Matt Rife is the one of the world's biggest new comics. His stand-up special immediately lost him fans (2024)

If you're not on TikTok, there's a likely chance you hadn't encountered US comedian Matt Rife until this past week, when he hit two career milestones in short succession.

First, his Netflix stand-up special Natural Selection was released. It instantly shot up the streamer's charts, with many of his 18.2 million followers (and others) curious to see a full set from Rife, who is best known for viral crowd work videos — and his heart-throb good looks.

Secondly, he endured his first major controversy as a comedian. In the Netflix special's opening joke, Rife makes light of a restaurant hostess' black eye — generating audience backlash and headlines from Time Magazine to Forbes.

The joke in question

Rife begins his set as many travelling comedians do: roasting the audience's city, in this case, Washington DC. He notes how "ratchet" the city's inhabitants are, pointing towards his recent hostess with a black eye as an example.

"And my boy, who I was with, was like, 'Yeah, I feel bad for her, man. I feel like they should put her in the kitchen or something where nobody has to see her face'," says Rife.

"And I was like, 'Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn't have that black eye.'"

While it gets a laugh from the live audience, many viewers have been offended by the joke's punchline which implies a woman could deserve domestic violence for bad home-making skills.

Australian anti-domestic violence advocate Tarang Chawla is one of Rife's detractors, telling social media that Rife needs to 'grow up'.

"It's just really tired — of casually bashing a woman if she doesn't do something well, or that 'women belong in the kitchen' trope," he tells the ABC.

"It's so dated, comedians were making these jokes in the '70s.

"It's not that you can't make jokes about certain topics — I don't think any topic is off limits. But I do think it does matter who is making a joke, and what are they trying to achieve?

"And his intentions were clearly, 'Can I get away with a joke about domestic violence?' — That is lowest denominator humour."

No longer 'pandering' to women

Given that Rife's TikTok audience is predominantly women, the joke has been taken by some as a 'betrayal' of his audience. The special has been written off by previous fans as far flung from Rife's affable-if-not-edgy crowd work, too.

In Australia, 1 in 6 women will experience physical and/or sexual violence by a current or previous co-habitating parent since the age of 15. According to Counting Dead Women Australia, run by advocacy group Destroy The Joint, 53 women had been killed in Australia this year as a result of violence as of November 22.

That's not to say all are offended. In response to a wave of criticism, Rife's TikTok and Instagram are currently littered with 'I Stand With Matt' comments and calls for 'woke' people to take a joke.

"The people who support Matt Rife's joke and are saying this is the 'woke police' taking things too seriously, are many of the same people who were complaining the Barbie movie was anti-man," says Chawla.

"That Venn diagram is a circle."

Rife has made his own retort via Instagram story, linking to an "apology" that led to a shop selling special needs helmets.

Wait – who is Matt Rife, how did he get so big on TikTok?

Rife, 28, is an American stand-up who rose to prominence on TikTok in 2020, but has been a comedian for more than a decade, starting when he was 15. As a teenager, he featured on Wild 'N Out, a sketch comedy series hosted by Nick Cannon, before competing in 2017 on MTV reality show The Challenge.

Prior to his TikTok fame, he appeared in sitcoms Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Fresh Off The Boat, as well as Disney XD show Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything.

Rife began posting on TikTok in 2020, sharing sections of stand-up, focused on dating, relationships and sex. His crowd-work videos proved popular, showcasing Rife's charm, warmth and quick wit as people throw personal anecdotes at him — three of his most-viewed videos see him riff on an audience member's autistic child, cheating drama and an Iraq veteran's double-amputated legs.

Prior to Natural Selection, Rife has independently released three stand-up specials on his own YouTube: Only Fans, Matthew Steven Rife and Walking Red Flag.

With defined cheekbones and a muscular frame, Rife has earned an audience of admirers, with his fanbase skewing female. Earlier this year, he told Men's Health that being traditionally attractive made him "work harder".

"People don't want to laugh at physically attractive people," he said.

"You don't want to walk on stage and people are looking at your arms rather than listening to your jokes. I think it just makes me work that much harder."

In a recent interview with Variety, Rife expressed that Natural Selection "tackles" that common "misconception" that his audience is only female: "Despite what you think about me online, I don't pander my career to women. I would argue this special is way more for guys."

For Chawla, this comment was telling. "As a guy, that's not the humour I think we should be striving for as men," he says. "There are so many comedians that do edgy comedy and talk about heavy issues, but do so in a way that shifts the dial forward."

"The conversation about domestic violence that's happening as a result of his joke is not pushing anything forward. If anything, it's exposing a mirror around a culture — [in the audience], the consensus was to laugh."

'Just testing the water'

Another element of the joke that stood out to Chawla was its framing. Shortly after making the black-eye joke, Rife says he was "testing the water" with it.

"Seeing if y'all are gonna be fun or not. Just wanted to see," he says. "I figure if we start with domestic violence, the rest of the show should be pretty smooth sailing from that."

"What really bothered me more than the joke was that it was his way of testing whether people around him were alright — and that's the cultural problem", says Chawla.

"He's not asking us to examine of look at the issue. That's not a survivor making the joke. This is just a guy making a joke at the expense of someone."

Mr Chawla's comments are echoed by a spokesperson for 1800RESPECT who said "jokes and casual statements about domestic, family and sexual violence can be distressing for people affected by violence."

Rife repeats the "testing the water" refrain throughout the hour-long special after several risque jokes. His jokes cover ground like religion, school shootings, autism, dating and masturbation, with the set's end dedicated to social media criticism and trolls. He spends much of the set frustrated by criticism, miming out angry Tweeting repeatedly, with several punchlines threatening violence to critics or anyone who annoys him.

While the wider set haven't caused as much criticism, it does offer an insight into Rife's thought process behind the opening joke. Currently on his ProbleMATTic world tour, Rife is positioning himself as an anti-PC provocateur.

And while courting controversy isn't new in comedy, this particular brand of 'anti-cancel culture' or 'anti-woke' comedy has become a popular pivot for male comedians, who turn being cancelled into a major talking point — often making incendiary jokes about social issues to prove their point.

Comedians like Bill Burr, Joe Rogan, Shanne Gillis, Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle all have Netflix specials that, in part, deal with backlash to jokes and the idea you can't "say anything" anymore. Chappelle's six-special deal is the most controversial, as Netflix paid $20 million US for each as the comedian steadily upped commentary around trans issues.

His repeated jokes resulted in calls for Netflix boycotts from trans comedians, writers and activists, and saw walkouts from several trans Netflix-employees.

There's a lot of money in being cancelled, and Rife's non-apology suggests he's ready to level up beyond TikTok. Whether he gains a new audience as he loses others remains to be seen.