I spoke to Burnham about what makes middle school a unique phase of life, and all the varied social arenas kids have to navigate while trying to figure out who they are. An edited and condensed transcript of our conversation is below.

Julie Beck: I feel like it’s really rare to see a coming-of-age story set in middle school. It’s much more often high school or even college. What was compelling to you about this age in particular? Why go for middle school?

Bo Burnham: I think eighth grade is a time where your self-awareness is just flicked on like a light. All of a sudden you look at yourself and you’re like, “Oh my God, have I been this the whole time?” And then you’re trying to build a parachute as you’re falling.

There’s a transparency to the way the kids socialize at that age that I think is very beautiful. Who you are, who you’re trying to be, and how you’re trying to be it are all very clean and clear and visible. You’re not really fooling anybody.

Beck: Whereas later in your teenhood you think there’s more obfuscation?

Burnham: Yeah. We just start to smooth it over and it starts to look like one piece. By the time we’re adults, we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re just one person, and I don’t think it’s true. I think they’re living a more honest, true version of what we all are.

Beck: Which is what?

Burnham: We’re lying, we’re performing, we’re desperate for attention and love, and trying to negotiate the world. With kids, it feels like a grandfather clock. You can see into it, you can see the mechanisms of it.

I wanted to make a movie about people expressing themselves on the internet. When 30-year-olds post on the internet, we just hate them because it’s like, “Ugh, why are you doing this?” But when a 13-year-old does it, you’re like, “Aw, you’re just trying to be cool.” But we’re all just trying to be cool, so maybe we can understand where it’s coming from.

Beck: How much did you talk to current teens, and to women and girls in particular, about what that age is or was like for them?

Burnham: The good thing is, if you want to learn about kids this age now, they’re posting everything about themselves online. So I was watching hundreds of videos of girls talking about their life and their experience. It’s almost better than me being able to talk to them because it’s not on my turf, it’s on their YouTube channel, with 20 subscribers. I was able to observe and take that in without it being in the format of: Okay, you’re talking to an adult about your experience.

Beck: It’s sort of like the scientific principle where if you’re observing the thing, then you’re changing it.

Burnham: It is exactly that. That observing does change it. Of course they think they’re being observed by all their subscribers. But that change felt true and honest. That felt almost more honest than if they weren’t being watched.