Oh, the college is even worse now...
because it's always...
We have a student here who's really funny.
So he goes up there and he's just murdering.
He goes, you know, you ain't going to catch that.
Everybody's got them's my yellow sweatpants on.
I said, "I'm drunk, I'm not stupid.
I don't live in Turner Hall."
Turner hall.
This guy is fucking murdering!
I go up there and be like,
"I'm waking up with back pain a lot lately.
The fuck's this dude talking about.
Back pain!
There's a professor. Now that's my shit.
I'm Dan Soder, that's Big Jay Oakerson,
Bo Burnham joining us...
His movie Eighth Grade out now on Blu ray DVD.
On Demand.
On Demand. I'm not going to lie to you.
I haven't seen it, but I'm very excited to see it.
It's all good man.
Got a copy of it... and eighth grade was possibly
one of the worst years of my life
and I've heard that if you had a tough eighth grade year,
-this is the movie to see. -Yeah, whatever.
Black Lou just watched it, loved it,
(crosstalk) said it legit took him back to-
Absolutely, loved it.
I appreciate it man, thank you. Thank you.
...very kind. We don't have to talk about it.
I talk about it all the time, you guys know.
No I'm sure, but I have questioned more
about working with young people like that.
Did you find that... because we always talk...
me, Christine and Dan, when we watch movies
and anytime there's a young person acting...
especially like the law and order's-
Yeah,
Oh that's yeah, like the victim gets...
Yeah it's fucked up. But you're just like...
no I mean the kid themselves, like I bet,
I hate this kid as a real person.
I bet as soon as they yell cut.
She's like, where's my diet Pepsi?
We, for the most part, got like actual real kids
from the middle school that we filmed at.
From the... there's a pool party scene
half of the kids swim at that pool on weekends.
So like they're monsters in their own way-
Yeah.
Which is that they are actually normal
and don't give a fuck about being in a movie.
Since they film themselves all the time.
Did they make you ever feel like...
the thing that would kill me from like a 13 year old
if they were like,
this fucking guy takes things too seriously.
That would hurt me where I'd be like,
"Shut up! No I don't!"
Grab a kid.
We had to tour a bunch of middle schools
and high schools to scout the thing to get locations
where we go through the middle schools
and it'd be like Dennis Rodman in North Korea or something.
Yeah. It felt like
people like coming up to me
and just like touching my clothes and things.
It was like going to the land of the Ewoks.
And then we stepped into our first high school.
We stepped into it and I heard, "Hey Bo Burnham,
I'm funny too, you little bitch."
-Oh dude, that is... -...from down the hallway.
We're like, we're in high school
It was actually incredibly thrilling.
And, and working with middle schoolers was very fun.
Working with the high schoolers was terrifying.
2018's high schoolers
looking you feel like the biggest fucking...
I'm looking at my Adidas pumps that I have on.
I'm like, I'm the biggest fucking tool in the world.
Even what you're describing, I couldn't do it
because well...
all you're doing is you're taking testosterone
with those kids and just amplifying two notches
and they're coming in like, "Fuck you!"
I tell you what though? I remember being young
and always afraid of the older kids
and bigger people when I was little...
I went to the same school.
It was kindergarten through twelfth grade.
K through 12, huh?
I didn't stay the whole time, but I was in it...
K through 12. I didn't stay the whole time.
But I remember when I got to like eighth or ninth grade.
And you were in the different halls?
I had to do something in the halls of the younger grades.
I went over there and made a concerted effort
when a kid walked by I'd be like,
"Move out of the way jerk off."
(crosstalk) and he went, "Fuck you bitch!"
He called my bluff immediately and I was like,
"I can't just hit him in school, he wins."
Like I got kid three grades lower than me.
Which is like, fuck you... what are you telling me?
(inaudible)
I thought he was gonna just cower like you're supposed...
like I would have.
So when you went to...how much in the high schools were you?
We were there only a few days.
Okay. So you were getting out and you were like,
"Last day among these monsters."
But it was beautiful because it was...
we felt like the story we were telling in there,
which is that high school is terrifying from an outsider
from either end. If you're coming from...
if you're looking back or looking forward,
it's, horrifying.
And they're so self possessed now.
They just are cooler than they've ever been-
Because of Instagram. They have hints.
Is that what it is?
Yeah, they're just like really,
literate socially in a very quick way that you're not in on.
Things are so old, so quick for kids now,
that the amount of out of touch you are
is just exponentially bigger, than it would have been.
Like eighties kids relating to nineties kids.
It's like 2012 kids relating to now are-
uh, uh,
Are out of touch.
I'm a 2001 and I'm just gone.
My daughter has a...
she used to have crushes on Vine celebrities.
Yeah.
So when her mom will say something about celebrity
crushes Belle has, I go, "What is it, a Vine celebrity?"
She goes, there is no Vine.
What's the other one? Was it the Periscope?
Yeah, Music.ally, that's another thing.
Those things are huge.
Yeah, it's wild. These kids...
these middle school kids are born 2003.
Jesus.
Two years after 9/11.
It's in the movie actually, but it's in the background.
There is a banner of the Twin Towers.
It's a thing and there is a school like 90 minutes north
and it's like, "Oh that is a historical event for them."
Yeah, that'd be like the way they show like a Washington
crossing the Delaware, on a patch in your life.
Look at that. That happened. They go.
Those used to be the twin towers and you're like, "Oh man.
I remember what my record was on MAD in that year."
I did a spot, the Boston comedy club the night before.
I woke up. Yeah, I was a freshman in college.
And it's weird to think that these kids are just like,
that wasn't even do two years. 2003!
My daughter, my daughter was born in 2002.
Weird. Post 9/11 kids. I'm a Reagan baby.
What's up? Say no to drugs.
Eighth Grade. I'm trying to remember.
Christine said it was a fantastic year for her.
You had a good eighth grade year.
I had a good eighth grade year, yeah.
It was straight south-ola after that was great.
I switched schools, so I went to one school for grammar school
until sixth grade where I got bullied and it was just shitty.
And then I went to this awesome school
for seventh and eighth grade where it was just,
it was like an amazing school experience.
Small classes. The teachers gave a shit.
It was like very community driven.
That's right, yeah. That makes you feel better about yourself.
Yeah. Got my first gay friends.
It is incredible too to see how socially progressive
the schools are,
which I think actually like colors,
the misery of the kids in just a horrible dose of irony.
The fact that like you're walking by a poster
that says like support trans rights
and feel like a piece of shit
you feel like for the first time,
like the administration and the faculty
and your parents are constantly looking at you,
hoping you're feeling good. And you still feel shitty.
It's like they they would love to get a fucking swirly
or have their head shoved in a locker,
would actually ground their pain and something tangible
instead of being like,
"The world as coddling me and I feel empty inside."
Why the fuck? They have no structure,
you know, they have no structure to-
They don't have anything to rage, you know,
machine to fight against.
No and it's like really bad- I think.
I think bullying, bullying is part of the fucking terrarium
as part of the-
I mean I remember the kid being-
It's part of the ecosystem of growing up.
I think I was bullied.
I was bullied and I eventually stood up to a bully
and not all of them, but you know, I have done.
You have that kind of check off your list.
I've bullied and, and been got fucking hurt by the person.
I, you know what I mean? Like they hit me first
or I lost the fight or you know what I mean,
like it was all part of like learning a thing...
and then I knew I didn't bully people after that.
Yeah. But it's.
But it's like the bullying exists.
It's just completely abstract.
So instead of like, I got my head shoved in a locker,
it's like someone made a fake
Instagram account of me and said I'm a neocon.
It was like, wait, you're in seventh grade.
You shouldn't like... That's not the way
you should have to process things so it's like...
That's a grad school prank.
It really is!
And I was talking to kids about...
'Cause like, it's incredible
how much these kids are thinking about politics and just have to.
And they like lose friendships over their political allegiances
in fucking eighth grade.
In eighth grade was I being like,
you're Dukakis kid, like fuck off.
Like what are we talking about?
Like I can't believe, I can't believe that.
You Bob Dole loving mother fucker...
I did like a little round table the kids
and talking to them and like, there's like 12 year old kids
going to do, you know what happened in Iran?
And I'm like, no, it's crazy.
Is this kind of a symptom from all the information
being leaked into the phones
where you could just read anything in second
where you used to have to hear someone from somebody
and then that they were your source.
I remember one time I-
If you follow enough adults,
you're bound to just as you're thumbing up the thing
and see like, look at this burger
I just ate and about to crush this steak.
There's eventually gonna be like a news story
and you're going to see fire and troops do you click it
and you read the thing, you know?
But it... Yeah, exactly.
And it's also just like the whatever,
like democratization of information, all this shit.
Which is like we all thought was super cool that has a voice,
but now we have no way to discern
which voice is important,
where the hierarchy of true value or meaning is.
And it literally is like perfectly demonstrated
in what a feat is.
You Scroll through your feed as you're a kid,
you will see in no particular order.
Your mother, your friends,
the president of the United States,
Chick-Fil-A; and it's just like these...
they're all being presented with the same amount of space-
A lotta chicks in yoga pants,
taking a picture in front of a mirror.
And it's a lot to process and for kids at the end of the night
to have to choose between like the back of your eyelids
or everything in the history of the world.
It's like you go crazy with that.
I go crazy with that. I started pissing sitting down
so it could be in my phone like 18 months ago
and I was like, something's wrong.
This is... And then I just, it was just more comfortable.
Do you think cell phones are going to be kind of
like the new cigarettes where like 20 years from now
he wouldn't be like you got to say off cell phones.
You're going to get cancer.
Yeah. And I always said like,
it's going to be like smoking and we're gonna...
The equivalent of my doctor used to smoke
will be like my shrink at a twitter.
Like, it'll be so brave and you'll go,
"Your shrink had a twitter?" How you will-
You's a troll. You was like a Reddit troll.
(crosstalk)
You were being taught by someone that's like...
Do you think the information intake
as effective the curriculum for kids
and I think is is, is it harder?
Is it a little deeper does it move faster, you think, school?
Yeah. That's interesting.
Well, the with the teachers decided
that they can't ban phones.
They just can't because it's just not tenable.
Remember that started?
It's like dancing and Kansas. You hear that, John Lithgow?
If you had a beeper and your mom had to come get it.
They would take it. They would isolate it.
And they just can't.
Yeah. I got a cell phone when I was 18,
it was my mom's work phone.
She's like, you're driving here you go.
That's funny, in punishment to take my daughter's cell
phone away at 16 years old.
One of the big thing you know also with the...
they scare the shit out of you in the world
that something terrible can happen
that you need her to have her phone.
You know, she has to be kind of tethered to it
so we can get a hold of her.
You know what I mean? I get blown away.
I get nervous, if I can't get ahold of her.
The idea of that if this was, you know, 25 years ago,
she'd have to get to a landline-
Yeah. You'd have a number to call. I mean-
That's the way they've sold
the parents that it's like so funny.
It's like in case your child is anywhere they need to get
in contact with you in emergency.
And by the way, they'll have no privacy
and all of the information will be for everyone to see
and they'll performed their own lives.
Okay. And it's like, wait, what like the-
What was that second part?
But the gulf between that and... we fell down the rabbit hole
so quickly. It's so insane.
I went from being in seventh grade
with my chunky Motorola phone impressing girls
by throwing my phone over my shoulder
and showing that like it wouldn't shatter.
That was my move.
That's a good move by the way.
That's a lot of faith in T-Mobile.
"Did you see Bo's got a strong phone?"
"Oh my God, he Kareem Skyhooks
it into the ground. It doesn't break."
But yeah it's wild. And like the...
Yeah. The crazy thing is that like there are like...
What fucks me up looking at it,
which is just so weird, is that there are like...
and I've been to these places, you know what I mean...
There are places in Silicon Valley
with 300 employees that they're like...
the purpose of their company
is to cater to the base wants of children.
Like what they actually program is what kids want.
I dunno, a photo service where photos disappear after 24 hours.
What would a kid want that for and what is maybe like...
that's sort of legalized child pornography distribution.
They can't be liable for it
because it's disappearing after 24, you know?
And there's no mechanism to ask like-
"Is this good?"
What do they maybe want? Are we making like-
Because it's so in front of...
It's so ahead of us right now that we're, like you said,
we're falling down the rabbit hole
with no fucking direction so fast.
And like the decisions about kids like neurochemistry
are being made literally by programmers.
I'm just saying... and they're not social geniuses
like you've met these fucking people.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. They come out to the Punchline
sometimes in San Francisco, they're a rough go.
Years and years ago,
if your kid was like ahead of you on technology
to worry about him starting war games or something.
Whereas like now it's just flat out that.
It's like, are they giving their privacy away?
Are they all your kids sending a child pornography
basically that to each other and stuff and that's...
And they're ahead of it because where I think I know where I go,
oh, I would have to check my daughter's thing.
See, I know there's the secret apps that are photo apps.
I know how to find those things, you know, whatever.
But I don't... She definitely knows
12 more things that I'm unaware.
-Always a step ahead. -I don't know if...
how to check if she has more than one Twitter or Instagram.
You can't even use it.
You don't even know what the names of the things are.
You have to be literate in this whole thing
to even understand the dangers though.
Just so strange. You know, it's...
Let's go analog dude. Let's shut it all down.
I know. It's so funny. Cause that's what people say.
Like people always say to me like,
"There's going to be a generation that unplugged."
And I'm like, yeah, some things are cyclical for sure.
But sometimes like a car shows up
and there's fucking no more horses like that.
That's just what happens. Things just change and they...
And especially like, you want to think this is cyclical
and like a generational unplug.
Watch a fucking three year old with an iPad.
You'll see that these things are designed to appeal to us
before we can fucking think.
That's what I said.
I had a bit about that, that I did on Conan
and about just watching a little kid with a fucking iPads,
one of the most terrifying things in the world
because they focus in.
My ex wife-
And they know how to use it. it's mind blowing.
My ex wife as new baby.
So it's my daughter's sister,
and well if we go to dinner or something together,
they occupy her by giving her an iPad or the iPhone
and how I'll know if she has the phone,
if I'm not with them, if the baby as the phone
because what she knows not only used to go to YouTube,
they basically for three they set her up with the page
that has all the videos of that cartoon
or whatever is she watches.
But she knows how to pick a different one,
go to a different one and she knows if somebody calls
and buzzes in that she has to, you know...
if something comes up, says there's a text,
she knows how to swipe it up to make go away.
And if someone calls she knows to hit the red to make it...
She's three.
That navigating the interface of YouTube is insane.
This is the image that like...
and I've had multiple people have said this to me.
I know other people with young kids
who have done the exact same thing.
My nephew watches videos.
There's videos of... like which is so demented
that these people make these videos...
of parents that film their kids playing with toys.
It's all about like Jeff's toys wherever-
And unwrapping boxes.
Yeah. Yeah. So what happens is like...
so now my sister will be with her kid
and he'll start playing with toys and be like,
"Mom, mom, tell them about the..."
Thinking there's an audience there to talking to.
We're going, "Tell them about the...
tell them to subscribe or tell them..."
And multiple people I've said have said
that their kids watch these videos and then-
They think they're in The Truman Show.
Exactly.
And that is a real sort of depersonalization or whatever.
Like that's a real thing that can happen to people.
It sounds like a goofy thing.
But that's like a weird meta, strange prison type of living,
which I think is what kids suffer from now.
Which is they don't just live their life.
They also hover over themselves
and watch themselves live their life.
They don't just approach moments.
Before they even have a moment they're wondering
what that moment will be, how it'll be looked back on,
how people react to how they look back. It's-
(inaudible)...example of that is every concert is-
It's a parody of itself and it's like...
No we're not supposed to become shitty New Yorker cartoons.
The problem with the country becoming the movie
Idiocracy is Idiocracy is not a great movie.
That's what no one's actually saying
is that it's kind of an on the nose, shitty satire-
It's insane how much that movie comes up
just in conversation with people on a daily basis.
That we thought we'd be a better movie than this.
You know what I mean?
You're right. It's definitely true.
What I said that... was it coming.
Oh, what the UFC fights now. When the UFC,
when Michael Buffer is announcing you go...
For the main event, he goes,
"We are here at the MGM Grand brought to you by Mojitos.
When you're having a rough summer,
make sure you drink a Mojito brand.
Mojitos fighting out of the red corner.
It's going to get real dark through their Metro PCS."
"Your cancer diagnosis is in brought to you
by Pepto Bismol. You got prostate cancer."
I know we have to get Bo out of here.
Again, the movie Eighth Grade out now available on Blu Ray
and digital platforms on demand. Dude, so great to see you.
I'm so proud of you, man. For what that's worth, man.
What I will say truthfully, Jay.
I do remember how kind you are to me at that time.
I remember more than anybody.
I specifically say when people say,
"Who was a comedian that was very nice to you
when you were young?" It was you.
You were so, so kind to me. I can never forget that.
You've got to make a movie called 41.
We'll be right back everybody. It's The Bonfire.
-That was so cool to talk Bo. -It did.
It was a bumout talk though.
Just like we're old, the young are the future
and they're crazy.
The young is into technology. The robots they don't like you.
I don't know if I look at this generation and go,
"They're gonna fix everything."
Not at all. Well, you got to let one go.
Maybe their kids.
One generation has to be like on.
One generation is going to suck and then the next one's
going to be like, we got to fucking clean.
Isabella's children are going to turn it all around.
Yes your grandchildren.
That's why she's just swiping left and right.