Nathan for You genius Nathan Fielder and indie filmmaker John Wilson are a perfect marriage of compatible sensibilities. Both use the familiar draw of surface-level “awkward†comedic personas to get at some real weird observations about human behavior. Watching How to With John Wilson, it makes sense that Fielder is one of the executive producers that brought it to HBO. In a nine-minute short that Fielder posted to his YouTube channel on November 27, he talks about why he helped Wilson bring his style to television: “John’s really good at discovering things that you would probably normally ignore or just walk by. But when you’re really forced to look at it, it really makes you think about how confusing modern life is.â€
However, when Wilson explains his methodical, elaborate thinking behind a shot of bread dangling on a subway, Fielder starts to have second thoughts about the mass appeal of this whole How to With John Wilson thing. But because he loves fostering new talent, he starts a hype house for photogenic teens. As Fielder says, “TikTok is a children’s dancing app where children will upload videos of themselves dancing that children and adults can enjoy,†which, when he puts it that way, sounds kind of weird. He also restricts their caloric intake, wakes them up at odd hours to talk about their problems, isolates them from their parents, and has a gun. Watch this clip if you wish The Vow was only nine minutes.