Social media can save lives, and it can ruin them.​ Comedian Bo Burnham and screenwriter Jonny Sun have seen that for themselves. On Friday, September 27th, the MIT Communications Forum and MindHandHeart are bringing both artists to campus for a free moderated panel about social media followed by a screening of Burnham's film Eighth Grade. Join us!

Friday, September 27, 2019
6:00–8:00 pm
Room 26–100, MIT
Seating for this event is first come, first served. A free screening of Eighth Grade begins at 8:15pm

Launching his career in 2006 after comedy videos he filmed in his childhood bedroom went viral on YouTube, Bo Burnham became a nationally headlining comic and writer while growing up in the social media spotlight. Jonny Sun, a screen and TV writer, author, and MIT Ph.D. candidate who has over 500,000 social media followers, has also weathered the benefits and burdens digital fame brings. Eighth Grade, Burnham’s directorial debut feature film, and Sun’s TED Talk both tackle social media’s impact on mental health and the virtues of being vulnerable. Burnham and Sun head to MIT to discuss the hyperconnected love and loneliness of the Internet and staying healthy in the digital age. Rosalind Picard, founder and director of the MIT Affective Computing Research Group, will open the event. A free screening of Eighth Grade will follow.

There are no tickets. This event is co-sponsored by MindHandHeart at MIT, de Florez Fund for Humor, Women & Gender Studies at MIT, Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT), the MIT Office of Graduate Education, the MIT Large Event Fund, Active Minds at MIT, FAIL!, SaveTFP, and the MIT Student Activities Office.