Let’s talk about “White Woman’s Instagram”
By: Megan Gogerty
Tags: Feminism, Instagram, Bo Burnham, Comedy, Misogyny

Let’s talk about “White Woman’s Instagram”

A still from Bo Burnham’s Netflix special, Inside.

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 seductive eating of sweets.

But is it misogynist? A lot of stuff is, you know! Showing contempt for women and queer people has been a time-honored way for many men to reinforce their own masculinity. And it shows up all kinds of places: If you have disdain for pumpkin spice edibles but love you some IPA, you’re probably a misogynist! Do you hate Amy Schumer because she’s fat? Misogyny! (“Naw, I hate her ’cause she’s a joke stealer!” Okay, sir.) Do you only notice “lesbians” when they’re on PornHub (hot tip: probably not real lesbians!)? Do you grouse that women are “stuck up” and “full of themselves?” Friend, time to do some soul-searching. Google “patriarchy,” and start there.

But white women…oh, white women! Our culture is having a moment where we are scrutinizing white women, and speaking as a white woman myself, it’s overdue. White women sit at that horrible nexus, right next to power but not quite in it, and many weaponize their gender to double-down on their own white privilege, trading their own liberation for supposed safety within the patriarchy. It won’t work; it never works. White supremacy teaches that white women are delicate flowers, in need of protection from Black men especially, and the perception of threat to white women has been used to justify violence throughout our history. The woman who got Emmett Till murdered was white; Amy Cooper is white. The Tulsa Race Massacre saw over 300 people killed and a neighborhood firebombed on the word of a white woman.

So yes, white women: time for a reckoning. If we want to eradicate white supremacist patriarchy — and I sure do! — then white women have to get real about their own complicity in upholding the status quo.

But is that what Burnham is doing? And is Burnham — a self-described rich white guy — the one to do it?

The most surprising part of “White Woman’s Instagram” is the bridge:

“Her favorite photo of her mom / The caption says: / ‘I can’t believe it / It’s been a decade since you’ve been gone / Momma, I miss you / I miss sitting with you in the front yard / Still figuring out how to keep living without you / It’s got a little better, but it’s still hard / Momma, I got a job I love and my own apartment / Momma, I got a boyfriend, and I’m crazy about him / Your little girl didn’t do too bad / Momma, I love you. Give a hug and kiss to Dad’”

Suddenly, the shallowness of the woman’s Instagram takes on a different timbre. Her project of creating Heaven via a stylized recreation of her life is not the work of an airhead, but of a person experiencing real grief. Social media is stupid: it’s pictures of what you had for breakfast, and silly memes with nefarious origins, and inane chatter, and it’s all cut through with a real, human yearning for connection and belonging.

Burnham’s project seems to be exploring that primary tension. Is the white woman in the song any more ludicrous than the Twitch streamer later in the special who blithely thanks his viewers for subscribing to his channel while he plays Burnham’s life as a video game, making the protagonist cry and play the piano?

On the other hand, the broader context of Inside can’t be ignored. This is a special made in a culture whose default settings are racism and misogyny. Because of their “Karen” status, white women as a group make convenient targets. How many young comedy fans are chuckling at “White Woman’s Instagram” because they think the women on Instagram are narcissists? How much of their laughter is infused with that particular flavor of vicious glee reserved for kneecapping women as a whole?

Women on Instagram, even the white women Burnham parodies so effectively, are not, by and large, narcissists. It’s not narcissistic to post a picture of yourself making a duck face under flattering light. Women are taught from an early age that the most important thing about them — more important than their brains or their abilities — is how well they meet the shifting and impossible standard of the male gaze. It’s a fool’s errand, and around middle age, a lot of women get wise to the con and switch to easily maintained hairstyles and comfortable shoes. (Hey! That’s about the same time when society renders women invisible! What a coinkydink!)

And while Burnham offers his protagonist a moment of soulful introspection, the song doesn’t end there. After the bridge, the critiques continue to draw blood:

“Incredibly derivative political street art / A dreamcatcher bought from Urban Outfitters…”

Burnham’s whole comedy career is about having it both ways. His speciality is espousing a sincerely held belief while simultaneously mocking sincerely holding any beliefs. He indulges his own self-hatred, cleverly condemning himself both for his sincerity and his own mockery of his sincerity.

A classic example of this doubleness shows up later in the special, is in the song, “Problematic.” In it, Burnham laments the comedy of his younger days, with its casual homophobia and thoughtless racism:

“I started doing comedy / When I was just a sheltered kid / I wrote offensive shit / And I said it / Father, please forgive me / For I did not realize what I did / Or that I’d live to regret it… / Is anybody gonna hold me accountable?”

I believe that Burnham is sincere in his plea; he’s disavowed his early material in a host of interviews before this special aired. But also: while singing this song, declaring himself “problematic,” he stages himself as a literal Jesus on a cross, intercut with thirst-trap pictures of himself working out. It’s a sly bit of having it both ways. If you agree that Burnham needs to own up for his earlier work, well, maybe Bo agrees with you! And if you think “cancel culture” has gone too far, turning mere comedians into martyrs, well…maybe Bo agrees with you!

Comedy is based in agreement; Bo Burnham, or any comic, is only as successful as their arguments are persuasive. So playing both sides of the argument is a skillful bit of maneuvering. It lets you have your cake and eat it, too.

It’s the kind of trick that only rich white guys can get away with, because only white guys are granted the status of the Everyman. It’s their world. The rest of us — the seventy percent of Americans who aren’t white guys — have to live in it.