Bo Burnham on Growing Up with Anxiety

Bo Burnham speaks up about growing up with anxiety as part of the Child Mind Institute’s #MyYoungerSelf campaign to fight stigma for children struggling with mental health and learning disorders. Help us give hope and end stigma by sharing Bo’s personal story.

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Bo Burnham is an American comedian, musician, actor and filmmaker known for his YouTube videos (over 600 million views as of June 2022) and his debut feature film, Eighth Grade, which he wrote and directed.

Following his success as one of the earliest YouTube stars throughout the late 2000s, Burnham gained notability in the early 2010s for his satirical and subversive stand-up and musical comedy. He subsequently made four comedy albums with Comedy Central Records, released three comedy specials—Words, Words, Words (2010), what. (2013), and Make Happy (2016)—created and starred in the MTV mockumentary series Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous (2013), and published the poetry book Egghead: Or, You Can’t Survive on Ideas Alone (2013). He announced a career shift away from performing comedy in 2016 before writing and directing the critically acclaimed drama film Eighth Grade (2018). He has also directed other comedians’ comedy specials, and co-starred in the Academy Award-winning comedy-thriller film Promising Young Woman (2020).

Burnham created and starred in his fourth special, Inside (2021), without a crew or audience during the COVID-19 pandemic; it was released by Netflix to widespread acclaim and was nominated in six categories at the 73rd Emmy Awards, winning Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, Outstanding Music Direction, and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special. At the 64th Grammy Awards, Inside was nominated for Best Music Film and Best Song Written for Visual Media, winning the latter. Three songs from the special appeared also on the Billboard charts and were certified gold in the United States, as was the accompanying album, Inside (The Songs).

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