Matt Rife’s one comedy rule: Be funny. The problem: He isn’t.

Why does Matt Rife even have a Netflix special? vox.com/culture CULTURE   Here’s a peek behind the curtain: Whenever we publish a new story here at Vox, the writer will come up with a list of possible headlines and workshop (or "focus group") them with the rest of us. When Aja Romano posted the focus group for [their new story on Matt Rife’s controversial Netflix comedy special](, every single headline option they’d drafted was so scathing I knew the story must be great. Aja, as ever, does not disappoint. If you’re not familiar, Matt Rife is a mediocre anti-woke comic who had a glowup, blew up on TikTok after clips of him flirting with the women in his audience went viral, and now has a Netflix special that opens with a domestic violence joke. Aja’s explainer beautifully uses Rife’s career to explore not only the unending question of what comics are allowed to joke about, but also the limitations of TikTok as a platform for surfacing good comedy. As Aja points out, comedians can get away with saying almost anything, but only if they’re funny enough. Matt Rife isn’t that funny, and pretty much his whole schtick is saying offensive things. So how’d he end up getting big enough on TikTok to get plastered all over Netflix? It all comes down to context collapse. —[Constance Grady](, senior correspondent Editor's note: For ongoing coverage and analysis of the developing conflict between Israel and Hamas, [read our Vox colleagues' work here](. What Matt Rife’s baffling Netflix special tells us about comedy [photo of Matt Rife on stage using a microphone during his standup special]( Mathieu Bitton/Netflix Comedian Matt Rife’s debut Netflix special Natural Selection may be a hit — the show premiered in the top 10 on November 15 and has stayed there for two weeks — but it’s also causing plenty of uproar among audiences. The controversy started with Rife’s opening joke: The TikTok-famous comic chose a gag about domestic violence to kick off his set. “I just wanted to see if y’all were fun,” he tells the audience afterward. The topic of whether and how comedy can be “fun” if it comes at the expense of vulnerable groups of people has increasingly become a larger cultural conversation. [Rife pushes the question in a thoroughly regressive direction]( for most of his special, with the majority of his jokes arguably punching down against various groups of vulnerable people. Even when he’s not riffing on offensive topics, the rest of the special is painfully mediocre, drawing overwhelmingly negative feedback from viewers and spawning a cultural discussion about whether Rife’s popularity is primarily due not to his humor but to his pop idol good looks. It’s worth asking how a relatively low-tier comedian like Rife wound up landing a high-profile Netflix special to begin with — and what it means for comedy and for culture when a standup comedy “hit” on Netflix provokes this much derision. [Rife’s opening joke — in which he makes fun of a woman experiencing domestic violence]( with the punchline, “I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye” — is the one getting all the attention, but it can’t be overstated that the entire show is a bomb. The domestic violence joke is part of a larger distasteful joke about how “ratchet” the city of Baltimore is (Rife, who is white, leans heavily on AAVE throughout his work). He follows this up with a long section mocking women for beliefs in pseudoscience, portraying this trend, bafflingly, as something only women are into, and something that seems to give him carte blanche to make fun of all women. (“You are in complete control of how your future turns out,” he insists, while scolding women for believing in “crystals.”) Then there’s a deeply cringe extended segment about children with intellectual disabilities, including a terrible joke allegedly stolen almost verbatim from the late comedian Ralphie May. This is followed by a straightforwardly homophobic riff teleported in from the ’90s about (gay) monsters in the closet. If you can make it through all that you’re treated to ... a long description of Rife masturbating in the shower. And so it goes. None of it is remotely funny, and the reaction from the public has been overwhelmingly negative. Currently on Rotten Tomatoes, just 16 percent of the audience gave Natural Selection a favorable review, with the word “unfunny” popping up again and again in user reactions. [Read the full story »](  [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Why is dating advice on TikTok so sexist — and so bleak? 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