If you haven’t heard of comedian Matt Rife, you must be living under a rock. Or, maybe, you’re simply not on TikTok, where the stand-up comic has amassed a substantial and quite passionate following. The short-form video social media platform has become a great place to find up-and-comers in the comedy community, but unfortunately, there’s not a consistent and direct way to profit from such success. So, when it came time to film his first special, Matt Rife looked to his fans, and they came through with more than the comedian asked for online.
We recently caught up with Rife to discuss his new special, Matthew Steven Rife, where he fortunately had the support of a production company this time around. When I asked about his TikTok following and how that presence helped him fund his first special, OnlyFans, he said the following:
So for OnlyFans, I was basically at a point where I had this hourlong material, this great hour long show I've been touring with for like a year and a half. I was so sick of doing the jokes and I was like, okay, I don't have the money to shoot the special. Nobody wants to give me a special on any platform. How can I raise the money? So I was like, Let's just try like a GoFundMe. like a fundraiser, and I was I was hopeful for like, you know, I could get 10 to 12 thousand… So that one was like entirely crowdfunded.
In the end, donations totaled more than $17,000. At this point, it’s important to reiterate that OnlyFans is simply the name of his special, not the platform he uses to make money. Although the joke is that if his comedy career isn’t steady, he just might fall back on it. Rife went on to say this about how TikTok changed the game for his career:
Once TikTok blew up, everything kind of changed. Now I'm back to having a predominantly young female audience, but like, they're so passionate and they love to share everything. I don't have to do any advertising. They promote everything I do. For me, it's absolutely amazing.
On TikTok, Rife has a following of over eight million, making him the most popular stand-up comedian on the growing platform. This audience is extremely important, and is the reason he was able to self-produce OnlyFans, especially given that he has relatively few television credits. He was featured on Nick Cannon’s Wild n’ Out, but was gone long before Cannon returned for the disappointing Season 16 premiere.
While Onlyfans lives on YouTube, Matthew Steven Rife will be streaming on Moment.co. These are peculiar platforms for stand-up, but this idea is growing in popularity. In fact, Matthew Steven Rife’s premiere on Moment that happened Tuesday February 14, completely sold out. So his method of alternative forms of release, as well as utilization of social media, must be working. Even comedy superstar Dane Cook streamed his latest special on Moment, and he’s still getting his famous quotes shouted at him in public. Not to mention, popular streaming platforms aren’t always the best route to an audience. Canadians are cancelling their Netflix subscriptions after user profile crackdowns, which we’ll probably be seeing more of as the streamer rolls out more password-sharing rules and restrictions. If you’re curious, we do have the lowdown on Netflix subscriptions and what’s included.
You can watch the replay of Matt Rife’s new special, Matthew Steven Rife, for the next two weeks on Moment.co. Stay tuned here at CinemaBlend where we’re providing constant updates in the world of comedy. In the meantime, you can work your way down our list of the best comedy movies of 2022.
