Poets Watching TV: More Lessons in Creativity from Bo Burnham's Inside Outtakes

One man's trash is another man's trash. But it reminds you what the treasure really looks like.

Bo Burnham/YouTube

Is this fuckin’ doin’ anything?

…is this fuckin’ stupid, or…?

—BO BURNHAM, Inside (The Outtakes)

Do you hang onto your garbage?

And by that I mean, do you keep the creative debris that ultimately doesn’t work for you? Why or why not?

You may not be as famous as comedian Bo Burnham, so people may not ultimately be as interested in your creative cast-offs—abandoned paintings, poems that just never clicked, a song that never found its chorus—but you should be very interested in them. Here’s why.