rant · moment 13 of 16
Sex, Family, and Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade
from 163 - How To Be Popular · #163
6 min
Tim gives more teen life advice — don't get obsessed with sex, cultivate surrogate families, don't bully people, punch up at teachers instead of classmates — while praising and critiquing Bo Burnham's movie Eighth Grade and his self-important stage persona.
- Tim's advice on sex: don't get too into it unless you really know what you're doing, and it's more about friendship than obsession.
- Healthy family relationships matter, but get surrogate families and go on vacations with other people to be independent young.
- Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade is a decent movie, but Tim critiques Burnham's bit about artists and not feeding families as economically illiterate.
- The movie works because it follows a girl who feels like an outsider, gets invited to a party, and ends up with the goofball instead of the handsome jerk.
- Never build your comedy act around another kid at school—they could transfer or harm themselves, leaving you with nothing.
- In high school, punch up at teachers and principals, get good impressions, and be able to read the room about when joking is appropriate.
- Analyzing social dynamics and knowing what people want from you isn't sociopathic—it's awareness, and you can use it to distract teachers.
- Tim's Spanish class story: he said "a little pudding" when asked what helada meant, killed the class, and the teacher laughed.
- Being in Hollywood is valuable; he's meeting important people and it matters to be popular, cool, and the person others want to be around.
- Money, real estate, Oscars, and Emmys don't fix the fact that some people just suck, and the ones who suck always know it.
Bo BurnhamRudy GiulianiDonald Trump JrShia LaBeouf