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Let’s talk about “White Woman’s Instagram”
Misogynist? Or no?
Bo Burnham’s Netflix special, Inside, is an existential crisis disguised as a comedy film. It aims its fiercest satire right at the heart of the thing that birthed Burnham’s career in the first place: the Internet. He goes after Jeff Bezos, Twitch streamers, brands attempting to co-opt social causes, react videos, and more. And then there’s the song, “White Woman’s Instagram.”
While it’s not the eleven o’clock number (that would be “Welcome To the Internet,” a brilliantly malevolent act-out whose motifs sneakily course through the whole show), “White Woman’s Instagram” is the clear breakout hit. Netflix knows it; it features a still from that segment in its cover splash. It’s instantly catchy, and it neatly captures the performative allyship, the casual racism, and the soulless vacuity found on that app, most often in posts by, well, white women.
“Fresh-fallen snow on the ground / A golden retriever in a flower crown / Is this Heaven? / Or is it just a / White woman / A white woman’s Instagram?”
The song has clearly struck a chord. There are delightful TikTok videos of white women comparing their own self-curated Instagram accounts with Burnham’s satire and feeling, as they say online, pwned. Burnham bullseyes his target, down to the Mylar birthday balloons and the…
