‘Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie’ the Orange County Fan Meetup the feature

Photo by Celine Schuneman, Features & Entertainment Co-Editor

“Who is this 40-year-old man and why am I relating to him so much?” said Elisa Apollo, known online to her 2,000 followers as @ilovemattjohnson_, as she recounted her first experiences with the independent Canadian comedy series that would soon create one of the internet’s most unique and vibrant fan communities.

The atmosphere was filled with playfulness at Stoddard Park as a group of 40-50 young adults gathered, wearing fedoras and proudly displaying a cardboard cutout depicting Jay McCarroll’s penis sticking out of his pants in celebration of “Nirvanna the Band the Show.” While many fans only discovered the franchise through “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” earlier this year, the fandom around this niche Canadian comedy duo sprang up with immediate intensity

“It's just powerful (as) fans that we all connect with this one interest,” said Grace, known in fan circles as Glup Shitto. “It brings people together from everywhere. I actually come from Mexico, so it's bringing people from all over the world. I've met people from Australia, it’s really cool.”

Created by real-life best friends Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, the webseries-turned-Canadian-broadcast-show-turned-movie follows fictionalized versions of Johnson and McCarrol as they try to get a show at The Rivoli, a small bar in West Toronto. Rather than asking the bar’s management or using rational methods of getting a gig, the pair create increasingly elaborate plans, including faking a bank robbery and skydiving off the CN Tower.

While the show has always had some level of popularity with viral clips like “Update Day,” the 2026 film skyrocketed the independent Canadian duo to new heights of popularity. Developing a more traditional online “fandom,” fans like Elisa took initiative in bringing this fandom to reality.

“I did not anticipate that many people would show up,” said Elisa. “I would check the (Partiful) to see how many people were interested in going and the number kept rising … The fact that 90 people in the Southern California area were interested in this was very telling of how much this is a huge thing.”

Despite drawing such large numbers at the fan meetup, the Nirvanna the Band the Show (NTBTS) fandom is relatively small. However, perhaps this relative recency and niche corner of the internet occupied by the fandom are what make it so special.

“Most of my life I've been a part of giant fandoms like the MCU (where) you can literally say and do whatever you want, like on Twitter, and nobody's really going to notice you,” said Elisa. “This is kind of the first time I've been in a fandom where what I say actually has weight.”

At the event, fans traded art prints and merchandise, often with handcrafted pieces celebrating the show. For many fandoms, this level of creativity is a key part of thriving social scenes in spots like the Nirvanna the Band the Show the Orange County Fan Meetup.

“I think for me, the fan art in this community has been a way to connect with other fans and kind of bridge that gap,” said Olivia, with her art handle @Ollievista. “I finished this piece yesterday and ran to CVS to get prints made … It was very last minute, but for me, I had this motivation of wanting to have a new drawing specifically to bring to the OC meetup.”

This isn’t something wholly unique to NTBTS. Today, internet fandoms connect with the most niche and absurd media. Connecting people from all over the world, spaces like Tumblr and Twitter become ground zero for these fan circles to form. For many, these fandoms are a crucial form of identification and community in an age defined by isolation. 

While the media itself is a starting point in these spaces, they ultimately foster deeper and more intimate connections.

“People in our generation have been itching for something new,” said Navv, a musician in Orange County. “I think movie studios have been afraid to do the mid-budget comedy … This is the kind of movie that, if it was released in the 2000s, would have done poorly in theaters but amazing on DVD or VHS.”

One noteworthy element of the fan meetup is the overwhelming queer identification among fans. While the show centers on two (presumably straight) men, the attendees at the fan meetup presented a wide diversity of backgrounds and identities. Even for presumably heteronormative pieces of media, online fandom tends to be constructed around a certain level of “queering” the property. 

“Two guys that live together into their 40s who say they have no romantic interest are a little suspect,” said Glup Shitto. “So of course queer people are going to latch onto and expand that. I feel like Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol really support it, and you know they kind of add to it.”

For people of all backgrounds in these difficult times, niche online communities like this create meaningful safe spaces. Being able to express yourself through the unadulterated joy of fan art or fan fiction, unbound by the often harsh realities faced by queer people, can be an empowering experience.

“It reminds me of the close kind of homoerotic friendships I had when I was a kid, when we still didn't really know what the world was all about,” said Navv.

Through it all, the fan event almost felt like an episode of the show. Enabling online friends to meet up in the real world and share a love for this hyper-specific fandom creates a unique atmosphere. While perhaps a little chaotic and anarchic, this is exactly what people latch onto with the show. 

“(NTBTS) really taps into this very authentic sort of naive innocence. The characters of Matt and Jay are very childish, but in a way that's very endearing,” said Olivia. “On the fan side, a lot of us are like that too. You (grow up) and sometimes you feel like a 12-year-old in an adult's body. Watching a show that really plays that up in a way that feels fun and not demeaning or mean-spirited, I think that's why a lot of people really respond to that.”

As fans quipped with quotes from the show and exchanged trivia, the series’ playful energy was embedded with a level of creativity perhaps only matched by the show itself. 

“This silly little show is inspiring people to genuinely draw the most insanely cool things that I've ever seen in my life,” said Elisa. “Maybe people are trying to emulate what Matt and Jay did in the webseries. They're trying to do it with their friends … What sets the Nirvanna the Band fandom apart is that the stuff Matt and Jay make looks so attainable that we feel like we can do it ourselves.”