Initially touring to small audiences around the U.S., Ireland and the U.K., Nate drew attention at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won the Total Theatre Award.

Nate picks a couple from the crowd and asks the woman questions about herself, saying that each answer matches the description of his ex-girlfriend, whose "tuna casserole pussy" he misses.

At an art painting class, the teacher Miss Jackson (a mannequin voiced by Palamides) asks Nate to give his presentation.

In a Los Angeles clown training program at the Lyric Hyperion, Palamides was asked to develop a bit in which she felt at risk.

[2] After a Paper Kite producer saw the show at Edinburgh, Palamides met with Amy Poehler, founder of the production company, about adapting it into a recording.

To make it marketable despite the visible genitals, Palamides suggested changing the color of the rubber penis or using fake nipples, but this idea was dismissed.

[2] When performing onstage, Nate would enter to a poor karaoke rendition of "Bad to the Bone", but the production were prevented from using the original or an imitation, though they had no issue using the brand names La Croix, Uber and Lyft.

[3][1][4] Vulture's Helen Shaw saw Nate as incorporating elements of "discomfort comedy", clown performance, drag king show and cartoon.

Though Nate "talks earnestly about permission", Shaw believed that "he constantly demonstrates coercion", as Palamides manipulates the pressure of audience members to comply.

[1] Nate is "an emotionally volatile dudebro who is dunked in shades of abrasive machismo", according to Das, and brought to this state through "heartbreak and newfound singleness".

[1] Although Nate's opening stunts may lead the viewer to expect a show in the style of Evel Knievel or Stone Cold Steve Austin, he is "haggard, beaten, with a black eye and bandages around his neck", wrote Garrett Martin of Paste.

[8] Palamides' fake mustache somewhat masks that her body is female, though the audience member encouraged to flick her nipples is still in discomfort due to her gender.

[6] Shaw wrote that Nate "exaggerates masculinity and occasionally lets a glimpse of femininity peep through", such as the black chest hair against Palamides' bare breasts.

[6] Martin commented that Nate shows "what happens when toxic masculinity means well but doesn't entirely get it": he does art to understand his emotions but challenges his ex-girlfriend's partner to a fight.

[4] Brian Logan of The Guardian gave the Netflix special five out of five stars, saying that Palamides succeeds in "winning sympathy for our macho host without apologising for him".

Logan found it "outrageously funny" in parts, such as the wrestling action, while "orchestrating seemingly crude audience encounters with real care".

The special can be seen as more provocative on screen on Netflix than live at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, as the explicitness and "unstable audience interaction" are less "par for the course".

He praised Palamides as "far more outrageous and boundary-pushing than those jurassic stand-up bozos who act like racism, sexism and homophobia are somehow still shocking", despite the recording lacking the full effect.

She highlighted skill in Palamides' setting up the character Lucas, played by an audience member, and the unexpected development of the "bad date" storyline with Miss Jackson.

[6] Veronica Lee of The Arts Desk lauded it as a "very funny and deeply thoughtful" work that contains "a clever deconstruction of toxic masculinity".