Earlier this month, I put out a challenge to the world: If you can hurt my feelings over Twitter, I'll Paypal you $50. I think I was in a weird mood when I tweeted the challenge — I had just eaten an empanada and it wasn't sitting well in my tummy. I was also standing in a parking lot. Then for some strange reason, I had an urge to see if someone could truly hurt my feelings over the Internet.
Even though I'm a comedian, I'm a relatively shy person. I'm actually quite uncomfortable being in the public eye. So it was probably a dumb move on my part that a year ago I pitched a television series for myself to star in. And now that show, Nathan for You, is premiering tonight on Comedy Central.
Don't get me wrong: I'm very excited to have a show. I love making stuff. But I'm about to get more eyes on me than I've ever had in my entire life. It's exciting in some ways, but with exposure comes scrutiny. So I've found myself trying to mentally prepare for the worst. Maybe that's what partially inspired this challenge — an attempt to build up some immunity to taking shit from strangers.
Now, obviously, by offering money to hurt my feelings the blow is softened a bit because I can always make the excuse that these people don't really hate me; they're just playing into my challenge. But over the past couple weeks, I've found that having a steady stream of hate-filled tweets coming at me has actually been quite helpful. It's numbed me. Where I used to get affected by a negative comment on one of my YouTube videos, after a very short time period, I now feel like I've seen it all.
The first time I ever performed stand-up comedy, all my family and friends wanted to come. Feeling like I couldn't say no, I allowed everyone to attend what became the most uncomfortable five minutes of my life. I'm not a very physical comedian, but since I had no idea how to be funny at the time, I tried a series of what I would call "high-energy dick jokes." Of course they played to complete silence, and after leaving the stage, I had to confront the uncomfortable, shocked, and confused faces of basically everyone I knew. But it turned out to be the best thing I could have done to prepare myself for performing live. I bombed the hardest I ever would in front of those whose opinions I valued the most during my first set. As difficult as it was, I came out of it knowing it could never get worse. I became a much more confident live performer because of that experience.
So perhaps with my Twitter challenge I'm trying to cultivate the same thing.
I guess I should outline how I decide if a tweet is "good enough" to get the $50. When something gets through to me and actually hurts my feelings, I'll usually get a stab of adrenaline in my upper stomach/chest area. So I'm looking for that sensation. I've also felt a stiffness or swelling in my throat a couple times when I've been hurt, so I'll pay out for that, too. Obviously, if a tweet makes me tear up or cry, I'll definitely send the cash. But I'm doubtful that will happen.
It's been a few weeks, and so far, nothing has triggered me enough pay out a $50 prize, but there have been some nice attempts. The best ones, I felt, actually made a comment on the pathetic nature of doing a challenge like this:
Pretty good attempt, but I didn't feel anything in my body. One thing I didn't expect to see was people feeling bad about directing a hurtful comment at me. @GrahmKwasnick first wrote this:
Then he later wrote me saying he felt really bad about his tweet and was sorry. That was sweet of him.
So anyways, the challenge is still on. If you're interested in hurting my feelings, here are the rules to be eligible for the $50:
1. It has to be done over Twitter, so if you don't have Twitter, you can sign up here.
2. Your "tweet" must have my twitter handle (@nathanfielder) in it so it will show up for me.
3. You must end your tweet with the hashtag #HurtNathan so I can differentiate "challenge tweets" from all the general insults I get.
And it's as easy as that. If you do end up hurting my feelings, I'll contact you directly to get your e-mail so I can send you the $50 via Paypal. Pretty fun, huh? Good luck! And good luck to me, too, right?
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pr%2FQrqCrnV6YvK57xKernqqklravucSnq2ispmSuc3yPbmxoppGptaK6jJ%2BgnqSUmr9utNSrq2alqWKzprHLoqWgq11mgnKBkW9scWc%3D