Robert Pickering (Bo) Burnham is a 32-year-old American comedian, musician, actor, writer, and director. He is often referred to as an “accidental star” for the fact that his originally social media-based comedy (he began his comedy career by posting funny songs on Myspace and YouTube) blew up unexpectedly. In a phenomenon that has come to be called “going viral,” Burnham’s comedy routines became incredibly popular, making him one of the first true YouTube stars. His YouTube channel, youtube.com/boburnham, is a very popular channel with about 3.5 million subscribers, an incredibly impressive number considering he only has 35 videos uploaded to that channel. He has been on YouTube since 2006, so his video count is relatively low for the length of his presence on YT.
Bo Burnham Net Worth 2023
How much is Bo Burnham worth? Bo Burnham is an American comedian, musician, and actor-writer-director. Bo Burnham Net Worth as of March 2023 is $4 million. Most of Bo Burnham earnings have come from his streaming royalties, YouTube monetization, live performances from 2012 to 2016, his salary from the Netflix film Inside and his direction of Netflix’s lavish Chris Rock comedy specials. YouTubers.me estimates that he has made between $277,000 and $1.66 million from his YouTube channel, roughly 1/3 of his overall net worth at the high end.
Financial, Salary, and Contract History
Bo Burnham’s estimated salary is $500,000 a year, based on his YouTube monetization. This is an incomplete figure since it doesn’t include things like his salary from the $3.9 million Bo Burnham: Inside special or his director’s salary from Netflix’s lavish $29.6 million Chris Rock special. Overall, the Bo Burnham salary figure is only an estimate, but $500k per year seems to be the most common estimate. His YouTube monetization figures to be approximately $200,000 per year based on his 90-day performance of $52,600 per YouTuber.me, representing about 40% of his overall annual salary. The remainder of his earnings likely originate from a combination of sponsorships, real estate income, and residuals from past comedy material including his tours in the early 2010s and
Real Estate Holdings
Burnham briefly owned the house in which the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street was filmed in 1984. This house was later sold for $3.25 million. Burnham’s real estate holdings as of March 2023 are unknown and thus impossible to value. The sale price of the A Nightmare on Elm Street house was likely to split between Burnham and his girlfriend, filmmaker Lorene Scarafia.
Endorsement Earnings
Apart from YouTuber sponsorship spots, his biggest recent endorsement has been his $3.9 million Netflix deal for his film Inside, about his anxiety disorder and the related diagnosis and mental health treatment he received. Inside was one of the most popular filmed works of Burnham’s career, and along with Burnham’s 2018 movie Eighth Grade, forms the most comprehensive picture of his worldview. The themes of these movies are disruption and isolation from social engagement, in Eighth Grade because of personal anxiety and Inside from the uncertainty and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020 and has continued since then. Both films resonated strongly with their audiences. Eighth Grade was the most lucrative independent film of its year of release.
Movies
In 2018, Burnham made his film debut as a director-writer with the independent film Eighth Grade, covering fictional socially struggling eighth-grader Kayla Day, played by Elsie Fisher, who was herself in eighth grade at the time the film was released, trying to break out of her social rut. The movie was very well received, earning $14.3 million in its first year of release. Critics and audiences praised it for its truthful take on the transition from middle school to high school and Burnham and Fisher’s take on its vulnerable heroine.
Burnham’s second film, Inside, was about his day-to-day life indoors during the COVID-19 pandemic and reveals many things about him. It is a true product of the artist, having been filmed completely alone as he was isolated due to the pandemic. It was later revealed that the house it was filmed in, which he owned at the time, was the house in which the famous slasher movie A Nightmare on Elm Street was filmed.
Inside was considered a good financial risk by Netflix, given an internal “efficiency value” of 2.8, against a baseline break-even score of 1. Netflix later fired the spokesperson who provided the statistics, stating that they had released confidential and commercially sensitive information.
Bo Burnham’s film earnings:
Eighth Grade: $14.3 million
Inside: Estimated $12 million based on Netflix efficiency value
Investments
Bo Burnham’s investment portfolio is largely private so his investment income cannot be directly measured. However, knowing his salary is more than twice his YouTube earnings, Bo Burnham likely makes at least $100,000 per year in investment earnings.
Themes
Branding
Bo Burnham’s presence on the Internet is a testament to good branding. Despite a relatively small canon of YouTube videos, Burnham’s YouTube revenue of over $200,000 per year is a very strong performance. Many channels release daily or weekly videos to equal Burnham’s performance. Performing that well over time requires a strong understanding of your strengths and how to play to them, an essential branding skill.
Resonance
For Burnham’s comedy career to maintain from 2006 to 2023 with only 35 videos on his YouTube channel, which was the way that he was discovered by the world, requires his material to resonate timelessly with his audience. Most YouTubers with comparable presence and penetration release as many videos in a month as Burnham has in his channel’s entire existence.
Responsibility
Unlike some of his peers, Bo Burnham openly owns the fact that some of his early material is not socially appropriate in the modern environment. Rather than complaining about his past material not being as resonant with current audiences as in the past, he owns the fact that his material in childhood and young adulthood looks much less palatable to a current audience. Burnham has remained responsible and flexible in his approach to his comedy, rather than trying to hide from it or insist that the changing tastes of his audience are to blame.
Flexibility
Toward the end of his 2015-16 Make Happy comedy tour, Burnham found himself enduring panic attacks before and sometimes during performances. Rather than push through the mental health issues he was enduring, he changed tracks in performance, moving from live comedy to voice acting, writing, and directing.
Conclusion
Bo Burnham has made a name for himself as one of the most influential comics of the social media era. By being open about his mental health struggles and willingness to re-evaluate himself, he remains even more relevant in the COVID-19 pandemic era than he was when he was touring during the early to mid-2010s. Burnham’s career and personal trajectory remain firmly aimed upward as he moves into his mid-30s.
Sources:
https://thesuccessbug.com/bo-burnham-net-worth/https://inspirationfeed.com/bo-burnham-net-worth/https://www.lolwot.com/bo-burnham-net-worth/https://fortune.com/ranking/40-under-40/2021/bo-burnham/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_BurnhamImages:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Bo_Burnham_Montaclair_Film_Festival_%28cropped%29.jpghttps://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/06/03/gettyimages-1201904581-ec578f89dfafe56f6440223af4034dedf638095f-s1200.webphttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RYlhJMz_p6fnHNgLPrealWWqwDQ=/1400×1050/filters:format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11894643/996909424.jpg.jpghttps://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/GettyImages-1341347099.jpg?w=1296https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjA0YzdkZGUtZTcwZC00NWJmLThiMmUtOWRkOGJkOWU1OWZhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTI5NjIyMw@@._V1_.jpg
