Bo Burnham’s Inside is a true hybrid: the runtime of a movie, the feel of a “visual album,” the intimacy of a theatrical performance, and the general framework of a stand-up comedy special. This mix of styles and forms are intended to explore the idea of convergence, the way that once-separated forms of mass media have come together onto unified platforms thanks to the internet. Big screens and massive sound systems have been replaced by laptops and cell phones, giving us (as Burnham puts it) “a little bit of everything all of the time.”

Inside asks how this relatively new way of consuming media has affected our mental state, specifically during the Covid pandemic when convergence has met with mass isolation and uncertainty.