Matt Rife is facing criticism for his new Netflix special.
The comedian gained viral recognition (and, according to reports, a majority female fan base) on TikTok, translating into a sold-out international tour.
However, he has faced some controversy. In February, he appeared on the Stiff Socks Podcast where he mocked women with "giant clit[s]," saying it was like "god left a tag on you." He said to the New York Times of facing controversy, “You’re mad at somebody that’s just trying to make you laugh? That’s such an insane concept to me."
Ahead of the release of his first Netflix special, Natural Selection, Matt told Variety, "One of the biggest misconceptions of things I get ridiculed online for is people are like, 'Oh, he only has a female fan base.' In the beginning, yes, because I did blow up on TikTok which is very female dominant."
However, Matt maintained that his live shows were split equally. "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. I would argue this special is way more for guys," he added.
When asked about if he was worried about offending people, Matt replied, "I don’t really adhere to this whole sensitivity rumor in the comedy world that you can’t say anything anymore. That’s bullshit. You can say whatever you want. Now, you have to prepare for repercussions. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to how do you sleep at night?"
Matt starts off the special by talking about DC, the place where the special was filmed, and the differences between "ratchet" Baltimore and "beautiful" Maryland. "I've only been to Baltimore one time, and the hostess who seats you had a black eye," he began.
"A full black eye. It wasn't like, 'What happened?' It was pretty obvious what happened. But we couldn't get over, like, this is the face of the company? This is who you have greeting people?" Matt continued.
"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.' And I was like, 'Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn't have that black eye,'" he added with a laugh.
As some audience members sounded shocked, he continued, "Testing the water, seeing if y'all are going to be fun or not. I figured we start the show with domestic violence, the rest of the show should be pretty smooth sailing."
"Of course I felt bad for her. She should have had her protection crystals, you know what I mean?" he said, before going into a lengthy bit about "crystal girls" and women who blame astrology on their "poor decision-making skills."
"In case anyone's curious, no I'm not fucking surprised," she said, alluding to the special. "You're telling me a man who goes on other people's podcasts and openly objectifies and criticizes women's bodies is misogynistic? Yeah, no shit." She further likened Matt's "jokes" to scrolling through a "white uncle's racist Facebook page" and questioned why he would purposefully attempt to alienate his female fans.
"If you want to appeal to exclusively misogynistic men, you are mediocre and couldn't afford veneers. Or maybe you're not that fucking funny. At least not to me personally. But what would I know? I'm just an astrology-obsessed, crystal-loving, fucking dumb ass bitch on the internet," Drew concluded.
