You might not have asked for it, but you’ve probably been hearing about some guy called Matt Rife for the past month.
The controversial comedian seems to have hopped on an overnight hate train, with his face attached to an outpour of memes, critique, and significant backlash. But who exactly is the person that’s flooding all of our timelines, and what the hell has he done to piss the Internet off in the way he has? It turns out—a lot.
The 28-year-old Ohio native found viral fame in 2022 when a segment of crowd work from one of his stand-ups blew up on TikTok. The clip amassed over 40 million hits, 5 million likes, and even earned a nod of approval from Jimmy Fallon. In it, Rife is seen interacting with a female audience member who broke up with an ER worker, poking fun at her expectations for wanting her partner to do “more with his life” after saving lives all day.
But before TikTok, Rife struggled to find a footing in the stand-up space. The comedian seesawed between random MTV variety shows and small guest roles in sitcoms like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and self-produced most of his stand-up specials until Netflix came knocking in 2023.
The Netflix special that killed (or made?) Rife’s career
Seeing that Rife was a new Internet favorite with a predominantly female fan base, Netflix landed him his first comedy special, Matt Rife: Natural Selection, in November 2023. The Internet liked him. Women really seemed to like him. Whatever could go wrong? Well, when you open your show with a joke on domestic violence, a lot.
Rife’s special cold opens with an anecdote of when he visited a “ratchet” restaurant in Baltimore where he noticed that his waitress had a black eye. “I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye,” he grossly jokes before saying, “Just testing the waters, seeing if y’all are gonna be fun or not…I figure if we start the show with domestic violence the rest of the show should be smooth sailing.” The rest of the special sees Rife continuing to use AAVE to try to be funny (something he’s notoriously done throughout his career), poking fun at children with intellectual disabilities, and a slew of jokes in bad taste against women and the LGBTQ community.
The backlash to Rife’s special, particularly toward his joke about domestic violence, prompted the comedian to respond on Instagram with a mock apology. “If you’ve ever been offended by a joke I’ve told, here’s a link to my official apology,” taking users to a page where they could buy special needs helmets. His cringe edge lord response fueled even more controversy in part because of its lucid ableism, and in another larger part because of his continued attempt to make a joke out of women—his main demographic and the only reason he’s remotely “famous” to begin with.
Rife initially found his platform through a female fan base
You can’t really talk about Matt Rife without talking about his looks. Debates on whether or not the comedian’s had cosmetic surgery have equally flooded the Internet in tandem to his controversies, and a large reason for that is because straight women seem to be generally attracted to him. His viral crowd work has lent to a flock of women going to see his shows in hopes of interacting with him, which didn’t go unnoticed by Rife. The comedian self-produced a special in 2023, Matt Rife: Walking Red Flag, that exclusively featured crowd work of Rife giving tongue-in-cheek relationship advice to his fans.
The whole special is built on Rife’s appeal to women, which made his Netflix debut particularly more jarring for making jokes at the expense of the demographic that made his career. “The way women catapulted matt rife into popularity and the second he gets a comedy special on netflix he immediately betrays them with a joke about domestic violence…crazy innit,” posted a user on X (formerly known as Twitter).
In an interview with Variety ahead of Natural Selection’s release, Rife spoke on his female fan base and admitted he wanted his career to start pivoting to also appeal to men. “One of the biggest misconceptions of things I get ridiculed online for is people are like ‘Oh, he only has a female fan base,’” Rife began.
“In the beginning yes, because I did blow up on TikTok which is very female dominant… So, I get that perspective. But when you come to the shows, I mean, it’s 50/50. It’s couples coming out. It’s groups of dudes who are coming. And that’s one thing that I wanted to tackle in this special was showing people that like despite what you think about me online, I don’t pander my career to women.”
He continued, “I would argue [Natural Selection] is way more for guys… I wanted to make this special for everybody. I pride myself on making my comedy for everybody. It’s not for a specific demographic. I think if people would just give it the chance without going into it and being like ‘Oh, only girls like him’ or ‘People only like his face.’ If you give it an opportunity, I think you’d like it.”
Rife’s Netflix controversy has spun a rabbit hole of receipts against the comedian
Following the aftermath of Rife’s Netflix special, the Internet further fueled the comedian’s already accelerating hate train by rehashing some of his past questionable moments. The sleuthing went all the way back to 2015 with a clip from Rife trying to flirt with a then-18-year-old Zendaya in a segment from MTV’s Wild ‘N Out. Trying to get her to laugh, Rife says, “Look, you’re mixed. I wanna be Black. Let’s make a lifestyle movie.”
He then approaches the actress and grabs her chin and shouts, “Spit that water out so I can get your number, please!”
Rife’s brazenly racist and cringeworthy jests continued throughout his career, with another rehashed clip from his appearance on the podcast Stiff Socks seeing him make a crass joke about women with big clitorises. Another clip that’s been making the rounds sees the comedian defending himself on Tana Mongeau’s podcast Cancelled by saying that people only hate him because they’re jealous of him—to which Mongeau smartly responds with “Are people jealous of Osama bin Laden?”
More recently, the comedian’s been under fire for comments he made toward a 6-year-old child, insinuating that his mother buys him presents through money she makes from OnlyFans. Why is a 28-year-old adult beefing with a 6-year-old child? We honestly couldn’t tell you. But we can confidently say that Rife’s sensational streak is far from over with the comedian recognizing that a hate train is better than no train at all. He currently boasts over 18 million followers on TikTok and over 6 million followers on Instagram, and is set to start a comedy tour within the next month titled Matt Rife: ProbleMATTic World Tour.
