“The Outside” expresses frontman Tyler Joseph’s criticisms toward the music industry as a whole, commentary on the monotony of mainstream music, and his reservations that what is considered mainstream will replace twenty one pilots.

Tyler uses a variety of metaphors (e.g. a Megalodon and Megatron) to express a sense that the band was once a leader in their music due to their success during the Blurryface era when many of their songs topped the charts, but now that time has passed and the Megalodon faces extinction as well as Megatron watching the cogs he once stepped on rising up. “The Outside” expresses the inevitability of how the music industry moves on from one artist to the next and highlights Tyler’s bitterness towards the industry and how it prioritizes non-controversial, non-challenging music.

This is not the first time Tyler has been bold in declaring his criticisms. On twenty one pilots 2011 hit “Holding On To You,” he wrote:

Lean with it, rock with it, when we gonna stop with it?
Lyrics that mean nothin', we were gifted with thought

And on 2015’s “Lane Boy” he says:

Don’t trust a perfect person and don’t trust a song that’s flawless

Tyler has always been at odds with music that is thoughtless, but “The Outside” sees him tired of having this argument and even accepting that if twenty one pilots can’t be mainstream, they will still make music from the outside.

Additionally, listeners can read “The Outside” as a confrontation with Dema and their control over Tyler’s character and his music.