Peak anxiety makes great art

THIS IS A VERY SAD AND BEAUTIFUL STORY,” says Bo Burnham. We are watching an instructional video on how to tie a necktie. The narrator is pointing out the skinny and fat ends of the tie, and noting that choosing a length is a difficult step. It’s part of an exhibition on Internet videos at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, which also includes porn, zit popping, ASMR and something Burnham calls “established cute boy” videos. Yet it’s the over-explained tie tying that seems to affect him the most. He’s imagining the type of person for whom this kind of detail on a simple skill from a disembodied stranger is necessary. Why would someone not have a human to teach them this?

The Internet has diverse effects on its users. For many of those raised as digital natives, it has sown discord, disconnection and dissociation. For Burnham, 27, it has increased his humanity.