Good vibes only? Nat’s What I Reckon is fed up with your affirmations

If an article could have a bleeper attached, this page would be filled with them. Nat of Nat’s What I Reckon YouTube fame is a self-confessed chronic swearer, “effin and jeffin” all the time. It’s bad language as noun, adjective and punctuation.

Going simply by his first name, the thirty-something Sydneysider shot to fame during lockdown for his entertaining, anarchic food clips, declaring “war on the jar sauce” and “cook it ’til it’s f---ing cooked”. Comedy is a big part of his shtick, as is a maverick, rock’n’roll approach that has attracted a dedicated audience of more than 3.5 million followers. Though known for his cooking, what he’s doing on his YouTube channel is mainly “talking shit about the universe”.

Now, the world according to Nat has been documented in his latest book, Life: What Nat to Do, A hot take on advice you never asked for. It’s a response to the ubiquitous affirmations that dominate large sections of social media, which he sees as a monocultural, one-size-fits-all approach that is often meaningless. Think Man up, Good vibes only, No pain, no gain, Carpe diem – he rails against them all.

Being told to ‘live, laugh, love’ doesn’t give you much creativity, it’s actually kind of demanding and weird.

Nat’s What I Reckon

He wrote the first draft in less than three weeks. “I’m such a jabber jaws that when I had the idea that I wanted to write about ‘shit advice that no one asks for’ I could keep going and going, no worries,” he says. “It’s a pretty good demonstration of me and my lack of ability to calm down.”

Even though it’s been a fascinating process, he says “it’s kind of f---ed me up a bit”, admitting he loves to overcommit. “I’m a bit worried that I’m going to f--- things up, it’s just part of my anxiety ... I’m getting better.”

Unlike some in the self-help industry, Nat does not pretend to have all the answers and he certainly doesn’t hold himself up as a guru, quite the contrary. “I walk through shopping centres, I walk through fancy hotels and I’m pulling the whole thing apart the whole time. I think the world is trying to take the piss out of me.”

No one’s life is exactly like anyone else’s, he says, and normalcy “is such a weird thing for people to have to deal with”.

“Being told to ‘live, laugh, love’ doesn’t give you much creativity, it’s actually kind of demanding and weird. While I see that it’s encouraging a positive affirmation of some sort, some people find it f---ing annoying and I’m one of those people,” he says. “You’re getting all these broad, sweeping statements and I don’t think that’s hugely appropriate and I certainly don’t think it fits everyone. So I’ve written about that stuff and it’s given me a chance to talk about mental health ... And I’m a f---ing mess, I’m not doing well, I’m not a happy person. It’s more what you shouldn’t stress about, not live-laugh-loving all the time.”

Nat’s What I ReckonCredit: Wayne Taylor

Having “seen more therapists than I could poke a stick at”, he knows firsthand how much hard work is involved in managing mental health. To his mind, platitudes can do more harm than good. “It can make some people feel there’s something broken and it’s not, it’s fine that you don’t like that or you think it’s a waste of time. It’s OK to say it too, you don’t have to be a nasty dickhead about it. You don’t have to go into the f---ing Aesop shop and start knocking things off the shelves. You know, aromatherapy may not be for you but it might make someone else happy. That not yucking the yum, I’m still learning how to do that.”

This is his third book. The first was Un-Cook Yourself: A Ratbag’s Rules for Life in 2020 and last year he published Death to Jar Sauce. Both were short-listed for the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, and the cookbook was inspired by the phenomenal response he got to his YouTube work during lockdowns. “[Cooking] gave you something to do with your hands instead of twiddling your thumbs all day. COVID set a lot of people’s mental health on a dangerous path. If you already had stuff going on, it just sent it flying.”

I had a pretty challenging younger life ... I was a pretty pissed off young dude and it’s taken a while to pull the reins on it.

Nat’s What I Reckon

Growing up in Sydney, Nat’s family were members of a fundamentalist church. It’s not his path any more, but he says a belief system such as Christianity, at its core at least, encourages you to be a good person. “You can do that without reading a thousand-page book written 2000 years ago by a bunch of mates ... it’s a bit weird but I also get why people do that, it’s a safety. You want to belong to something. Not everyone’s got a band ... [they’re] just looking for some community and a reason to exist.”

Trauma has been a part of his life, the detail of which he prefers not to talk about, but he’s ended up with what he describes as a laundry list of mental health issues. Hyper self-critical and anxious, he has depression, a sleeping disorder and restless leg syndrome, among other things. “I had a pretty challenging younger life and particularly my teenage years ... I’ve had such a weird f---ing life. I know from that weirdness and that journey, it’s made me who I am. It’s hard to be grateful for that, some really tricky stuff and I haven’t always dealt with my stuff the best, I’m pretty ‘self-sabotagey’. I was a pretty pissed off young dude and it’s taken a while to pull the reins on it.”

He’s also had significant health issues since he was 16, when he contracted tuberculosis while travelling in India. A few years later, it caught up with him again. “I got glandular fever at 19 and it triggered the TB, so it double smashed me. I had a practice run at quarantining because I got put in an airborne quarantine hospital for quite a while, a little tiny room and an alarm door and shit. Respiratory wards are f---ing terrifying places,” he says. “At least I had my own room, I suppose.

Nat’s new book rails against “live, laugh, love” self-help books.Credit: James Brickwood

“I spent so much time gasping for air. I have so many vivid images of just sitting still and gasping for air, drowning, I thought f--- that shit. It was horribly painful for a couple of months, it was half the lung ... just sneezing was full on. I remember a couple of months later I would be out of breath and there was nothing that would make it go away. That feeling of running out of air, everyone’s had it when you’re swimming if you go a bit deep or something.”

It sounds like a form of torture. “It is really. Eventually, that went away but yeah, it’s been a long journey. That lung came out 10 years ago, so I’m used to it now. Actually having it removed, despite all the trauma it caused, it’s actually been really good for me. I’m in better shape now than I was when I was 18.”

TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO NAT’S WHAT I RECKON

1. Worst habit? Sleeping on my arm.
2. Greatest fear? My mental health.
3. The line that stayed with you? Party on, John!
4. Biggest regret? My GAD (generalised anxiety disorder) means unfortunately that is a ever-growing list that I reckon would take up a whole library by this point.
5. Favourite room? The one with [my girlfriend] Jules in it.
6. The artwork/song you wish was yours? The album that U2 force fed onto everyone’s iPhones a while back, just so I could delete it and swap it out with shit recorder covers of all the same songs.
7. If I could solve one thing … The caloric density of both cheese and ice-cream.

In a love story that would be the envy of many scrolling endlessly to find a partner, Nat and his girlfriend of six years, Julia Gee, met on his first-ever Tinder date.

“Every day is f---ing unreal with Jules, we like just the right amount of the same thing ... and she is incredibly funny and loving,” he says. “Thoughtfulness is such a nice love language, from ‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea’ to ‘I’ve bought you a skyscraper’, you know.”

Despite looking like a hardcore death metal fan, complete with long locks, piercings and an array of tattoos, he listens to all sorts of music, from Hank Williams and Nina Simone to Indian ragas. Lately, jazz has been on high rotation, although he finds free jazz “a bit distressing”.

“It’s kind of nice live, but you’ve got to leave after about 20 minutes or so. Maximum creativity, it’s like the definition of too many chefs in the kitchen but what the f--- is this meal.”

As for what’s next, he’s planning his next stand-up comedy tour, and then music is beckoning. He sings and plays guitar in the band Keggerdeth, but he’s not played properly for a few years. “That’s the stuff I love doing that made me start all this. Rock’n’roll kinda stuff, it’s such good shit: there’s no nerves, no second guessing myself, it’s just instant belonging. And death metal is annoying for most people but they’re up for it at the pub most of the time.”

One thing punters are also up for at the pub is saying g’day, as does a passerby during our interview, interrupting to say how much he likes Nat’s work. It’s a common occurrence. For the record, he’s fine with it, except if you’ve had too many beers, when he finds some people get overly familiar.

Nat’s not done with books yet, though. “It’s made me think I can do other things than swear and wave a knife around and cook.”

Life: What Nat To Do is out now via Penguin Random House.

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