Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nicole Byer: BBW (Big Beautiful Weirdo)’ On Netflix, The ‘Nailed It!’ Host Jokes About Screwing, And Screwed-Up White Women

Nicole Byer has amassed critical and popular fandom, as well as a couple of Emmy nominations, for hosting Nailed It! on Netflix. In her first solo stand-up special for the streaming giant, Byer offers up her own comedy confections in the form of dating confessionals and revelations about her interactions with White people.

NICOLE BYER: BBW (BIG BEAUTIFUL WEIRDO): STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: When I last sat down with Nicole Byer some five years ago for a podcast interview, she was coming off an overlooked late-night sketch project for FOX (Party Over Here) but still on the come-up as the star of her own projects, breaking out from MTV talking-head shows such as Girl Code to star in MTV’s Loosely Exactly Nicole.
Things have looked up even more for Byer since then, professionally if not also personally.
In addition to her Emmy-nominated turns as host of Nailed It!, Byer also has earned a gig alongside John Cena co-hosting the TBS competition series, Wipeout; she’ll co-star in the new NBC sitcom, Grand Crew, which premieres Dec. 14; and she hosts at least four different podcasts at last count. But her solo stand-up debut for Netflix finds her focusing more on her personal life, which is equal parts hilarious and tragicomic. The opening sketch sets this up, as Byer imagines herself as a stripper, riding the pole in a two-piece with requisite high-heel platform shoes. Unlike Lizzo in Hustlers, Byer doesn’t quite pull it off. Because, comedy!

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Byer has the same confidently unabashed stage presence as Michelle Buteau, with whom she also shares an open confusion about why men still send unsolicited pictures of their genitals to women.

Memorable Jokes: Although Byer has definitely gone Hollywood, she opens her hour by reminding the New Yorkers (she filmed at the Gramercy Theatre) that her comedic roots still come from within the Big Apple, informing us, among other things: “It’s the city where I started doing comedy. It is the city where I dropped a pizza, cheese side down, and then ate it!”
NYC also bore witness to many of Byer’s early misadventures in sex and dating.
The hour’s not all about her love life, though. She devotes some time in the first half-hour to some of the weirder impacts from our current “pandemie” as well as last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. Even that discussion, which includes some deft crowd work (Byer originally got stage time and a burgeoning reputation in NYC as a skilled improviser before her move into stand-up), eventually turns into revelations about Byer’s sexual preferences and her curiosities.
Our Take: Some of her sexual revelations are graphically memorable, but they pale in comparison to her multiple stories about White women. From the hospital nurse who “attended” to Byer’s needs after she dislocated her ankle, to the loud and proud nature of them on their birthday — she manages references to not only Marvel and DC, but also “the Pokemon world” — or the presumptuous women in her twerking class, to even J.K. Rowling. Plenty of comedians, most notoriously Dave Chappelle, have come forward with takes on Rowling’s “TERF” beliefs. But Byer manages to dig deeper with an outlandish and impossibly, yet outrageously possible take on Rowling’s Harry Potter books that could convince you, too, to half-jokingly call the author “JKKK Rowling.”
It is a weird and wild thing about American capitalism, circa 2021, to realize that even an Emmy-nominated comedian and actress will shout out her Patreon-exclusive podcast while she’s getting that Netflix money. But indeed, Byer does direct viewers to subscribe to “90 Day Bae” (3,221 patrons as I type this) during BBW.
And then again, she does confess that even a slightly famous comedian/actress can sometimes find herself drunk in an airport’s bathroom stall, pooping, eating, crying and singing. Not to worry, ladies and germs. Byer’s OK! And if she’s OK, then you’ll be OK, too.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Of course she understood the assignment. And yes, you could also say, she nailed it.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Nicole Byer: BBW on Netflix