By: Nate Jackson, Los
Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Shortly after becoming the youngest stand-up comedian in
history to sell out the Hollywood Bowl during the second installment of
Netflix is a Joke in May, Matt Rife’s tireless pursuit of success finally
caught up to him. His performance schedule clocking 40 to 50 shows a month
led to a stretch of consecutive days without sleep as he stayed up
prepping for shows, editing social videos and barreling from city to city.
Though his body and mind were getting shaky on tour, he fought through it.
Finally, just before a recent pair of shows in Indiana, he said he almost
collapsed while leaving his hotel room and was forced to cancel the gigs
just hours before showtime. Suffering blurred vision and
painful ringing in his ears, he could barely walk or talk and had to be
taken to the emergency room.
“I felt like I was legitimately dying,” Rife said during an interview at
the Kookaburra Lounge in Hollywood. “It’s embarrassing, man, because
everybody around me saw this coming.” His piercing blue eyes cast down
briefly at the floor as he thought about the moment he almost pushed
himself past his limits. “Everybody’s only response was, ‘Can’t believe
this didn’t happen sooner.’”
Since that episode, Rife said he’s spent considerable time finding a
balance that allows him to sleep and to pursue his dreams. His latest
project, “Lucid: A Crowd Work Special,” which premiered Tuesday on
Netflix, is a new hour where he interacts directly with his fans, talking
to them about their own dreams, fears and future aspirations. Though the
goal of course is laughter, Rife said the special is about finding ways to
relate to his fans through dialogue in a real, meaningful way and also
remind himself to appreciate his own success.
“The concept of dreams in general was just something that was so special
to me, because I am so lucky that I get to finally live my biggest dream,
being this moment that I’m having right now,” he said. “And I know so many
other people strive for that, not necessarily in comedy specifically, but
everybody has something that they’re chasing.”
During the special he singles out members of the audience to talk about
where they were in chasing their dream gigs or analyzing their goals— and
yes, crack jokes and roast them a bit for our enjoyment. Though this isn’t
his first crowd-work special (see 2023’s “Walking Red Flag”), it’s a
definite budget upgrade from a single camera set-up. The new Netflix
production shows Rife at the peak of his powers, sparking spontaneous
humor out of the fans who packed into the Comedy Zone in Charlotte, North
Carolina.
Rife is known for crowd work, and he thinks he does it at a higher level.
“It’s something that’s just fun and exciting for me,” he said. “These are
moments that are never going to be duplicated at any other show I ever do.
… When you’re rehearsing your set, building the material on a show for an
hourlong, material special, you can definitely get tired of telling your
own jokes.”
For a comic who once struggled to sell tickets for weeknight shows at
big-city comedy clubs, the rush of fame over the last couple of years
feels surreal. “When I started doing comedy this was never even a dream of
mine to be at this level. I was just like, if I could ever sell out a
comedy club one time ever, that’s the epitome of what I think a comedian
probably could be,” he said.
Humility aside, there’s no shortage of both love and hate on the internet
for Rife. Since going viral on TikTok in 2022, he’s has become a fixture
in pop culture, frequently making headlines for whom he’s dating, what
house he’s buying or whatever backlash he’s stirred up for jokes that
strike some as sexist and misogynistic. But negative feedback hasn’t had
much of an effect on his tour numbers. To date, he and Taylor Swift are
the only two artists who command enough of a feeding frenzy to break
Ticketmaster when announcing a tour. The argument over whether his fame is
a result of his movie-star looks or his talent is well worn at this point,
yet few seem to factor in the breakneck pace at which Rife and his team
operate to keep his momentum going.
Fellow comedian Erik Griffin, who directed “Lucid” as well as Rife’s
previous specials including 2023’s “Matthew Steven Rife” and his Netflix
debut, “Natural Selection,” has worked with the young star since Rife was
just a teen who was hitting Griffin up online looking for a chance to open
for the veteran comic onstage. “What I admire about him is his work
ethic,” Griffin said. “Nothing was handed to him. He’s been working hard
for 12 years now, the fan base has just caught up with it, and they’ve
made him super famous.”
Rife started in comedy at age 15, having become obsessed when his grandma
took him to a Dane Cook show. Too young to drive himself to clubs, Rife
had his grandpa take him from North Lewisburg, Ohio, to open mics as well
as “bringer shows,” a rite of passage in which comics have to sell a
certain number of tickets to get onstage. None of Rife’s friends were old
enough to get inside a comedy club, so his grandpa would buy tickets. For
Rife, the excitement of performing was initially eclipsed by fear.
The first time Rife went onstage for an open mic, he said, he almost
soiled his pants. “I had all my jokes memorized but I was so nervous. And
the host goes onstage. ‘We have a first timer tonight, give it up for the
uncomfortably young Matt Reef,’” Rife recalled, adding that he was so
nervous he thought his bowels were “gonna drop out of my body.” It was
then that Rife recognized the feeling of stage fright for the first time.
It excited him as much as it scared him, he said.
The pursuit of a career in comedy led him to leave Ohio and hit the road
by age 17, and he settled in L.A. to pursue acting while still
crisscrossing the country for gigs. During a decade of grinding, he put
his looks, quick wit and work ethic to use, landing stints as a co-host of
MTV’s short-lived “TRL” reboot and as a cast member of the sketch show
“Wild ’N Out.” He also popped up on an episode of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” In
2017 his name surfaced in People magazine when he was briefly romantically
linked to Kate Beckinsale.
He amassed millions of views on TikTok sketch and crowd work videos along
with more than 30 million views for his three YouTube specials prior to
“Natural Selection” last year. The comedian’s ability to build a
relationship with a largely female fan base stems from his crowd work
skills.
“He draws people in because he listens,” Griffin said. “So when he’s doing
this crowd work with people, he’s genuinely interested in what people are
saying. Those are the type of clips that have gotten that have gone viral
for him, and those are the things that resonate with people. It’s not just
crowd work for the sake of crowd work.”
Usually Rife is able to turn awkward or strange interactions into comedy
gold. It’s much harder when an audience member tries too hard to be funny.
“Don’t do that,” he says bluntly. “Just be yourself. I’ll bring the comedy
out of you. Don’t worry. We’ll find it, you know, we’re Jordan and Pippin
in this. Don’t be selfish.”
Though it’s always been Rife’s dream to entertain at the highest level,
building that fame in the TikTok era has come with internet criticism.
Whether people don’t like his looks or his humor or just want to elicit a
response in the comments of social media, Rife is used to being a target
for backlash, though he said he’s gotten better at ignoring it. It’s no
coincidence that his two favorite comedians are Dave Chappelle and Ricky
Gervais, two of the most popular and criticized comedians to hold a
microphone.
“It’s a lot to juggle,” he said. “In the beginning, you really mostly only
hear the positive … and then a very select group of people go, ‘Oh, this
person’s very well loved and respected, and I myself might lack that love
and respect in my own personal life, so therefore I don’t want this person
to have it.’ So then comes the influx of negativity. You just have to
really appreciate the good, because the bad is going to come with it,
guaranteed. Nobody is universally loved.”
Through friends and therapy, he’s learned not to give negativity any
oxygen in his world.
“I used to avidly respond back to people. Nobody could be meaner than me
if I really wanted to be,” he said. “But you can’t do that, because
whether or not you feel like you won that interaction or you had the
better roast, what this troll or hater said to you doesn’t matter. You
gave them exactly what they want. All they want is attention.”
While the topic of fighting for a dream is the focus of Rife’s newest
special, the act of sharing his journey is at the heart of his next
creative output, the book“Your Mom’s Gonna Love Me,” slated for December.
Rife talks about becoming a comedy heartthrob before age 30, navigating
his sex appeal in the public eye, battling depression and enduring failure
before finally hitting it big.
Part of recapturing the dream is also talking about the people in his life
who helped him achieve it, including close friends, early mentors and his
grandpa — his first advocate in comedy — who died in November 2022, just
before his career really began to take off. “He never got to see me have
any of this, and he’s the reason I have any of this,” Rife said. “I’ve
been so happy to be so distracted and keep busy and keep my mind off that
kind of stuff. But through therapy and this book, which has been a massive
form of therapy, it’s forced me to take time and reflect on all the things
that got me to this point right now.”
After taking enough time to process his past, Rife’s new focus is on
keeping his dream alive.
“That’s the new anxiety, by the way,” he said. “Because that’s the hardest
thing. How many viral sensations are there a year? 30? Anybody can have a
hot year, a hot moment of their career. So many musicians, actors,
comedians have them quite often. Hard part is maintaining.”
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