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03 Nirvanna the Band the Show the Essay: Exclusivity and Cultural Capital in Online Cult Fandom CLARE O'BRIEN According to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, “a work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code, into which it is encoded” (387). Tis is true of small cult fanbases, like that of Nirvanna the Band the Show, which attract a niche and loyal audience. Te Nirvanna the Band fandom, which fan Andrea West calls “small but fierce,” effectively demonstrates the concepts of cultural capital as outlined by Bourdieu and expanded upon by Jeffrey Sconce, Mark Jancovich, and John Fiske. Nirvanna the Band the Show is a Canadian web and television series created by and starring Matt Johnson and Jay 49 McCarrol, who play exaggerated versions of themselves. Te show follows Matt and Jay as they try to book a show at the Rivoli in downtown Toronto. Te web series, Nirvanna the Band the Show, ran from 2007 until 2009, and the TV series of the same name (but with an added ‘n’ for legal reasons) was aired and distributed by Viceland in 2017 (Robertson, “Nirvanna is Back”). Te show is now available for streaming on CBC Gem in Canada. Te Facebook group devoted to the series—aptly named “nirvanna the band the show the group”—currently has 2,608 members, while the Reddit thread has 1,973 and the Discord server has just 244. Ethnographic research for this paper was conducted through survey questions posted in the Facebook group and Discord server (yielding forty-three responses), as well as through correspondence with Jay McCarrol through Instagram’s direct message feature. Unless otherwise stated, all fan quotations referenced in this paper were retrieved from Clare O’Brien’s post in the Facebook group entitled “Fan spectatorship questions”. When Bourdieu speaks of cultural capital, he is referring to a person’s training into the “appreciation of ‘proper’ taste” (Mathijs and Mendik 386). According to Bourdieu, artistic consumption is “an act of deciphering, decoding, which presupposes practical or explicit mastery of a cipher or code” (387), meaning that art has meaning only if one has the knowledge and competence to make sense of it. In the case of Nirvanna the Band, many of the jokes in the series are based on intertextual and pop-cultural references. Matt Johnson explains that the show’s main characters “are perpetually stuck in the 90s, in terms of their cultural references…specifically North American culture” (TIFF 0:50-1:00). Tus, in order to appreciate the show’s comedy, viewers also have to be familiar with the specific cultural touchstones of that geographical and temporal period. Fan Darcy Weir loves that “every episode has like 10 different homages that are fun to pick up on” and Nicholas Powidajko says it is exciting to recognize “humor and references from a time similar to me growing up.” Fans revealed that their 50 favourite episodes often contained references to childhood media they remembered fondly. For example, Kristi McGee’s favourite episode, “Te Bean”, contains allusions to Home Alone, while “Te Book” ( Jackson Diehl’s favourite episode) has a reference to the TV show Art Attack (Long, “What’s your favorite NTBTS episode?”). Nirvanna the Band is particularly enjoyable for those with the necessary cultural capital to pick up on the pop culture references. Similarly, the show’s geographical specificity presupposes that viewers will have a high level of familiarity with Toronto landmarks and institutions. Te characters visit iconic Toronto locations, including Honest Ed’s, Kensington Market, and Scotiabank Arena. Some fans cited the show’s geographical specificity as one of the reasons why the show resonates with them so profoundly. Kristi McGee says that it is “the first show I have ever watched where I could recognize all of the locations” because they were places “I had been to before.” Powidajko, from Mississauga, said that “it’s cool to see things I recognize,” like the “Hug [Me] Tree” on Queen West. Fans from the Greater Toronto Area praise Nirvanna the Band for representing their city in a positive way on-screen. Kate Robertson writes that “seeing your own city, a city that’s not very good at touting or preserving its own rich history, being celebrated on television just feels damn good” (NOW, “NTB puts Toronto front and centre”). Likewise, @screenplayjams on Discord says that it was not until he started watching the web series that “suddenly all these Toronto locations…felt like sacred ground” despite having visited them many times before. Growing up in or around Toronto allows these fans to feel more pride for their city as well as gain a deeper appreciation for the series. Since much of the show’s comedy relies on prior knowledge of 1990s pop culture and Toronto geography, those who do not understand the references lose out on some of the enjoyment of the series. Bourdieu explains that “the ‘naïve’ spectator cannot attain a specific grasp of works of art which only have meaning—or value—in relation to the specific history of an 51 artistic tradition” (389). For example, those who are unfamiliar with Toronto institutions would miss out on the joke in the web series that Matt and Jay are so focused on getting a gig at the Rivoli that they turn down the opportunity to play at the historic, more prestigious El Mocambo. However, fans do not necessarily have to identify all of the references in the series in order to be entertained by it. In fact, more than half of my survey respondents were neither from the Greater Toronto Area nor had they ever visited the city. Fans are from places all around the world, including the United States, Australia, Russia, Italy, and the United Kingdom. While recognizing the filming locations may elevate the amount of satisfaction derived from the show, viewers from elsewhere are not excluded from the fandom. Cultural historian Jeffrey Sconce builds upon Bourdieu’s ideas by applying them to cult cinema audiences. According to Sconce, the paracinematic community “often adopts the conventions of ‘legitimate’ cinematic discourse in discussing its own cinema” (108). Fans “frequently [use] official cultural criteria such as ‘complexity’ or ‘subtlety’ to argue that their preferred texts [are] as ‘good’ as the canonized ones and constantly [evoke] legitimate culture…as points of comparison’” (Fiske, qtd. in Sconce 108). Indeed, fans favourably compare Nirvanna the Band to television shows that have achieved more mainstream, commercial success. Chlostah Hill says that the show’s humour “reminds me of flight of the conchords in a way,” while novababy suggests that “it’s comparable to zach stone is gonna be famous” (comment on Polygon, “Nirvanna Interview”). Jesse Hamel laments that “the worst & best thing about NTB is there’s really nothing like it… some of mega64 kind of scratches the itch but not fully” (Long, “What’s your favorite episode?”). In these instances, fans use the criteria of official culture to help them legitimize their discourse about the show, often arguing that Nirvanna the Band is superior to its more financially successful counterparts. Beyond comparing the show to more canonical texts that share similar characteristics, fans use academic knowledge—often related to filmmaking and film theory—in their discourse about 52 why they appreciate the show to the extent they do. Nirvanna the Band fans fall into the category that Mathijs and Mendik call “avid or smart audiences,” meaning that they “combine in-depth factual and theoretical knowledge about films with an informed understanding of narrative and stylistic sophistication,” reveling in “the number of references, interpretations and connections their knowledge allows them to make” (6). Calling to mind Cinema Studies jargon, FundamentalistNail on YouTube stated that “the reference to the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles move in ‘Te Blindside’ was…perhaps the greatest intertextual reference I’ve ever come across” (Polygon, “Nirvanna Interview”). Similarly, Chandler Levack expressed that his favourite episode, “Te Buffet”, “is such great storytelling, a wonderful Dinner with Andre homage, has a devastating reveal and a perfect bittersweet cinematic ending.” Katie Kelley, a film school graduate, particularly appreciates “the production value and the guerilla style,” and Mert Karaca notes that the show is “tight in production, writing, timing.” Commenting on the show from a legal perspective, Dizzy Diz says that he appreciates “all the risks involved and the way they continue to push their limits (filming on the subway tracks, in the museum etc).” A knowledge of filmmaking practices, theory, and copyright law allows viewers to more deeply appreciate the effort that was put into the show and heighten their personal enjoyment of it. Seeking out underrated auteurs is another of Sconce’s key indicators of paracinematic fandom. Tese cinephiles “continue to search for unrecognized talent and long forgotten masterpieces, producing a pantheon that celebrates a certain stylistic unity and/or validates the diverse artistic visions of unheralded ‘auteurs’” (Sconce 109). In the case of Nirvanna the Band, which McCarrol admits “went sort of unnoticed by the mainstream” (“Re: Essay”), fans vehemently argue that the talent in the show is undervalued. In the Facebook group, Louis Gardner says, “I wish more people liked it!” and Katie Kelley hopes the creators will someday “get the limelight they deserve.” For many fans, their love for Nirvanna the Band has prompted 53 them to seek out other projects the co-creators have worked on outside the series, most notably Johnson’s directorial work for Te Dirties and Operation Avalanche and McCarrol’s indie band, Brave Shores. Nicholas Powidajko says that one of his favourite pastimes is “watching Matt’s passion for filmmaking through interviews and Jay’s music talent.” Just as Sconce outlines, fans of Nirvanna the Band view the show’s creators as unrecognized auteurs.

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