How TikTok Blew Up Comedian Matt Rife’s Career

Matthew Rife, American comedian and actor, best known for his self-produced comedy special Only Fans.

Transcript

00:00So for OnlyFans, I was basically at a point where I had this hour-long material,

00:05this great hour-long show I've been touring with for like a year and a half.

00:09I was so sick of doing the jokes and I was like,

00:11okay, I don't have the money to shoot a special.

00:12Nobody wants to give me a special on any platform.

00:15So I was like, how can I raise the money?

00:16So I was like, let's just try like a GoFundMe, like a fundraiser.

00:21And I was hopeful for like, you know, if I can get $10,000 to $12,000,

00:26which obviously allowed us to, you know, just shoot it at a higher quality.

00:31So that one was like entirely crowdfunded.

00:33I think I spent like maybe $2,000 or $3,000 out of pocket for that,

00:36just for like overhead stuff.

00:38And then this one, I had a production company reach out and were like,

00:43hey, we would love to, you know, kind of expense everything for you on this.

00:48And then they kind of went back on their word.

00:51They were like, we just want to be credited as executive producers.

00:53And I was like, that's all you want in return for a budget?

00:56They were like, yeah, that's all.

00:57And then my career kind of exploded right before we shot the special.

01:00And they were like, yeah, we'd actually like to get that money back.

01:03So essentially, I still did kind of fucking pay for it a little bit.

01:08I would say OnlyFans gave me more of a prominent like stand-up audience.

01:15Because before, I mean, a lot of my audience would be younger women

01:18or like wild and out fans and stuff like that.

01:21But when OnlyFans came out, it gave me like actual comedy fans,

01:25like real comedy fans found my special like randomly on YouTube

01:29via the algorithm they work with.

01:31So I would say like, I want to say last summer

01:35when the special had been out for like six months,

01:37people were coming out to shows, like ticket sales were doing like really well.

01:40We weren't really selling stuff out yet.

01:42But it was like I was having good comedy audiences at my show

01:45of still a couple hundred people.

01:47So I was, at that point in my career, just very excited to have that.

01:51And then once TikTok blew up, everything kind of changed.

01:56Now I'm back to having a predominantly young female audience.

02:00But like they're so passionate and they love to share everything.

02:04Like I don't have to do any advertising.

02:05Like they promote everything I do for me.