks as I never liked him, but, time will tell.