yeah, i was born in 1990

analyzing bo burnham's "30"

Bo Burnham and I were both born in 1990, a piece of information which he confirmed for me in his most recent special, “Inside,” streaming on Netflix.

Like Bo, I too turned 30 in quarantine. Like everyone, I missed certain milestones and celebrations and general life things I was looking forward too. Unlike him, I do not have the musical talent to make a song about it much less an entire comedy special (I just have this silly little newsletter.).

There are plenty of delightful songs I could write about (I’ve been known to belt “White Woman’s Instagram” at my dog over and over again these past few weeks). But honestly, plenty has already been written about “Inside” as one of the best pieces of quarantine art so far regarding depression and mental health, so I’ll try not to reiterate them here.

I’ve written about Bo, our favorite gangly nice guy with massive theater-kid-energy, before. What resonated with me in this special, however, was his honesty not only about his quarantine mental health struggles, but the struggles that came before quarantine too. He mentions that he’d stopped touring and doing live performances a few years prior due to panic attacks and anxiety. Therapy helped him work through it and he’d been ready to get back on the road…in 2020. Clearly, that return to performing was derailed faster than you can say “Is that filmed in Bo’s house or does he just have a super nice guest house somewhere?” In other words, this is the art he made in the vacuum of that professional and creative void he’d hoped to fill. “Inside” is music and dark comedy and reflections on his supposed new start that never was; complete with elaborate, dramatic lighting, sketch comedy with sock puppets, fake Twitch streaming, and behind-the-scenes looks at the chaotic one-man filming set-up.

There’s something about whatever it is you’re doing when you enter a new decade of your life that heightens the stakes, oftentimes unfairly. It’s a time where you and the people in your life end up taking stock of your accomplishments or lack there of. It’s a time when people start asking questions about what’s coming next, even when they know full and well that you have no idea and you’re locked away in quarantine with no end in sight.

So today, I’m here to fact check some the weird feelings of non-starting Bo catalogues in his pandemic-banger, “30,” just in time for my own birthday month where I will turn 30+1 years old.

Let’s take a look at these lyrics, shall we?

I used to run for miles, I used to ride my bike
I used to wake up with a smile
And go to bed at night with a dream, ahh!
But now I'm turning thirty
No!

My anti-aging pro-tip: if you never START running, you can never say that you USED to be able to run for miles.

Also, Bo, if you’re not having existentially terrifying nightmares every night during this panini like the rest of us, then it seems like you’re probably doing mostly ok! So far, so good.

I used to be the young one, got used to meeting people
Who weren't used to meeting someone who was born in 1990
No way! (Yeah, I was born in 1990)
Now I'm turning thirty
God, God damn it!

I think I hit this threshold a couple of years ago when an 18-year-old student called a writer we read for class “old” because he “thought the writer was 30.” So I already had this weird moment of realizing I’m not the young hip one anymore. No one has bemoaned how young I am in a while. I’m not carded as often anymore. And while I never liked being carded, I do feel that absence of the awe that accompanies youth. But the pandemic’s just made this feeling all the more tangible as I have struggled to learn how TikTok works and how folks with the long acrylic nails are able to hold chopsticks.

When he was twenty-seven, my granddad fought in Vietnam
When I was twenty-seven, I built a birdhouse with my mom
Oh, fuck, how am I thirty?

My grandparents married and had their kids in their early and mid-twenties. My parents had me when they were both thirty. When I turned thirty, I adopted a dog and became one of those chihuahua moms who now owns t-shirts from chihuahua rescue shelters Just Because.

do i own this tshirt, you ask? i plead the fifth

Me? Give birth to (or adopt) a human baby?! Aren’t I still just a lil human baby myself?!

I used to make fun of the boomers; in retrospect, a bit too much
Now all these fucking zoomers are telling me that I'm out of touch
Oh yeah? Well, your fucking phones are poisoning your minds. Okay? So when you develop a dissociative mental disorder in your late twenties, don't come crawling back to m-

Look, I’ve made no secret of my adoration of Gen Z, but Bo has a point here. He became one of the first famous YouTubers while he was in high school, after all. Us millennials also just all so burned out from the internet at this point. Ya’ll are fresher to social media.

Meanwhile, we millennials are all suffering the consequences of ODing on social media for over a decade now in the midst of a jobless recovery from the Great Recession, and in Bo’s case, perhaps working it all out in therapy or in musical comedy. Try seeing how it feels to crank out content and keep it funny and relevant and cool and aloof for more than ten years at a time. It leads to…making content in your underwear alone in a room during a global pandemic. Take it from Bo. Take it from me.

type 2 learn. if you know, you know

We all get older, and therefore less funny, less relevant. We all lash out at those younger than us, not because we dislike them, but I think it’s because we see younger folks and realize how the passage of time can be cruel and weird and unsettling. Plus this past year, quarantine sucked even more of the life force out of us all, making this process move along faster.

And now my stupid friends are having stupid children
My stupid friends are having stupid children
My stupid friends are having stupid children
Stupid, fucking ugly, boring children

I mean this one’s pretty obvious. Yes I relate, even though most of my good friends are still child-free for the moment. But children are on the horizon (which should also be the title of a horror movie I write one day), and that’s just another reminder of getting older.

That said, if you’re a woman, folks have been asking you about kids for, well, forever. I feel safe in assuming no one’s hounded Bo about that at this point in his life.

a pre-cursor to Bo’s “30:” Ilana and Lincoln’s situationship on “Broad City”

Sure being forced to consider starting a family just for the sake of it is stupid. And it’s fun to diminish big life decisions, particularly when faced with the Very Adult decision to have a kid (diminished big decisions is, more than anything, the millennial generational coping mechanism). Being thirty and considering starting a family isn’t news: it’s just that now other people find my lack of children something worthy of conversation now, even when I really don’t want to talk about it.

It's 2020, and I'm thirty, I'll do another ten
2030, I'll be forty and kill myself then

Look, let’s not be hasty here. I’m looking forward to Gen Z turning 30, and Generation Alpha or whichever cutesie generational nickname comes next dragging them. I won’t speak for Bo, but I certainly plan to stick around for that while drinking my 3D printed hard seltzer in a flannel plaid shirt while blasting Bon Iver at the youths out my window.