Bo Burnham’s Fans and Haters Agree That ‘what.’ Aged Weirdly

Plenty of the cultural and comedic norms of 2013 look embarrassing from a modern perspective — let he who never participated in a “Harlem Shake” video cast the first stone.

Back at the beginning of Barack Obama’s second term, Bo Burnham, a grown-up YouTube star who first amassed his following of Tumblr teens and theater geeks by playing crass, creative and original comedy songs in his childhood bedroom, released his debut Netflix special what. that would prove to be a turning point in his transition from internet darling to mainstream star. Gleefully teetering between comedy special, one-man show and performance art, what. merged Burnham’s boyish musicality with his maturing creative ambitions as Burnham launched himself into artistic adulthood to critical acclaim.

At its core, what. was about Burnham growing up as an artist, but unlike Burnham himself, what. didn’t advance into the 2020s gracefully. So, when the official Netflix Twitter account posted a clip from Burnham’s 2013 special this week, both Burnham’s followers and his surprisingly passionate detractors rushed in to point out that what. came out at a point in time when “Ermahgerd, gersberms” was the height of humor.

Critically, of all the many Burnham stans who rushed in to defend the Inside writer/star/director amidst a sea of slander, very few of them are actually arguing that Burnham’s “he meant to knock the water over” bit coupled with some ironic spastic dancing is still hilarious more than a decade removed from the merciful death of the kind of “lol so random” humor that dominated during Burnham’s rise to stardom.

At the same time, what. is chock-full of silly physical bits paired with a technical element wrapped in the guise of meta humor, and taking any one of them out of the context of the larger special is unlikely to elicit so much as a snort from modern audiences. The memorable set pieces from what., on the other hand, still remain funny, pointed and slightly juvenile, such as his parody and surprisingly thoughtful dissection of youth-targeted pop music with “Repeat Stuff”:

While this song still may not be some people’s stylistic cup of tea, it shows that, even in 2013, Burnham’s approach to comedy was more than just embarrassing theater kid gyrating and surface-level self-reference passed off as meta humor. And, to be fair, both of those things were extremely popular among Burnham’s fanbase back in 2013, whether those fans are now willing to admit it or not.

Basically, tastes change, art is a lie, but Twitter clips are unfortunately forever.