Nathan Fielder

Nathan Fielder was a comedian who made good use of the power of awkwardness in comedy. It was a language he well understood, being a shy quiet child while growing up in the mid-'80s in a very ordinary middle-class family in Vancouver, British Columbia. His school's improv classes, where he met fellow comedian Seth Rogen, led him to stand-up comedy, although he was prudent enough to take business classes while attending the University of Victoria. His big break came in 2008 when he was invited to write and act in his own weekly segment for the classic Canadian sketch comedy show ″This Hour Has 22 Minutes″ (CBC 1992- ). His episodes for the show were to become a showcase for his ideas centering on business and social awkwardness. His segments, which included business-centric themes such as fake consumer reports, led to sketch work on season 2 of ″Important Things with Dimitri Martin″ (Comedy Central 2009-2011). The comedy network must have liked what they saw; in 2011 he was invited to join the writing staff of another new show, ″Jon Benjamin Has a Van″ (Comedy Central 2011). The next year or two saw him hard at work developing his own show for the network, one that would focus on the intersection of small business and the comedy of discomfort. The show, ″Nathan for You″ (Comedy Central 2013- ) harked back to his earlier themes for the CBC. For an instantly notorious 2014 episode called ″Dumb Starbucks,″ the production crew actually created a coffee shop in Los Angeles with logos and interiors to mimic the famous coffee shop, but with the word ″dumb″ before everything, from ″Dumb Norah Jones Duets″ to ″Dumb Iced Vanilla Lattes." The stunt was so successful that the Los Angeles Health Department shut it down and the Los Angeles Times tracked down Fielder as the owner well before the episode aired.