While ingrates mark the milestone by insolently asking the entrepreneur to stop union-busting, we want to celebrate the joyous occasion with a song: Bo Burnham’s “Bezos I.” The lyrics tell the touching tale of Jeffrey’s selfless mission to become a tech oligarch. The track was a highlight of Burnham’s Netflix special, Inside, but its legacy didn’t end there. In the months after the show’s release, the tender tribute to Bezos was reappropriated on TikTok as an ode to disaster capitalism.
Workers unite
The second life of “Besoz I” was a product of timing. TikTokers quickly tapped into this economic chasm.
In the social media age, an artist can’t determine the meaning of their masterpiece.
The Bezos generation
The 30-year-old Burnham is an archetypal millennial, but his song became a hit among Gen Z. (Full disclosure: I am also a millennial, although I dislike my generation even more than those that flank it.) At under a minute long and infectiously energetic, the track is tailor-made for TikTok-addled brains. Yet that wasn’t the only reason why Burnham’s Netflix special connected with Gen-Z. The melancholy musical comedy perfectly captures the pandemic life that supercharged TikTok’s popularity. The show was filmed within the confines of a single room, depicts depression, and explores our fraught relationships with tech. It’s unsurprising that it resonates with a generation that spends so much time online and has high rates of mental health struggles. Such issues don’t appear to be affecting Bezos. Indeed, the 58-year-old can look forward to countless future generations celebrating his birthday. Like every other horror story antagonist, he knows that true evil never dies. In the words of Burnham:
