Dissect - S7E14 - Season Finale: Because The Internet

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

We conclude our season long analysis of Because The Internet with a sweeping recap of the album and script’s central narrative. We then outline and analyze the world’s main themes and symbols before hearing from Dissect listeners directly. Shop limited Season 7 merch: https://bit.ly/36ClxIV Dive deeper into the world of Because The Internet with our episodic visual guides (https://bit.ly/30EKbF1), where you can also read the BTI screenplay in full. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @dissectpodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Spotify, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. I'm your host, Cole Kushner. Today we conclude our season-long analysis of Because the Internet by Childish Gambino. Over the course of this season, we've followed Gambino and the Boy as they attempted to find a meaningful existence in the age of the internet. We're going to begin our finale episode today with a sweeping recap of this main narrative that plays out through the interaction of the album and the accompanying screenplay. Then we'll draw some final conclusions about Because the Internet's central themes and symbols. Finally, we'll end the episode with you, a montage of listener-submitted audio clips that share what Because the Internet means to you. And so, for the final time this season, let's dissect.

We log into the world of Because the Internet with the album's brief opening track, The Library. In the screenplay, we are introduced to the world's protagonist simply named the boy, who we find getting off the bus from Summer Camp, a link back to Gambino's previous. album Camp. The boy is picked up by his father in a limousine and taken to their large mansion on top of a hill. The ride is awkward. The boy and his father don't seem to have any real connection and his mother is dead. When the boy gets to his room, he immediately logs on to his computer, watches a bestiality video his friend sent him, and trolls people in a message board. The script then flashes forward years later and we play the album's next track, Crawl. Crawl finds Gambino issue,

chewing a series of boasts, reflecting the boy's juvenile attitude in the script. But throughout the track, we hear allusions to his upcoming existential crisis. Most notably, the very first words we hear Gambino speak on the album posed one of the album's central questions. Meanwhile, in the script, we find the boy 15 years later still living in his father's mansion, though his father is no longer around. He still eats samuars like a kid, and has found a way to make a little money trolling celebrity, and politicians on the internet.

He and his friend FAM take one of the boys' sports cars to the beach, where they meet up with friends and use surfing as a cover to smoke weed. It's here at the beach the boy meets a surfer named Sasha, who he invites to a party at his mansion later that evening. It's at this point we're instructed to play the album's next track, World Star. World Star before rap, you already know that. So fresh prints, they are about to bring the show back.

World Star begins in the same vein as Krawl, as Gambino continues his series of boasts. Meanwhile in the script, the boy and his crew eat in and out burger while driving to a nightclub, where fam has some business to conduct. The boy isn't allowed into the club because he doesn't meet the dress code, so he waits outside. There's a guy the boy doesn't know standing next to him. His name is Jay, and a black SUV pulls up yelling at him. Gunshots are fired, Jay is hit, and starts bleeding out in front of the boy, who is filming it all in his cell phone. We actually hear this scene depicted midway through World Star.

In the script, Jay dies, leaving the boy feeling something close to a connection with him. Someone yells World Star, labeling this murder as another quick hit of entertainment, but the boy is clearly affected by the incident. The boy's phone rings, it's fam, telling the boy to get in the car as they pull up. We also hear a phone call in World Star that marks the exact midpoint of the song. man, check out that video I just sent you, man. It's hilarious, man. In the car with his crew,

the boy can't stop watching the murder of J he recorded on his phone. While his crew is hyped about the incident, as if they were just watching a scene in a movie, the boy realizes how close he was to death, inciting what will develop into a full-blown existential crisis. The boy's awakening is reflected in the following scene, where he and fam stopped by a jazz clip to pick up a friend. As they watched the band on stage,

the boy expresses the meaninglessness of his life so far, saying he doesn't offer the world anything but some tweets on the internet. This jazz scene is scored by World Star's second half, which after the connecting phone call transforms into a harmonious halftime feel featuring a saxophone solo. The dichotomy between our pursuit of internet fame and the commodification of people like Jay for internet entertainment is expressed here in World Star's refrain. It's our desire to be seen and have purpose that connects all of us, as well as our fears of being humiliated and dehumanized. Exposing and examining these connective tissues is at the heart of what because the internet attempts to accomplish, and as such, the two sides of World Star act as a mini-narrative that

reflects the larger narrative of the album as a whole. The screenplay continues with the crew back at the mansion getting ready for the party. It's here that we're instructed to play the album's next track, Dial-up. This brief interlude scores the boy in the script laying in bed, clearly still affected by Jay's death. Spiders begin descending down from his bedposts and whisper to him, Where are you? Who is this? Don't slide. These questions are in line with the Who Am I question that began the album, reflective of the boy and Gambino's crisis of identity.

After the brief interlude of dial-up, we move on to the worst guys featuring Chance the rapper, who also plays Marcus in the script, The Boy's most sex-crazed friend. All she needed was him. All she needed with him. All she needed was him. In the first half of the song, Gambino continues the boasting we heard in the previous tracks.

The first verse brags about his sexual prowess and wealth, while in the script, people arrive at the party at the boy's mansion. The boy seems disinterested, while Marcus just had sex with someone in the shower and seems to be responsible for inviting strangers the boy doesn't know. When the boy goes to his father's room, Sasha, the surfer, is in there with their friend. They attempt to have a threesome with the boy, but he can't get erect. Continuing the change in perspective triggered by witnessing someone die,

the boy is no longer able to indulge like he once did. This progression is also reflected in the worst guys, as verse 2 sees Gambino's brags turn to vulnerable confessions. He suspects that his friends are just using him for his money, and then specifically describes the failed threesome we witness in the script. That's a space bar. Man, I hate y'all. You only come around when you want to play pool on my hot tub.

Ice cream paint job. in the garage, I had a menage, and murder divage. But afterwards, it was awkward as fuck, because I'm nervous as fuck, you cannot get it up. I, I, I, I couldn't finish, got the Uber from a place on my port, smoking vapor, hit with a Sunday paper, listening to the neighbors. In the script, the boy goes into the bathroom to escape Sasha and her friend. A surreal, perhaps drug influence scene ensues, as the boy's ex-girlfriend, Vanessa, inexplicably steps out of the linen closet. Vanessa tells the boy she wants to go to Coachella,

which is taking place inside the closet. The boy doesn't want to go. They argue, and after going in, Vanessa shoots up into the sky like a rocket. A bunch of hipster-looking wolves surround the boy in this Coachella hallucination and then eat him alive. While it's clear the boy is under the influence of something, he's clearly thinking back to an old relationship when he might have felt a connection with someone, similar to what he felt when he saw Jay die. These reflections are scored by the song's shadows. In the song's refrain, Gambino voices a past lover expressing her desire that he be more emotionally invested, similar to the conversation he had with Vanessa in the script.

The script cuts to the boy coming to in a cold shower just before six in the morning. He heads downstairs where the aftermath of the party finds the mansion trashed and his friends passed out on the couch. He wakes them up and tells them that they're getting in the car and driving to Oakland, triggering the next track, Telegraph Avenue, Oakland by Lloyd. Let me know what you think. It's Lloyd called Oakland on Par 106. Turns out the boys headed to Oakland to revisit another ex-girlfriend, Naila, who tells them not to come via text. The crew stops at In-N-N-Out and witnesses a robbery take place while they're eating.

They troll the events in real time, ironically imitating news reporters covering police murdering people of color. Shots are fired and why they still joke around, they try to leave, but are immediately pulled over by the cops, likely due to their skin color. They aren't charged with anything and make it to Nila's house, where the boy has a conversation with her on her doorstep. Nila tells them she's over it, that they don't know each other, and the boy likely hurt, insults her new boyfriend that's inside the house. Nila tells them to grow up, a symbolic phrase that speaks to the boy's current identity crisis. As they leave and head to the nightclub, we're asked to play the next track, Sweatpants. After being rejected by Nila, Gambino and the boy seemed to double down on their egotism as a defense against vulnerability and feeling. On sweatpants, Gambino takes his stunts.

to an almost comedic level. In this screenplay, the boy and his crew go to a nightclub, order an absurd number of bottles, and split before the bottles arrive, leaving a stack of cash to pay for them as an ultimate boast of wealth. From the club, the crew eats at a late-night diner while discussing the virtues of vegetarianism. The boy sees that another kid writes Roscoe's wetsuit on the wall, an ambiguous phrase that the boy sees everywhere but doesn't understand. The boy confronts the kid and is frustrated that the kid doesn't know the meaning of it either, yet he's still contributing to its spread and popularity. The boy snaps and slams his fist on the diner table, a moment that's also heard at the end of sweatpants.

The boy in Gambino's frustration comes to a head here as they continue to grapple with who they are, the life they live, and the influences that have shaped them. Again, the boy's crew laughs and jokes about this confrontation with the kid at the diner, but the boy has had enough. His crisis is intensifying, and we're becoming tense about his growing frustration. The crew then heads to their hotel in Oakland and see a wedding reception taking place in the lobby. The crew are cynical about marriage, saying that goals are dumb, but the boy is more open-minded. He stays to watch the events while the crew goes their separate ways for the night. The boy meets an older man who asks the boy about his plans, specifically about marriage, and the boy offers him a naive,

answer about wanting a cool baby mama and that he's had mature relationships since he still sends his exes happy birthday texts. He then tells him about his job, which is trolling celebrities online until they respond, and then posting those responses on his blog where he collects ad money. The older dude is unimpressed at his life, and so are we. It's clear the boy is just that, a boy, and he needs to grow up. As the wedding reception announces a traditional march to forever for the bride and groom, were instructed to play the album's next track, 305. Much like the script, 305 examines marriage or the commitment to a single connection forever, specifically as an antidote to existential loneliness.

The chorus is a desperate plea in the face of such loneliness, as Gambino yearns for genuine connection amidst its feelings of isolation and alienation. These feelings can be heard in the song's verses, where Gambino, Dino confesses his growing lack of interest in his party lifestyle, admits that his friends are just using him for his money, loses hope for a happy ending, and describes us all as ticking time bombs, alluding to our inevitable deaths. Back at home, the boy and the crew prepare for yet another party at the mansion, which is now filthy. With no alternative, meaningful way to live, the boy is stuck in a lot. a loop, though his tolerance for these recurring events is wearing thin. The boy sits alone at the piano, playing contemplative chords, likely thinking about his life and future. This intimate scene is

scored by the aptly titled Playing Around Before the Party Starts. People arrive at the mansion and the predictable debauchery begins, but the boy can no longer take it. He thinks to himself, this is a waste of time, and starts going berserk, smashing up the house with a pool stick and screaming that everyone needs to get out. The scene plays out. The scene plays out. out in the album's next track, The Party. During his freak out, the boy goes to smash a phone, but stops when a girl's cast-covered hand reaches out over it. He makes eye contact with the girl and feels a connection with her, but doesn't act on it,

instead continuing to kick everyone out. Alone, the boy rides Rosco's wetsuit on the pool table with saracha sauce and leaves, triggering the next track, no exit. Can't sleep. No exit in the corresponding scenes in the screenplay are near identical matches. We cut to the boy lying in his room unable to sleep, staring at a spider in its web on the wall, and he feels just like that spider, stuck in an empty web.

The boy gets up, takes a night drive, and sits on the hood of his car near a bridge. We're starting to wonder if he's thinking about taking his own life. He realizes he hasn't eaten, that perhaps his emotional state is due to a life. of nutrition, so he heads to Fat Burger, but throws his burger out as soon as he gets it. We cut to the boy back at his house. He turns off all the lights, pours an unnamed powder into his Pellegrina water, and downs it. As the boy slides out of consciousness, he realizes

the spider is gone, and he starts to wonder about its family and friends, all his connections. The script then fades out, as does the boy. The boy's drug-induced unconscious experience is scored by the next two tracks, death by numbers, and flight of the Navigator. It's here that the boy in Gambino fly high over the earth, seeing and feeling the connection and unity among all the things in the universe. The boy wakes from his drug-induced vision of utopia in a hospital bed. His friends then inform him that while he was out, his father passed away. The script then immediately cuts to the boy on a plane to Stockholm, Sweden, to pick up his

father's ashes. It's here we're instructed to play Zealots of Stockholm. The boy uses his internet savvy and online popularity to look up a random girl to meet up with in Stockholm. After picking up his father's ashes, he meets up with the girl Alyssa at a bar. The two go for a walk in the streets of Stockholm, and surprisingly, they quickly get into a meaningful conversation about death, love, and relationships. Meanwhile, zealots of Stockholm expounds upon the existential themes of Because the Internet, as Gambino examines loneliness, the human condition, and humanity's lack of clear purpose in the aftermath of God's death, a universal father figure.

Back at his hotel room, the boy and Alyssa sit on the couch staring at his father's ashes in the urn. While the boy gets up and makes a drink, Alyssa takes the urn and runs out of the hotel room, and we're instructed to play the album's next song, Earn. The boy catches up with Alyssa, who tries to convince the boy to dump his father's ashes out to formalize the process of acceptance. of moving forward. She reveals that her twin sister died and that she did the same thing with her ashes. Despite the suspicious online origins of their brief relationship, the boy and Alyssa are bonding here in real life, connected by the sorrow and grief of their losses. Just before the boy spreads his father's ashes over the water, he whispers to the urn, I'm sorry we're alone, expressing genuine remorse that his father was alone in his death, a universal apology for the human condition. The tenderness of

This vulnerable moment is interrupted by Alyssa's boyfriend, who appears out of nowhere. He tries to fight the boy and is appalled that the boy doesn't know who he is, since the boyfriend is the star of a viral video on YouTube. We suspect the boy is recognizing the ridiculousness of the boyfriend's web-centered ego and persona, a reflection of his own internet-based identity. Disgusted, the boy leaves, and we immediately cut to a scene of the boy back in Los Angeles. He sits in a vegan restaurant with fam and meets a girl named Naomi, played by Jenae I. It's the same girl whose hand was in the cast that momentarily stopped the boy's rampage at the mansion party.

The two connect immediately. Back at the mansion, the boy and Naomi talk about their lives, their plans, and about reincarnation. The boy informs her that he plans to sell drugs to continue to afford the lifestyle provided by his father. It's clear the two are falling in love, and were instructed to play Pinktoes as the score of this romance. On the surface, Pink Toes expresses the rainbows and sunshine of a new romance, a euphoria that Gambino likens to a drug trip. But careful listening of the track reveals the dark undertones to the song, as the boy Naomi's love becomes entangled with his drug dealing,

of his need to pursue capital. The script describes their love as being, quote, like two helpless things in the wild, and one says, I'll protect you, and both parties know that it's a lie, because there's no way either of them can protect the other from anything. It's a connection, the less alone. This is all we look for on earth, unquote.

The boy moves out of the mansion and lives with Naomi in an apartment. The mansion turns into the center of the boy's drug empire, which is growing beyond the boy's control. The script then cuts to a scene of the boy and Naomi in their apartment. The boy is heading out to oversee a drug deal at the mansion. Naomi warns him not to go, but he does anyway. He leaves, and the script informs us that they'll never see each other again. drives to the mansion Unworryed, singing along to the stereo. As he pulls up to the house, he sees four men standing by the door. They pull out guns and were instructed to play Earth the oldest computer, the last night. Earth, the oldest computer, sees Gambino begin a more

retrospective purview as he stares in the face of death and his life flashes before his eyes. He makes larger observations about the state of humanity, calling us the wireless survivors of Things Gone, before stating one of the more potent insights of the album. The earth's an unfair, is it unfair because I don't care when I step on an ant on the grass. Progress is the only thing that'll last. The year that we fear only God will survive. To be alone is a life. The earth's apathy regarding our individual lives is compared to our own apathy

regarding ants we might step on in the grass. Progress is the only thing destined to survive, and our decisions in the face of this fact push us to either indulge selfishly since our individual lives are trivial, or give back selflessly, setting up future generations and contributing to humanity's progress. The verse ends with the all-encompassing statement, to be alone is alive, and or to be alone is a lie. The existential loneliness inherit to the human experience is juxtaposed with the fact that we're all here together, and it's this core

dichotomy that's at the heart of because the internet, and at the heart of the world at large. We can tear each other apart, fight for survival and resources, and kill each other in the process, or we can use our common fears to connect us, to help each other progress and lessen the suffering together. Meanwhile, in the script, the boy is held up inside the mansion by what at first seems like a drug cartel, but it soon revealed that these guys are actually cops, and it appears the boy might be headed to jail. He fantasizes about drowning in his infinity pool, but suddenly cars screech outside, gunshots are fired, and one of the cops is shot by the other, who then turns shooting at the boy. The boy takes three breaths before the script cuts out, implying that the boy has died.

We're then instructed to play the album's final track, Life the Biggest Troll. Life the Biggest Troll finds Gambino and Glover free from the constraints of life, reflecting back on the world of BTI and providing insights into the album's themes. The album ends highlighting the ultimate irony, and then in the face of this irony, pleads for our help. Glover and or Gambino's plea here at the end of the album is his final call to action and leap of faith. Life may be trolling us, and may be inherently meaningless, but regardless, we're all here together, stuck in the same web.

and we can find our purpose in the network of the links between us, so we might as well help each other while we're here. Meanwhile, the script simply ends with a brief video of the boy in a brightly lit yogurt shop scrolling through his phone while credits appear on the screen. It's a cryptic way to end the script, especially since we assumed the boy died after he was shot at the mansion. Is this yogurt shop heaven? Is the boy actually alive?

We'll answer these questions and a whole lot more, right after the break. Welcome back to dissect. Before the break, we recap the narrative that centers the world of Because the Internet. We left off with the screenplay's final scene, the boy sitting in a yogurt shop scrolling through his phone as the credits roll. The shop is brightly lit and overwhelmingly white, evoking classic heaven imagery, and there's a rainbow-colored light shining overhead. As a setting, the frozen yogurt shop, a place where you can choose your own flavor and toppings, ties a nice bow around the evolution of eateries the boy has dined out throughout the script. recall that he began by eating some more as Pop-Tarts, then fast food, and finally, vegan with Naomi. While still a dessert, frozen yogurt is a healthier option.

It takes some of the qualities of fast food and blends in some of the nutrition and more sustainable eating habits of the vegan place. The ability to customize your dessert reflects the benefit of making a space where we can all exercise freedom of choice. In this sense, frozen yogurt represents our ability to bring the good of both pleasurable and healthy qualities forward. ability to choose sustainable enjoyment if we just make the space right. Throughout BTI, we viewed this notion of eating as a larger metaphor for the ways people have to make money and survive in our

capitalist society. A structure that Glover reveals prevents everyone from eating, especially as portrayed on sweatpants, eating, survival, has become a competition with winners and losers. While our current economic system demands that we play this game of survival, Glover sees how it limits humanity's growth and evolution. And like the thing we're supposed to do is really be helping each other, but we've been brought up in this kind of like, well, I'm supposed to be like the top ranking manager at this thing by this point. And it's not real.

It's just not real. It's not necessary. Everybody should be just following their passion because they're going to be good at that at most, but like people are too worried about, you know, their jobs. Because people got to eat. It's sad, but it's just like, it's true. like people got to eat and I feel bad. Like I don't want to be the guy on camera being like,

you should be following your dreams and people are like, I have five kids, you know? You know, I can't do that. But I think it's true, like people are scared and vulnerable. Because it's dangerous to do that. But I don't think we're gonna grow if we don't. And thus the frozen yogurt joint with its infinite possibilities, personal customization, synthesis of healthy and delicious,

as a metaphor for a utopian place where we can all eat, indicative of Glover's desire for us to make our world one equitable freedom. But beyond what the boy is eating is the setting itself that is most visually striking, as following the shootout at the mansion, the rainbow lights on the ceiling and the bright, sanitized white of the shop evokes images of heaven, of afterlife. So, did the boy die? Well, in the script, it's hard to imagine a situation where he doesn't. But we also need to recall how death was mentioned throughout BTI.

Buddhism is alluded to several times, most obviously in the boy and Naomi's conversation about reincarnation, the idea that death is a transitory state, that life and death are merely parts of a cycle. Due to white containing every color of light, it becomes associated with knowledge and infinity, qualities of the states between life and death. This relates to Glover constructing multiple narratives in the world of BTI. Between the music videos, film clips, and songs, he manipulated time in all of them. them, suggesting that the script's ending is not the only ending. Remember that BTI was followed by multiple projects which brought more loops into the narrative, and that the boy found

comfort in Naomi's idea of reincarnation. We're not certain if the Froyo scene is a flashback, or an indication that the boy's been making it up on his phone this whole time, or some sort of heaven, or if the boy somehow survived and is now just chilling by himself. The transitory and boundless qualities of this final scene suggests endless possibilities. It's just another thread with which to weave our exploration of the world, where the act of exploring and connecting is the point, perhaps even more than the quote-unquote answers themselves. And to this point, Glover using white so blatantly in the final scene,

demands that we at least consider his thoughts on the color. During the BTI era, Glover often spoke of whiteness as a blank slate, a symbol of freedom, an idea he would continue to develop over his career post-BTI. He connected this notion of freedom with race as well. that the freedoms white people experience are not extended to everyone. Because whiteness is blankness. It's because they look at it as a blank slate.

Like when you come in, you can be anything. Like when I walk in, even if I have a bow tie, they might be like, is he Muslim? They're not going to do that with a white dude. Like white people are a blank slate. We are not. People bring stuff to it because there's not a lot of us. So they only judge us on the seven or whatever or whatever they know.

As a black person, I constantly have to know what a person is assuming about. Given the subjectivity of identity, Glover points out that there's more freedom and possibility in the perception of white people than black people or other races. White people are culturally afforded more of a blank slate. With the final yogurt shop scene clearly enveloped in white, Glover seems to be connecting freedom with death, similar to what he experienced in flight of the navigator, where his brush with death allowed him to experience true, unbound freedom

and witness the interconnectivity of everything. The question Glover seems to be asking is, can we all achieve that kind of freedom while still alive? Or will we allow our systems to continue to position survival as competition, advantage some over others, and produce winners and losers? These are the kinds of issues Glover wanted to address in BTI. We recall his final deep web blog, a kind of epitaph for the world of Because the Internet. Quote, I want to talk about us.

I want us to solve ourselves. I want us to save ourselves. No one's better or worse than anyone. And anyone who thinks that we don't need each other to get through this is being short-sighted, unquote. And so having covered the central narrative in BTI, and knowing Glover's aim in creating it, we're going to spend the rest of the episode going over the project's main themes in hopes to better understand how BTI addresses humanity, how it presents the questions that need answers, and how it could be used as a code to save ourselves if we want. We begin back at the beginning with Glover's very first words on the project.

Who Am I is the question of identity centralized and focused from the very start. This question persists for Glover, the boy and Gambino, an amalgamation or spectrum of identities that Glover uses to purposely blur the lines between them, forcing us to question and recognize multiple perspectives. There's no fixed certain identity we're dealing with from the artist. And in the end, the final song sees Gambino, still wondering. I mean, where's the line between Donny G. and Gambino, he hang with girls like he

I am anymore. In tandem with the identity crisis of BTI is the existential crisis, as Glover explores how we find purpose in our lives. The question of why we're here comes up time and time again. They want to smoke niggins when they black a mile so we acted out. When now we gasping for air bullet holes inside of its dome, what's the point? I don't know. Why am I here? Why am I?

In the script, the boy continuously grapples with the existential dilemma, asking why over and over again after seeing Jay's death, realizing he could have died, and feeling that his life had been meaningless. It's this pursuit of purpose that spurs the boy's actions, and as a universal symbol, the boy's attempts to search for purpose functions as a search for humanity's rationale, our reason to exist. And so because the internet's ambitious attempt at solving or saving ourselves is presented in two central questions, Who am I and Why Try? These timeless questions

are the basis of life, of who we are and why we're here. Glover's answers to these questions are present in the various facets of the BTI world, though it takes a little bit of hacking into their source code to find them. Let's start with the album cover, a fitting set piece for the project, as the focus and exploration of identity is centered in the cover art, lit with a spectrum of red to orange hues, Glover stares directly at the camera, at us, his eyes slightly red, wearing a red Hawaiian shirt. Technically, the cover is actually a jiff. In this digital version, the image of Glover is motionless for a few seconds, then its pixels suddenly blow up, magnifying Glover's face to an unrecognizable blur. It's an image that's reminiscent of one of those

Rorschach test image plots, which were devised to examine and measure perception or personality. Having expanded to this call for subjectivity, the image collapses back to the original. This too is another loop, a repeating image evoking the proliferation of similar material online. Even the very notion of a moving album cover is really only made possible because the internet. As the introduction to the album, the cover of the book, the notion of identity exploration being expanded reflects the central question, Who Am I we just covered? We also recall that World Star begins with the phrase, blow up, a fitting nod to the GIF literally blowing up. Right from the start, the notion of any

fixed or individual identity is demolished. Resembling pinch zooming on an iPhone pick, we are left with the pixels, the dots that make us up, leaving us to make the connections ourselves. Any barriers, lines, or images are blurred to the point of obsolescence when we examine them enough. Lastly, given the introductory nature of the cover, of Glover's face, and the album's first track, the library, We have to point out the pun of it all, because the internet is a Facebook. There's also Glover's outfit to consider. In past episodes, we've discussed the importance of Glover's clothing choices as his characterization of a universal figure, the shades of white, brown, and black, capturing the spectrum of

colors of human skin. The floral shorts or Hawaiian shirts added natural elements, completing the outfit's portrait of Earth. In turn, this establishes the world building of BTI, as Glover seems to include a quote quote-unquote fabricated earth on the cover. The nature pattern also contains the same colors as the digital geometric pattern on the back of the album, and thus the physical copies of BTI present a juxtaposition of natural and digital elements, establishing a key duality of the project as a whole. Symbolically, the Hawaiian or Aloha shirt Glover wears evokes paradise,

joy, and relaxation, as well as a notion of old money or wealth, as the shirt was initially only available to those able to vacation in Hawaii. This seems to play into the boy's inherited wealth from his father, and his life of leisure evoked by the Hawaiian print is only possible because of money. As a clothing item, something that we put on to represent ourselves to the outside world, the shirt is part of Glover's constructed identity, and the water and palm trees on it reflect the same water, trees, and paradise of the temple, the boy's home, and the mansion BTI was created out of. There was also the presence of Kauai, a remote, desirable vacation spot referenced on Telegraph Avenue, and in its music video, where the boy is able to escape stress and enjoy time with various love interests, be them Naila, Naomi, or others. Kauai is also one of the two locales emphasized on the BTI follow-up Stone Mountain Kauai,

which manipulate the timelines and narratives of the BTI universe. Thus we find the follow-up project present at the start of BTI, yet another loop, another pattern, another connection building Glover's world. The tropical nature of the shirt is juxtaposed by the stare on Glover's face, He wears a blank expression, allowing us to interpret the emotion. His eyes have a slight red tint, suggesting that he's high, in line with the constant presence of drugs and the role in BTI as a way of opening up connection and providing solace from stress.

This is reinforced by the stare being a direct address to the audience, to us, a statement of our connection. We've seen Glover employ this same technique throughout BTI visuals, the Sweatpants music video, Yaffiet Koto, Ern's film clip, and more. similar to his asking for our help directly in the album's final moments. This eye contact is a call for connection. Also in the final song of the album are the lyrics Certain Demise, Look in His Eyes, The Pain Inverting.

It's another call for us to recognize our mortality and address the pain we feel together. The extent to which Glover thought about the symbolic function of the album and packaging is further revealed with the actual physical copies of the album. In an attempt to bring the looping GIF style animation into the physical world, the CD uniquely uses lenticular print, the method that creates those images that change depending on the angle that you look at it. Symbolically, it's a commentary on perspective about how perception of a thing or one's identity

is fluid, subjective, and dependent on context. This was very important to Glover. When asked about why the vinyl didn't have the same animated print, He was quite apologetic. I'm going to be completely honest. I really tried really hard to make it with a lenticular cover. Did you really? I did, but it was so super expensive.

This highlights the importance and care Glover took with the packaging of his work, emphasizing the exploration of branding and perception at the heart of BTI. Glover wanted us to dive in, to explore the nature of identity with him, and the physical product was extremely important in this process. In fact, one of the more brilliant, visionary aspects,

of the entire project is found in a single key aspect of both the vinyl and the CD. In a physical, symbolic act of exploring and unpacking identity, fans discovered that if you tear the lenticular print of Glover's face off the CD or take apart the vinyl packaging, you would reveal something hidden, perhaps the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. There, underneath it all, written in bold print, all caps, Rosco's Wetsuit. And so we come to a moment we've been waiting for. What the hell is Roscoe's wetsuit?

Well, before we get into that, the first thing we need to recognize is that our curiosity about the phrase and our willingness to explore its potential meanings is exactly what Glover wanted us to do. It makes you listen and be like, what is that about? Sure.

Like, I always want, I only want fans who want to dig deeper. Like, fans who touch something and they're like, okay, I like it, and then they move on. Like, they're not going to stay. So like I feel like any fans I want are the ones that are like, you know, what's this? Like, what's Roscoe's Wetsuit mean? What's this mean? Like, dig deeper because I always want to make more.

Yeah, it seems to be a lot of layers. The phrase Roscoe sweatsuit began appearing online well ahead of the release of BTI's album on Glover's Twitter feed and countless retweets of the phrase and in a website roscowiswetuit.org. Fans were already confused about the mystery before it appeared in the beginning of the script, which, as you'll recall, found the boy looking through his Twitter feed for something dumb to retweet and finds Roscoe's wetsuit. The boy's own curiosity about the phrase set him off on an unrewarding exploration of his own. After getting no answer from the web, he asks FAM, who doesn't know, and begins to see the phrase everywhere, just like Gambino fans did during the BTI rollout.

This pervasive mystery for the boy was expanded to the real world, placing audiences and the boy in the same situation, looking for meaning and something that others seem to grasp, or at least proliferated. Utilizing social media's capacity for virality, Glover's inventive use of the internet to unfurl the phrase on the world, as well as the lack of provided answers, led some to believe the term represents the way ideas and trends can spread like wildfire online, seemingly without thought or reason. Given that fans were quick to tweet the phrase hoping for a Glover retweet, there's merit to this idea, and it reflects how the internet impacts our use and distribution of information. After BTI's release, the phrase kept turning up over and over again in the script and in real life. This would

sometimes occur simultaneously, as Roscoe's wetsuit appeared on billboards that exist in real life and in scripts. As a form of advertisement, Roscoe's wetsuit became inextricably tied to because the internet. And even if it did start as a random, nonsensical pairing of words, the phrase became related with Glover's work, and gained meaning through its usage and associations. What was once meaningless became imbued with meaning, and we got to experience and contribute to that transformation in real time with Glover. Within the transmedia world of BTI, Roscoe's wetsuit is a mystery box, a term for the ideas and parts of stories where the uncertainty of their meaning compels further investigation and continued engagement. One famous example of this is the briefcase in

Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, which glows a goldish yet. every time it's opened. Despite being a central part of the plot, the briefcases contents are never directly shown or explained, inspiring decades of speculation, conversation, and audience engagement that extended well after a person's viewing of the film. The boy's pursuit of meaning in Roscoe's wetsuit reflects our own experience, as he sees it everywhere and searches for its meaning. When he sees a kid riding it on a diner wall who claims not to know what it means, he says, tell me what it is, or I'll cut you open and take the answer. After he kicks everyone out of his house,

he sprays the term on his pool table with hot sauce. And then, in no exit, as he drives to a bridge, apparently contemplating suicide, he notices, quote, someone sprayed Roscoe's wetsuit on the side of the bridge. The boy is not surprised. It's not making more sense, but is becoming more dependable,

which is always nice, unquote. The pursuit of some meaning in the phrase mirrors the boy's pursuit of meaning in his life. This struggle at sense, becomes a constant, something reliable. Like life, there's no sense or necessary order to the thing, but the exploration of meaning persists, and there's purpose to be found in the act of exploration itself. This existential implication is solidified in the script's final appearance of Roscoe's wetsuit. As the boy walks through Stockholm, quote,

there are people saying things, giving opinions, feeling interesting. Everyone has a purpose tonight. It's a great time. A couple walk by. A super handsome guy, says, Swedish, blah, blah, blah, Roscoe's wetsuit. Ha ha ha ha. Super pretty girl says, blah, blah, blah,

Swedish, blah, Roscoe's wetsuit, unquote. The meaning has bridged multiple languages here, exemplifying the transitory infinite potential of words and the universality of our pursuit of purpose.

While we don't know what they're saying, we can feel the conversation and connection as indication of life lived with purpose. These passerbys are representations of the notion that we're all searching for meaning. All of us are

across the world are looking for the same thing. And our pursuits of purpose, we can all connect. Of course, it might have been nice if Glover ever said anything specific about what the phrase itself meant. The closest thing we have is when Glover was asked directly about the meaning of Roscoe's wetsuit at one of the BTI public park gatherings.

His response was captured on shaky iPhone footage. You guys don't see. What? I can't, I can't, it's all part of bigger things too. But like, it's just, but just remember. asking your, like remember asking why you want to know because that's part of it. Do you know why you want to know? You just want to know?

Yeah, right? Okay, cool. Remember that. Glover says, remember asking why you want to know because that's part of it. Why do we want to know what Roscoe's wetsuit means? Why do we want to know what anything means? Language is a construct and meaning is a product of interaction, usage, and connection. Connection is what we actually want.

It's what produces significance. It's what gives us purpose. It's what pushes us to move forward and explore. And so with this in mind, let's go ahead and explore the possible meanings in the phrase Roscoe's Wetsuit, given all that we know about the world of BTI. Most obviously, a wetsuit is a tool used for thermoregulation and water, often for surfing. This immediately calls to mind the early scenes from the script and the video for the worst guys. In both, Glover and the boy go to the beach with

friends, all wearing wetsuits. It was here that Sasha asked the boy why he put his wetsuit on if he wasn't planning to surf, to which the boy responded because everyone else was. This highlights the boy's search for purpose, his instinctive desire to connect with others, but also the trappings of following someone else's blueprint or mindlessly propagating trends. Given the beach setting, the phrase also seems tied to acting on the web, as in surfing the web. There's a metaphoric bond between the boys' crew at the beach and their online. exploits. As we log on to the internet, we construct identities and personas to interact with the screens online, and the wetsuit notion falls in line with ideas of presenting ourselves with

various adornments as protection from the web's dangers. Among these dangers are online trolls, public backlash, social judgment, or the fear of a lack of validation. And so the versions of ourselves we push online is often guarded, highly curated, invulnerable, digitally enhanced, and one-dimensional. We're all in a sense wearing one-of-valanche. We're all in a sense wearing wetsuits online. This is an extension of Glover's exploration of identity in the age of the internet, something that plays into the interwoven reality and fiction of Glover's own multiple identities, something he was asked about often.

I mean, it all came from me. It all came out of me. I feel people always like, is that you or not? I'm like, it came from me. So it's definitely personal. It's a very personal album. But, you know, everybody has a character who they have. are. I mean, who you are online is not really who you are. It's like you're three-dimensional.

Everybody is, but, you know. The wetsuit then, this mystery phrase, becomes part of the identity exploration. We've talked about this throughout the season, but it bears repeating. Glover seems to view the internet as an expansion of humanity, a big bang that creates more and more worlds, more and more capacity for human evolution. One metaphor tethered to this idea has been water, which Glover described as a representation of humanity. Quote, I look at us all like water droplets. Every drop of water on Earth is looking for all the other droplets.

They're all trying to get to the sea. They're all trying to be the same water. I feel like that's people. We're trying to understand each other, whether that's language or sex or all those things. That's what separates us from everyone else. We're the only things that can look at something and see how it hurts somebody to be called a name

and feel that empathy. that's what really separates us. I feel like sometimes we lose that because the internet makes it hard to do that. We have to build that in. The internet is a living, breathing thing and we're making it up as we go. And yes, it's scary

because we're definitely going to fuck up. We have fucked up. But that's the only way to make things better. You learn more from the mistakes than from doing everything right. I only want to do things that connect, unquote. Humanity, our strive to connect, is water. And we have to build this into the internet, as it's our creation, an extension of who we are.

We're messing it up, perhaps dangerously so, but the pursuit and creation of meaning online, as exemplified by Rosco's wetsuit, becomes a form of protection amidst the thrashing whitewaters at the web. The wetsuit allows us to relish the joy of the waves whilst protecting against their dangers. This is reflected in our pursuit of meaning, as we try to figure this thing out, if we allow each other to do so safely, we'll be able to be able to be able to. to thrive in the constant change, the ebb and flow of the waves of the web. This pursuit of meaning is inextricably tied to our identity, as indicated by the use of the possessive name Rosco's. Thinking of this name, the most visible pop culture connection is with Rosco's chicken and

waffles, a chain of black-owned California soul food restaurants. Thinking about this in tandem with the fact that wetsuits are quite literally black skins, it seems Glover has imbued the phrase with notions of African-American identity. And so while the vague, nature of the phrase and the lack of concrete meaning invites universal discourse and connection, there's also a thread of racial specificity to be addressed. It calls to mind the threads of race throughout BTI, most obviously in the boy and his crews run in with the cops, and the boys failed threesome when two white girls called his penis, grape dick. This kind of racism is present in the digital world of the internet, be it digital blackface, hate speech, racial

misrepresentation, or the proliferation of stereotypical prejudice information. Speaking about the way people of different races had to see online platforms differently, Glover said, quote, people don't realize this cake has so many layers we have to deal with. It shouldn't be like black people look at Vine differently. It's like everyone looks at Vine differently. We all do. The difference is, some people have to take the good and the bad,

and some people just get to take the cream, unquote. As a piece of language tied to racial and online identities, Roscoe's wetsuit also comes to represent the very purpose of constructs, race being among them. It's an attempt at separating, grouping, and labeling, an imperfectly human triad describing a set of people. We've done this with race, class, and capital, thinking that we need to separate ourselves from each other, to establish individual identities or specific groups. Historically, this has been done in part for the purpose of hierarchical stratification, to put some groups above others, commonly to justify

exploitation and tribal wars. We've tried to use language to communicate, connect, and categorize the world, but true freedom of experience is beyond our imperfect attempts. Rossco's wetsuit and its infinite possibilities embodies the arbitrary nature of these attempts. They might have some purpose, for better and for worse, but they aren't fixed. We made them up. They can change if we've evolved past them, and we should recognize and remember that, rather than adhering to tradition for tradition's sake. Glover has consciously worked towards changing outdated perceptions, specifically when it comes to race.

As Glover saw it, this meant that he had to quantify his worth, the worth of what society sees him as. I feel like we all are got, we are what we want to be, like we can do that, but we have to work together. And I feel like right now, our generation, like me, like I know what I'm, I'm fighting for real and I'm fighting for our quant to quantify our worth. Like when they shoot us in the streets,

basically they're saying like you're not worth anything. It's like, and we have, data, 400 years of data, we see what happens every time. So I'm here just being like, yeah, I'm going to wear this. I'm going to do exactly what I want to do. I'm going to say this on Twitter. Black Twitter can get mad. White people can get mad. I don't, I don't care. I got to be me because I got to quantify my worth. Like I was hanging out with Jayden. Roscoe's wetsuit is Glover quantifying his worth. As something he created, his ability to influence its spread to make others share it. This is a representation of his ability to influence culture. Roscoe's wetsuit is

Donald Glovers or nah. It's real. It's online. It's culture. Every retweet, every billboard, every tattoo, every time it's been said in the years since BTI was released is proof of connection and worth. And that's what it's like you're worthless. And our job, our responsibility, I feel like whatever movement is happening when I talk to Jaden, when I talk to, like when Malia is coming to my shows and stuff, like that second generation of blackness are understanding. Like, we have to take ownership of what we do, which is build culture. We do that. We build culture.

But we have to own it. Orna needs to be trademark right now. And let's get back to your mind. We'd be incomplete in our analysis of Roscoe's wetsuit if we didn't entertain the idea the phrase is simply a joke, that Glover or the boy is trolling us. Most obviously, Glover could be playing

on the slang usage of Roscoe to refer to a gun, a phallic symbol, and the fact that Roscoe's chicken's logo is a rooster or a cock. The wetsuit then is a condom, and Rosco's wetsuit is nothing. more than a dick joke. The fact that Roscoe's wetsuit could just as easily be a dick joke as it is an elaborate pontification on race, constructs, and the pursuit of purpose in the age of the internet

is perhaps the best way to think about Rosco's wetsuit. The reality is that, like everything else, the possibilities are infinite and ever-changing. Our understanding of Roscoe's wetsuit is dependent on the context in which it exists, and that context could change, will change, with time, with new information, with forgotten information. As a symbol of subjectivity, Roscoe's wetsuit isn't bound to be what it was yesterday. It's allowed to grow up, evolve. Any attempt at defining or labeling it definitively is futile, as its identity is fluid and dependent on the context in which is perceived. Like Glover alluded to in the park, the meaning of Roscoe's wetsuit lies in the pursuit of its meaning, or attempt to connect the dots between it and

the other elements of Glover's world. Before this world, Roscoe's wetsuit is nonsensical. After this world, it becomes tethered to everything else inside, and connecting the dots to find out what it might mean is the point. To you, it might be a dick joke, to me, an insightful symbol of the internet age. But the fact that you and I are connecting through our exploration of Roscoe's wetsuit means much more than any fixed definition of the phrase. This kind of encouraged active exploration is emblematic of Glover's world building as BTI offers an ever-expansive experience, testing the boundaries of art and reality of our capacity for simulation.

Again, in Glover's own words. I only want fans who want to dig deeper. Fans I want are the ones that are like, you know, what's this? Like, what's Roscoe's West suit mean? What's this mean? Like, dig deeper because I always want to make more. Yeah, it seems to be a lot of this album. I don't believe an album, but I don't want to do albums. I want to make worlds and stories that people can live in for years if they wanted to.

We've broken down the various parts of the expansive transmedial world Glover created with BTI. And having done what we can, we now have a chance to connect some of the dots. The world structure of BTI reflects the experience of connection and what is real. As Glover explained in his tour announcement, quote, We have reached a moment where there is no real because we don't care anymore. can curate what's real every day on our timeline or feed. The boundary of what's real and what we want to be real is as volatile as the worth of a Bitcoin or a human heartbeat. This is an important moment, but be aware and beware that we're all making it up as we go, together, our human

collective unconscious, our deep web, learn to code, learn the code, unquote. As Glover notes, we're creating the world together, something more clear after the advent of the internet. In this new Big Bang, we have the power to create what this world looks like, and as Glover sees it, we need to be honest. We need to recognize our faults and try to build our future to be one for all of us.

Glover's world building with BTI then serves as a model for this idea. I don't want to make albums anymore anyway, because I feel like it's just kind of silly to make albums. Like, it's just albums, just albums. You got to make worlds and lives. We have the technology to make things way realer.

And that's why I wrote a screenplay. That's why the live show doesn't make sense without that. That's why there's so many things I want to make around it because I feel like trying to get people to just invest in the album is kind of like trying to make people pay for just the smell of your bakery. Like I don't believe it anymore. Like people are like, oh, keep on to this music and like try and sell it. I'm just like, no, it's out there now.

Like that's just how music is consumed now. So I try and connect with my fans or just like people through others. stuff too. Reality is multifaceted. We have the technology to build worlds, both from the perspective of Glover's artistic output, but also in every aspect of our societies. We can build space for connection. We can create a world where we can search for purpose. Make you be like, no, live with this. Like, no, you got to build a bigger world. I'm not going to make an album. I'm going to make an album. I'm going to make the rollout dope. I'm going to make the movie with it dope. I'm going to make everything dope. I'm going to make a world.

Because the thing is, like, album, it doesn't mean anything. Music doesn't mean it. It means as much as you put into it and we don't have time to put anything into it. So I don't see the point of making albums. As Gambino details here, music on its own doesn't mean anything. It means what we put into it, the time we can put into it. By placing the music into a larger world, the connections and possibilities within the music are magnified in a way that reflects our ability to find meaning in the world around us.

Glover pushed the boundaries of the world with his performance art, dressing in the boy's costume, creating exhibitions and installations of his room and mansion, using the live show as an extension of the world, weaving multiple constructs of identity into each component, Glover invited us to think about and search for meaning in everything. This season, we often discuss multiple interpretations of lyrics in light of the different identities, Gambino, Glover, or The Boy. The meaning of everything within the world depends on perception, and by crafting a world where we can see the ties between different points,

where we can see the strands of the web, Glover illuminates the multitude of perspectives and ideas that constitute all-encompassing truth. And again, more important than any definitive answer is the act of exploring, of creating connections, which is itself emblematic of our purpose here together. In addition to multiple identities, is the presence of multiple narratives interwoven throughout the world. For example, the sweatpants song, music video, and script are all tethered together by Gambino, the boy, and or Glover's pounding fist on the diner table, something that occurs across all the sweatpants mediums. Yet in each, the moment is presented slightly different.

In the script, it's the boy's frustration at the kid riding Roscoe's wetsuit. In the music video, it's Gambino's frustration at seeing himself in everyone around him. In the song, it's the boy and or Gambino's frustration about the influence of his father. The blatant variations of this moment exposes the varying narrative threads in the BTI world and demands varying interpretations. This kind of manipulation of narrative timelines extended into BTI's follow-up project, the joint mixtape Stone Mountain Kauai. Through combined dream sequences and use of flashbacks, the sequel provides snapshots of the boy's past, his dreams, and the future. This expands the scope of BTI to the past, present, and future,

highlighting endless connections, repetitions, and patterns. The ideas of subjectivity, questioning, and active interpretation really seems to be central to every piece of BTI. Fans sometimes wonder why Glover didn't create the entire film outlined in the screenplay

since visual albums actually exist. But the thing is, the digital script was a new form, one with embedded film clips and song cues, something Glover described as active. The plan was just

screensplayed. I was just like I wanted to write something but in a different form than usual and I felt like this was an active form to do it in and it would be fun. no one's done that really.

I was just like, I just thought no one else. We shot, we have like videos and stuff that go with it. There's a bunch of little things. As Glover indicates here, the different form presented by the digital screenplay seems to have been the goal. Thus, we can look at the script as laying the structure of the world bare.

It contains the imaginative qualities of a novel, the direct address of a conversation, and the cinematic clips provide glimpses of what a complete film may have looked like. It seems in providing this new medium, Glover allows us to connect the dots ourselves to be more active, engaged audiences, and in turn, be more active, engaged human beings. One of the more obvious ways Glover draws attention to connections within his world is through

the employment of loops and patterns. The most blatant loop is the one that is enclosed around the album, the track, the library, that plays at the very start and the very end. At this point, we can finally call attention to something crucial about this loop. On the deep web blog, Glover noted, quote, People should understand you don't have to be perfect. You can just learn. I'm trying to find make a safe place for that, unquote.

Glover's world of BTI was thus an attempt to create a safe, free place for learning and exploration, a library. There's also loops that enclose different halves of the work, such as the lyrical wreck that begins and ends the first half of the album, or the I Had a Dream that begins the second half of BTI and opens the Stone Mountain mixtape follow-up. There's also the odd transitory loading or flashing noise that occurs throughout BTI. The specific source of the sound is uncertain, although it does sound pretty similar to a camera

flash charge. This specific noise occurs three times on the album, drawing our attention to their placement and demanding that we explore possible meanings. We first hear the sound at the end of crawl or just before World Star. Recall that World Star highlights the influence of cameras and flash on contemporary existence. Gambino wraps, let me flash on him, we're all Big Brother now, as he investigates the spread of viral video online. But perhaps more importantly, World Star contains the first death of BTI. It's here that Jay dies in front of the boy on the street, which sets the boy's existential crisis into motion.

The next time we hear this flash sound is at the end of death by numbers, or just before flight of the navigator. It's here that the boy has his own brush with death, and as he wakes up, he's informed that his father died, the second death of the script. The final occurrence of the flash is at the end of Urn, where Glover lamented the loss of the boy's father and looked toward the future. The flash then precedes the final death of BTI, the boy himself. And so the flashes seem to trisect the album, each portion containing a central death. But to be honest, even after spending so much time analyzing BTI, this flash sound is still very much a mystery. We're not even sure if it's a flash sound, but this speaks to the ongoing exploratory nature of the world. Like Rosco's Wetsuit, the yogurt shop, or the mysterious alien thread that runs throughout the music videos,

the flash sound is a mystery box, something we're meant to think and talk about in search of meaning and connection. This encouraged, ongoing, active exploration of BTI and Glover's world building speaks to a central concept Glover talked about often in interviews at the time. As Glover saw it, we are becoming God, capable of creating worlds for ourselves. This concept was something Glover spoke about when thinking about the future. and the idea even became the basis for the second half of BTI Secret Track. As a species, we are becoming more and more powerful, capable of creating more and more. This era of human history will undoubtedly be remembered as one of rapid technological development, and this big bang of new technology and the internet has birthed a new universal language,

code. As Glover explained, quote, coding is a beautiful thing. If there is a god, he definitely codes. There are fail safes in the world. That's code. I want kids to be coders. They can make their own worlds then. They don't need anybody else. I love hearing those kids' ideas, all these kids on the internet.

The excitement of making something. That's the spark of God, unquote. No, I mean, coding is everything. Coding, like, with 3D printing and, you know, apps. Like, everything is coding. That's the thing. It's like everything that we're going to be, any big jumps and human,

will probably come from coding from now on. It's not going to come from, you know, a new metal, you know, unless that new metal, like, helps with the hard drive of this computer. Like, that's everything now. So, like, learning how to program and code is the heart of the new world we have. So we should be learning that, like, our kids should be, like, understand, like, oh, yeah, this is something I'm comfortable with instead of being, like, relying on people, you know. And of course, as we know, at the forefront of this issue of coding our future, at the very

heart of the world we've explored this season, is the internet. The title, because the internet, combined with all the dangers of the web, may make us think that Glover was blaming the internet or indigning us all for using it, but that isn't the case. Of the internet? Yeah. It's my favorite place. Yeah. I love it.

Yeah. It makes sense. You know, I love the internet. I think I'm afraid people would have. ever think that this album is an indictment in any way of the internet. I love the internet. Like, you know, I think it's a living, breathing thing, though. Like, we have to, we have to understand that.

The internet is a living, breathing thing, our creation, the world we coded. And as it turns out, because the internet isn't an indictment of this world, it's the answer to its fundamental questions. There's a lot of cool things with that title. Like, that title, I wasn't sure about it at the beginning, but then it became just kind of like everything. The internet's just, that's how people connect now. Like, that is.

And like, it's kind of the reason I'm here right now. I mean, this will be seen on the internet. And I just, I want to get into that. Like, it's like people talk about the internet and stuff like that. But it's not really like, the album isn't about the internet, it's about connection. Glover here states that the title became

everything, and that the album isn't about the internet, it's about connection. That's because the internet for Glover is a reflection of the connections between us all, the connections that have always existed. Breaking the word down, we see this at its foundation. Inter is amongst or between, and net is an entrapping device. We even see the permutations of the phrase in the Buddhist concept of Indra's net, a metaphor for the interconnectedness of everything in the universe, the lack of intrinsic meaning and the interdependence of all things. And thus, because the internet becomes a foundational mantra, an answer to those fundamental questions we've asked again and again throughout the season.

I don't know who I am anymore. Hello? Who are you? The answer to who am I, to who we are, is because the internet, because of the connections between us. Our identity is a product of perception, context, interpretation, and content. There is no single label that defines any individual, and any potential labels are perceived differently by various perspectives, meaning that labels themselves don't even hold a singular definition. Our intentions are only parts of the dynamic equation that make up our identities, who we are. So there's no real answer to who am I other than, you are made up of everything around you.

You are a product of connections. you are the boundlessly dynamic web of the universal internet. As Glover said, quote, I feel like a lot of people are getting caught up in the narrative of who they are, and I'm like, man, you're not anybody. Stop. Why do people online get stuck in that narrative? Because it's safe. And you know what you're going to get if you follow in the step somebody else took.

There is security in being identified. I'm a straight white male, or I'm a gay Asian dancer. You can find community easily and safely. instead of being like, man, I really don't know. Most of my college years were me being like, I don't know what I like. I had friends who asked, are you gay? And I'd be like, I sort of feel like I am because I love this community, you know?

But maybe I'm not. And I was always trying to figure out. Am I weird for not wanting to label it? Yet also, I never felt completely safe in just one place, unquote. Exploring identity like this in such a free and honest way requires vulnerability. Throughout BTI and in interviews, we've seen Glover deal with insecurity, sexual failure, suicide, and more. He was honest and gave us as much as he could so that we could connect as much as possible. Understandably, he was scared, as he made clear in his Instagram notes, a powerfully vulnerable expression,

quote, I'm afraid people hate who I really am. I'm afraid I hate who I really am. We've addressed the public response to these notes, but one interviewer in particular asked Glover about them and about how to cope with the fear of being real and vulnerable. But I'd be terrified of doing that because I don't know if I want everybody to... I don't know if I want to deal with that forever. I can put that out there. I realized, like, that was already out there.

Like, I realized, like... I mean, I guess I could hold it, but, like, that's not how I live my life. Like, everything I do is on there already. Like, people have seen me change. Like, people have seen, like... And that's the things, like, everyone does that. Like, no one comes out of the womb,

And it's just like, this is what I am forever. Like, everyone changed. You get more experiences. Like, I had never left the country. Like, I just, so I was like, you know, I'm okay with people knowing that much about me. Like, and I think it also helps people. Like, you know, I have, I had kids come up to me, be like, you know, I read those. And like, it made me, like, moved to New York or like, I read those.

And like, I came out to my parents. Like, I read those. And, like, that's cool to me. Like, if it gives somebody else, like, the feeling of, like, oh, like, we're all kind of lost here. And it's okay, like then I'm cool with that. As Glover recognizes in his public life, people have seen him change, and he views this as a representation of what we all go through, of all the ways we are all constantly changing and growing.

Our identity is one of togetherness, but we seem to have separated. And this separation is precisely what Glover wanted to address. Again, to quote Glover, I want to talk about us. I want us to solve ourselves. I want us to save ourselves. no one's better or worse than anyone and anyone who thinks that we don't need each other

to get through this is being short-sighted because we are them unquote. The internet offers us more connection than we've ever had access to, but we may not be using it right. To promote progress, we have to recognize what the internet illuminates that who we are is a product of connections

and that's why we're here. More is not the point. The point is to be here and to be responsible for each other and, you know, love each other. I think that's a really, just really, it's an absolute of like there's always going to be change and there's always going to be each other. So why are we not helping each other? So I think that's, you know, very special.

This understanding is liberating. We come to understand that we can be anything that we're inherently free and that everyone else can be as well. In turn, this means that we need to free each other, that our purpose, the path forward, the answer to the existential dilemma is also because the internet. The existential crisis repeats throughout BTI as we search for meaning and purpose. The boy's spiral was incited by his near miss with death on World Star, and when he confessed that he doesn't do anything worthwhile to fam, the boy shouted, but none of it matters because we're doing it

for ourselves. We're just jerking off for each other. No one in the future is going to give a shit. The key point here is that doing things for only yourself doesn't matter. We have to help each other. It's uncomfortable, but also people don't want to believe that like our purpose isn't for us. People don't want to believe that like our purpose is like, like, you have kids and stuff like that for like 2005. It's like, I'll never see 3,000. I'll never get there. We'll never get there. I don't know if my lineage will even get there.

But that's what I'm working towards. That's what I'm pulling the best with the album and story and doing. That's what it's about. It's about building on something that you'll never see. The internet, our connections to each other, provide our purpose. Our connections are both who we are and why we're here. They are the answer to the album's central questions of who am I and why try. The internet is simply the newest advancement in our continued growing connections,

our attempts to move closer and closer to each other, like all the water droplets looking for the sea. As Glover explained, quote, This is how we connect. I love the internet. We're the first ones to have to deal with this kind of stuff, unquote. He would detail further than need to address our time and situation, saying, This is how it is.

We have to be okay with it. Let's fix those things if there's something wrong, but this is the way the future is. I think a lot of people are afraid of that. In the music industry, in every industry, we should all sit down as a planet and be like, okay, these are the rules now, because of the internet. I don't know what's going to happen, but we're together.

That's the thing we can count on. That's all I want. I want to move forward together, unquote. Because the internet is Glover's attempt to address the digital revolution and its consequences head on, to acknowledge this rapid evolution of human interactivity that's happening right before our eyes. And what he wants most, it seems,

is to preserve our connections, to protect each other while facing the obstacles of the future. I don't know, like, when I was little, there was a big dog down the street, and I was really scared of it. But, like, when I was with my sister, when I knew I had to protect her, like, I wasn't afraid of the dog as much

because I was just like, I was, somebody was there. Like, I had a purpose. I feel like my parents had that, or their parents had that. Like, I knew what they were supposed to be doing. I kind of feel lost. By protecting one another and making the world safe for all of us,

we allow ourselves to enjoy life as much as possible, or at least lessen the suffering as much as we can. This is our purpose, our responsibility to each other. We've seen this idea alluded to throughout the BTI script, specifically in the repeated phrase that comes up four times. There are people saying things, giving opinions, feeling interesting. Everyone has a purpose today. It's a great time. We read this feeling of purpose as a description of the Coachella closet, the party, the streets of Stockholm,

and finally when the boy and Naomi are experiencing their love. The purpose stems from the freedom to connect, to have conversations, to share and feel with each other. The world of BTI is a space for this process, a platform of conversation and exploration of meaning as a reflection of the process of life, one that repeats and requires us to help each other understand. Again, quoting Glover, I only want to do things where there's a connection to other people. I feel really lost and weird about a lot of things in culture because I feel like everybody's just kind of like,

you should know this, but we're all in the same position. There are so many unknowns. Stop fighting. No one's in a better position. I always want to do something that's going to connect. Otherwise, it's like, why be alive? You're here now.

You have to help me. And so understanding ourselves and our responsibility to each other, what do we do? How do we use this knowledge and addressing our problems and moving forward together? We learn to code. It's a recurring theme that I feel like is in everything in life where you just like, life is just like learning about how to let go about stuff. Because like you really can't enjoy things what they are while you're in it. Like as soon as you're in high school, once you're like, oh, I get high school, you're out of high school.

And like once you're like in your 20s, you're like, oh, I get it, I know I'm you're done. It's all about the experience. As Glover points out here, life is about moving on, about using knowledge gained from experience to evolve as a person, to evolve as a people.

This looping, the patterns we keep seeing, seem to reflect the common coding structure of loops. In programming, a loop is a code that repeats until a specific condition is reached, as if asking questions over and over again until answers come and then moving on. coding then becomes a useful metaphor about how we create the world in our future we experience we learn we share our knowledge and we move on it calls to mind the advice the boy's mother gave him on the deep web tour quote we have to fight for what we want to keep that's what death is we have to choose what's going forward what's worth saving i choose you unquote we choose each other we prioritize each other we converse we connect and we learn from each other.

This is the code. It's how we grow up. And this gets at what we've been doing all season. The art is a conversation. While Glover may try to convey something specific that might translate to us clearly, the messages in art are in part created by each of us. Dissecting is just the start of the process.

We break things down, examine the parts, explore perceptions and ideas, and hopefully insight thought. We then have to reconstruct, to create something from our learning of tearing it all down, a continuous loop of code. It's what we do with learning to create better, more free worlds. It's the start of a new conversation, a more refined code. Now, perhaps more than ever, the foundation and intricacies of BTI's world

reflects our needs, our struggles, and our path forward. The digital revolution finds us at a clear crossroads in history. We have enough data to perceive the dangers and threats of the future clearly. climate change, racism, artificial intelligence, by expanding the power of humanity, but relying on primitive social structures, we may have doomed ourselves, losing our code along the way to our boundless eternity.

While we're completely united by the connections between all of us, we've strangely come to a point where we also feel more alone than ever before, where it's often difficult to connect amongst our struggles. I think people always like, my issues are these, and my issues are these, and if you can do that, this can do that. But I'm like, that's not how everything works. Like, my struggle is different from that struggle, and that struggle is valid, just like my struggle is valid,

but they are different in the way they work are different. And I don't think people are willing, not willing, I don't think people are able to talk about that because most of it happens on the internet. Today, this tension between being alone and together is exacerbated by the web and is reaching a pinnacle of stress. Our pervasive connectedness saw the spread of a novel coronavirus across the globe, and our reactive measures of isolation were condoned by technology permitting a different sense of contact and communication.

Nationally, greater time online facilitated a history spread of information that shed light on injustice built into our society. This in turn saw people come together in movements pursuing equality for all and a desire to learn and progress towards a more truly egalitarian nation. Between health and justice, it appears the universe is trying to tell us that in order to survive, we must work to provide for the survival of all of us. Our interdependence, our internet, demands that we treat each other well. And as evidenced by Glover's cry for help at the end of BTI, Glover has faith in us and our ability to solve ourselves. The world of Because the Internet has given us space to experience our togetherness

and our need to help each other. and we recall one last time Glovert's Instagram notes expressing this hope. Quote, I got really lost last year, but I can't be lonely though, because we're all here, we're all stuck here. I want to make something that says,

no matter how bad you fuck up or the mistakes you've made during the year, your life, your eternity. You're always allowed to be better. You're always allowed to grow up, if you want, unquote. This growth is a gift. It's our saving grace.

And be honest, like, I feel like, I think the one thing I'm thankful for is that, like, I can still, like, change stuff. Like, it's how you still do things differently. Like, I met that when I wrote that on Instagram. I was like, and you can always be better. Like, I seriously met that. So I guess I'm very thankful that, like, you know, things aren't always over until they're over. On his final deep web blog, essentially the final transmission from the BTI world,

Glover finished his writing using the same syntax and style of the script as when the boy faded out of consciousness at the end of no exit, worrying about the brown recluse spiders, worrying about us, the Densians of the web. He wrote, quote, The thing that will set us apart is our human reasoning and empathy for each other. And remember, this is just a moment. Everything is a moment.

You can't save it. Can you save us? You have to remember us. The season of Dissect has been a moment, a reminder of our connectedness and our responsibility to build a world for all of us. You have to remember this. Because the internet, we're here now. Because the internet is our purpose here.

Because the internet is just an extension of what we've always been, since our primitive grunts and cave paintings, a web of connections, interdependent individuals whose actions affect the whole. And if that's the case, if we're all stuck here, together, we'll need to act with those connections between us as our purpose. We'll need to help each other if we ever want to move forward, if we ever want to grow up. Will you help us?

Hey Cole, this is I here from Los Angeles, California. My biggest takeaway from Because the Internet is that life has as much meaning as you're willing to put into it As somebody who frequently has ups and downs with mental health and my outlook on life, whether positive or negative, this album is something that I frequently come back to to remind myself that what I put into my work is what I will get out of it. As for my biggest fear, it is definitely losing someone close to me, whether that's due to life taking us down different paths or differences of opinion. And sometimes it's terrifying because you don't even notice it happen until one day you look

up and the people close to you are no longer there and you're surrounded with a different circle. Hi, my name is Maria and I'm from Boston. My biggest takeaway from BTI is how precious our connections to others are. A few years ago, my sister had a near-death experience. Both she and I are big Gambino fans. She told me that the first time she heard flight of the navigator after her accident she just broke down. She said that song described exactly how she felt when she realized what happened to her. All she could think about were her connections to family and friends and how it could have all been lost in a moment. From that moment on, that song has been so special to me, and your dissection of the song makes it that much more special. My fear is that the internet has calloused us emotionally.

Hi, Dissect. This is Jake from Philadelphia. Just prior to because the internet's release, I was the loneliest I had ever been. I had just entered high school, and both my parents were in and out of rehab. I had also seen a childhood friend die. I was younger and perhaps didn't understand why, but because the internet helped me feel a lot better. Throughout this season, I've been able to figure out why. Thank you, Cole, and everyone at Dissect. My biggest fear is that I'm not doing enough for the people that need me. Hi, I'm Larry. I'm from Montana, and my biggest takeaway from because the internet is how it shows. The internet is a great tool that can be used for really great things, but it can also be used for bad things and harm, and how you can be no kind of use. You

uses this existential nihilistic philosophy and applies it to the digital aids to show that we need to use this great tool that is the internet to inspire change and work towards progress so further generations can have better lives. And I'd say my biggest fear is dying, knowing that I haven't really accomplished much. Christy from Vancouver, Canada, I really resonated with the existential thoughts emphasized in BTI, in an awakening kind of way, where I would ask myself questions like, how can I cultivate more meaningful and honest relationships that exist online and offline? And one thing that I fear is the advancement of new technology where you could actually live forever, in artificial intelligence, and that really spooks me. My name is Kachit. I'm from Hampton, Virginia, and this album makes me think about how increasingly digital our world's become, especially now during this pandemic and just how we're having to

quickly adapt to make genuine human connections online for the foreseeable future. And it just makes me wonder how we're going to all stay human, during this, you know, like how to stay human when you're surrounded by data and numbers and programs and algorithms. And I'm just afraid to lose myself to that. Hi, I'm Amber from Providence, Rhode Island. I discovered because the internet at a pivotal point in my life, my mid-20s. I had lots of friends, especially due to how easy technology made it to communicate. But even with all of this, I felt more alone than ever. Because the internet with its theme of existentialism, help me feel more interconnected with people on a deeper level.

I feel less alone in my own journey because we are in fact all on the same journey. We're all struggling together. Something that I fear is being left behind. Hi, my name is Claude and I'm from South Florida. My biggest takeaway from this album is summed up in the 2005 line. Just hold my hand even if you don't understand. I say this because for a while my biggest fear has been the idea of forever. And after all these years of overthinking and existential crisis, I figured out that the answer or the solution to this problem is other people, you know, being with somebody who can comfort you or who you love can really take away that fear of eternity. Hi, everyone. My name is John from Montabello, California. Because the internet is more than just

an album to me, it helped me realize that I'm kind of in an own little loop myself. Nothing major like the boy in the story, but not too far off from it either. and has inspired me to seek help. I cut off certain people in my life, and I'm trying my best to stop bad habits, because as we all learn from this season, we can't spend our lives on a bus. Thank you to everyone on the Dysect team,

and thank you to Donald Glover for creating such a beautiful art. You saved me. I fear for humanity, especially in our current state. Hi, I'm Andrew from Atlanta, Georgia. Because the internet in this season of Dysect have helped me reevaluate and cherish the bonds I have with my friends and family and made all this isolation and quarantining feel a little bit less lonely.

My fear is that I'm terrified of the concept of infinity of eternal afterlife to the point that I'm more afraid of the traditional afterlife than actually dying and getting there. Hey, Cole, this is Colton from Birmingham, Alabama. My biggest takeaway from Because the Internet is that time is the most precious resource that we have, and so how we choose to use it is invaluable, which brings me to my fear that I'm afraid of coming to the end of my life and realizing I've forgotten doing what I truly like doing

and need to do for future generations that can help all kinds of people and instead I just spent all of my time doing things for myself and not helping anyone but me. Hi, I'm Flynn from Australia. I think the greatest message to come out of because the internet is simply Rosco's wetsuit. The act of searching for the meaning of something is inherently itself, the meaning being sought after. Getting yourself off that bus and driving towards Rosco's Wetsuit means everything.

You might see some people who've already found their own Rosco's wetsuit, but there's one for all of us. I'm Flynn from Australia, and I'm scared of cockroaches. Hi, my name is Stephen, and I feel like the biggest takeaway I've gotten from BTI is understanding how much the internet has evolved us as a culture. We now fear being wrong, and we want to edit everything, Like it's a tweet or a status, but the world's not like that. And it's okay to be wrong.

It's okay to feel alone. It's okay to not always be perfect. Hey, Dysect, it's Bavik. I'm from London, UK. My biggest takeaway from Because of the Internet is that Internet is a relatively new invention, and we're navigating the consequences of it together. The Internet, which was supposed to integrate the world, has separated it. People are scared to feel vulnerable to reveal their authentic self.

but it's in this vulnerability that human beings connect and build relationships on. With this one invention, we have removed Dunbar's number of 150, creating the opportunity to connect with 7 billion people. We need to develop our mindset to harness the true power of the internet. My biggest fear is that I will never add value to the human progress. Hey, I'm Chisholm from Baltimore. My biggest takeaway from BTI is the theme of connection and how the entire project is pretty much open to interpretation.

Like, I love this project for us creativity and melodies way before I got into the podcast, but the show really confirmed some of my own thoughts about fear and made me think more about myself and my relationship with other people and, like, other people's relationships with other people, and the fact that we are just as unique and diverse as we are connected because of the internet. One thing I fear is to lose my freedom. My name is Tyne and I'm from Holland. This season of this sector has led me to having a lot of deeper conversations. conversations about life with friends of mine. If I think about the fears that come along with

human connection and love, I guess the biggest shared fear is that of lack of love and loneliness, seeing friends turn into strangers. People put up walls to prevent that, but those walls are exactly what causes those fears to be legitimate. If we're going to be alone, we might as well be alone together. This season has been amazing for both my understanding of Beano's art, as well as my personal understanding of how to grapple with the existential dilemma and the human condition. So thanks to Cole and everyone behind Dysect. Hello Dysect. This is and I'm from London. My biggest takeaway from because the internet is that staying connected really is important. I've accepted the fact that we're all going to die and I really don't want to leave this up alone.

I want to live my life with someone. And, well, one of my biggest fears, which I haven't taught anyone, is I'm scared of losing my mum. I've lost my dad when I was seven and I'm only 16 and I started my whole life ahead of me. And I don't want to live about my mom. but this album has really helped me realize how important life is and how important it is to be with someone. Hi, my name is Lorenzo Mars and I'm from Tucson, Arizona. My biggest takeaway from BTI was how Gambino shows that the only reciprocated love is self-love.

We see this in how all of the boys' relationships fall apart in front of him, with his dad, his friends, and even Naomi. I think Glover is trying to tell us that the connections we make here are the most important part of life, but we can never make those connections if we give up on our end. Because of that, my biggest fear is letting others down. Cameron Nunley from Dallas, Texas,

I don't think there has been any artist in hip-hop that has constructed a world like BTI. In BTI, we live vicariously through his eyes. He built a multimedia experience to a piece of his life just so he can make sure people can relate, interact, and understand in any myriad of ways. And once listened to alongside the screenplay, it truly fits every song and vibe perfectly.

earned in its somberness, pink toes in its love drunkenness, earth in its hyped up climax finale, nothing done without intention, a true artist. My biggest fear is death because I've never done it and the unknown scares me. See you next time on Dissect. Hi, I'm Cree from Moorsville, North Carolina. My biggest takeaway is that we all want to mean something.

We want our lives to mean something, and we think the way to make that happen is to get famous or get rich, but that's not what happiness is. At the end of the day, you die alone, and all that matters is the people around you. So let's live a life that we like while we can. I'm scared of waking up one day and realizing I got the money and fame that I wanted, but not the meaningful relationships I needed,

because success doesn't equal happiness, and I just want to be happy. My name is Eli, and I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. This year has been very isolating for me personally, and I felt at odds in my relationship to the internet and social media in relation to that. My biggest takeaway from the album after diving in again is the sense of hope embedded within the urgency of Bino's narrative around the possibility of the internet as a tool to connect us rather than divide us if we're willing to put in the work. Thanks so much to Cole for doing the album.

I tweeted at you about it a lot in season seven was incredible. My biggest fear is looking back on my life and realizing that I've settled. My name is Miguel, and I'm coming at you from St. Paul, Minnesota. I just moved here for grad school, and it's all been online, and being in a new city during COVID has just made me feel more alone than I ever have. But Gambino's courage to talk about this taboo topic, and Cole's amazing ability to analyze this art helped me realize that we're all on this journey together. Despite this, I fear that people are going to remain scared, scared to break the cycle,

and scared to make these authentic connections. But regardless, we got to have hope. That's all we got. Hope and dissect. Hey, this is Matthew from Prince of Georgia County, Maryland. Cole and Company, thank you for making me love. A album I already loved that much more. What I fear most is becoming bitter and unfulfilled.

I like it when Donald talks about truth and honesty being power, but withholding that power you must remember, honesty without tact is cruelty in the end. Thank you guys and be easy. Hey Cole, this is Nick from Chicago, and I would not be here today if it were not for because of the internet and Donald Glover. I discovered a parallel between the boy feeling lost and alone throughout the album, as well as the clapping with the wrong reason short film, with what I was experiencing

post-suicide attempt. Watching and listening to these stories, I found motivation to create my own worlds through screenwriting. And so my fear is that I will die before I am able to create a piece of visual art for the kids sitting in his dorm room at 3 a.m. to connect with and find inspiration in. That I won't get to be to someone what Donald Glover was to me. My name is John and I'm from Houston, Texas. I was lucky enough to find BTI in early 2014. It was a season of my life that was very dark and this album had helped shape me into who I am.

Because the Internet has taught me that I'm out of the walk of life, the childhood, or the culture, we all experience the same struggles and triumphs, even if they live. look a little bit different from one person to the next. We all share the same experience of existing. Following Donald continues to show me that all we are at the end of the day is data. We're only the memories that we've made, and my biggest fear is growing old and losing clarity on everything that's taken place in my life. Hey, Colin Cam, I'm Rohan from Pennsylvania. Thanks for connecting us. I believe a good author explores reality or fiction, whereas a great inventive author completely blurs the line between the two. I applaud Donald Glover, our modern-day Renaissance

who fluidly and vulnerably places himself in and out of his narrative, giving us the free will to use the boy as a mirror to our tether relationship to the internet. Lastly, I fear being forgotten, failure, a life that's lived without a meaningful legacy. I pray my life's work will fend this off till the very end. Hey, Cole, my name is Diego and I'm from Madalajara, Mexico. My biggest takeaway from season seven is the lesson behind the story about the boy in the bus, about committing to honesty, expression, and connection. I liked how well you put it into words, when you said in the flight of the Navigator episode, that who we are, our identity,

only exist in relation to each other, and therefore we are only the experience of the connections between us. I will get off the bus to assume control of my life, and quote, make it all for everyone, always. This has inspired me to live a life with purpose, or at least living in the pursuit of finding one. One thing that I fear is never living up to my own expectations.

Thank you, Cole for your work. I love how dissect encourages me to dive deeper into different expressions of art. Hi, I'm Angel, I'm from Texas, and my biggest takeaway from BTI and Donald Glover's work in general is that you don't have to constrict yourself to a single art form in order to appeal to people. The art you make can absolutely feed into the other things you make. It just makes you a lot more versatile. That drive and ambition has made Donald one of my biggest inspirations. He managed to create something that spoke to the loneliness we feel, this very unique, very recent batch of feelings that the internet is placed in our lives.

and it still managed to be timeless. My biggest fear, like a lot of people, is dying alone. And the sentiment of the album and the screenplay really got to me deep because of that. Thank you. This season was fantastic. Hi, my name is Roberto, and I'm from Worcester, Massachusetts. My biggest takeaway from because the internet is the consistent theme of stunting and the truth is power. We use the internet to stunt and make it look like everything's okay and our lives are very lavish,

but we should be using it as a tool to let people know that, hey, maybe things aren't okay and people do feel sad. My personal fear that I'm sure everyone can relate with is the unknown of what happens after we die and ultimately dying alone. All right, everyone, I hope you enjoyed those as much as I did. Thank you to everyone who submitted their thoughts on the album and expressed a fear. Our hope was that you were able to connect with them. We have a bunch more submissions that we'll be putting into a special bonus episode that will release a few days after this one. Also in that episode, I'll be having a conversation with Season 7 co-writer Camden Ostrander.

Cam wrote the majority of the season, and in my opinion, he's the world's leading scholar on the work of Donald Glover. I can't thank Camden enough for the amazing job he did this season. Be sure to tune in to our conversation, where we'll be getting to know more about Cam, answering some listeners submitted questions and addressing a few loose ends that we couldn't fit into this season, including that mysterious alien thread that runs throughout the BTI music videos. If you haven't already, head to our website dissectpodcast.com and view the visual guides that we created for each episode this season. You'll find bonus analysis, links to other parts

of the BTI world, and all kinds of fun stuff. We also recreated the entire BTI script, including the original embedded HD video clips. Pretty sure it's the only place on the web that has those. If you want to stay connected over the break between seasons, be sure to follow a at Dissect podcast on social media. And if you enjoyed this season, tell a friend about the show or spread the word online. It really helps out. Thanks again for listening, and be sure to tune in next season when we'll unpack another musical masterwork note by note line by line, because great art deserves more than a swipe.