Unlike, say, Baron Cohen, scourge of NRA shills and Rudy Giuliani, Fielder isn’t especially interested in politics. In an age of fake news and filtered pics and Big Lies, his genre - some call it “reality comedy” - has become an improbable source of precious truth. Along with Sacha Baron Cohen and John Wilson, both of whom have collaborated with him, he belongs to a contingent of comedians who specialize in exposing the sorts of behavioral quirks, the unsightly warts of the self, that we are forever trying to hide. The show positioned Fielder, now 39, at the forefront of what the New York Times recently hailed as a “quiet revolution” in comedy. Even as his subjects squirmed in discomfort, he delivered his pitches with such conviction that people nearly always agreed to try whatever scheme he proposed, no matter how ridiculous it made them both look. What made the show outrageously funny, and arguably kind of mean, was his relentless commitment to the role.
He asked intrusive questions, stood too close to people, and leaned in even closer when they tried to pull away. His manner, an unusual combination of gentle and pushy, arrogant and insecure, suggested both a desperate desire to be liked and a pathological inability to understand why he wasn’t. In a typical segment, Fielder would visit a real small business, usually somewhere in the Greater Los Angeles area, and pitch the owner on an absurd idea - poo-flavored frozen yogurt, a special soundproof box in which vacationing parents could confine their children while having sex in a hotel room. The cult hit, which ran on Comedy Central from 2013 to 2017, was a kind of parody of business-improvement shows like Kitchen Nightmares. On Nathan for You, Fielder used his façade of bland charmlessness to get people to do and say astonishing things. Maybe even a guy I’d be bummed I had to sit next to on a plane.” “Because you look at him and you go, Oh, this seems like a normal guy. “He’s deceptive,” said Jimmy Kimmel, who has had Fielder on his show several times. “Who? That guy?” the comedian remembered thinking. Tim Heidecker, who met him in 2010, was bewildered when he heard Fielder was pitching his own show, Nathan for You, to Comedy Central. Fielder did not initially strike all of his friends and colleagues as the most engaging personality. This was not necessarily a case of false modesty. “I’m not going to be very funny in the room.” “I’d always say, ‘If people like the stuff I’m making, I’m not going to do anything to heighten that in person,’ ” he recalled. Why bother? If the point was to charm people into giving him a job, sitting down with them could only hurt his chances.
In 2009, when the comedian Nathan Fielder first moved to L.A., he learned to tell his managers not to send him to meetings.
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