MEDIA MEDITATION: He's Bo, Yo.

This Saturday I ventured to Higher Ground to see Bo Burnham. He's a young comedian from Boston, MA. Bo isn't a typical stand-up comic. He's exceptionally clever and uses plenty of word play to keep his audience on their toes. His one-liners are accompanied (most of the time) by a piano or guitar melody that he has written himself. Atypical topics are a favorite of Bo's; he "raps" about things such as math, Shakespearian literature and the Ku Klux Klan. Often controversial, Bo's jokes started off as just videos on YouTube, now he's on a national tour with a Comedy Central Special under his belt. To give you a taste of his style here's New Math.



His quick wit forces the audience to really puts one neocortex to work. Clever word play keeps the audience on their toes. Without the neocortex one wouldn't be able to understand likes such as "What's Santa Claus multiplied by i? Well I guess that makes him real." Because most of the lines have one using their rationalization skills and logic the key to Bo's success in comedy rests in our neocortex. However, the limbic brain lends a huge helping hand. The guitar and piano melodies lighten the mood of the songs. Some of the touchy subject matter he has to do something to assure people what he's saying is pure satire. The upbeat melodies reassure people that all of this is in good fun, never to be taken seriously. Take the song Cookout for example:



Without the upbeat guitar (and disclaimer), Bo's comedy might strike people as serious, and extremely offensive. Fortunately, he manipulates the limbic brain in order to make his comedy more effective.

As for Persuasive techniques, he uses a few to keep up hooked into his music. He is extremely blatant with his methods. At the beginning of one of his YouTube videos he pretends to be talking to the ghost of Dr. Martin Luter King Jr. Quoting the ghost as saying "Go buy Bo's new self-titles EP off iTunes and if you pirate it you'll get AIDS." That is an extremely out-of-the-box testimonial, but a testimonial none the less. He also uses rhetorical questions quite a bit. In the song "3.14 Apple Pi" Bo asks the question "All yo little thugs wanna mess with me?". In his live show he asks the audience questions such as "Who wants to hear some haikus?" or other things like that to transition form one part of the show to the other. He doesn't want/ doesn't care abou the answer, the show would go on as scheduled regardless.

With most live comic shows, Bo interacted with the audience quite a bit. This created a personal shift. He went from talking at us to conversing with us. On-the-spot material based on the reaction of the audience give the show a personalized feeling and give Bo a chance to showcase his talents. A political shift is presents but sightly less obvious. Much of his act is based on poking fun at social norms and pushing political boundaries. In his live show he said "I had a tough time growing up, both my fathers were gay. Not gay, gay, you know... like stupid." This made fun of the common use of "gay" as a synonym for "stupid". Pushing a political hot button.