How TikTok Blew Up Comedian Matt Rife’s Career

Cinema Blend

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

Transcript

00:00 So for OnlyFans, I was basically at a point

00:02 where I had this hour-long material,

00:05 this great hour-long show I've been touring with

00:07 for like a year and a half.

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

00:10 and I was like, okay, I don't have the money

00:11 to shoot a special, nobody wants to give me a special

00:14 on any platform.

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

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

00:19 like a fundraiser.

00:21 And I was hopeful for like,

00:23 you know, if I can get 10 to $12,000,

00:26 which obviously allowed us to, you know,

00:28 just shoot it at a higher quality.

00:29 So that one was like entirely crowdfunded.

00:32 I think I spent like maybe two or $3,000 out of pocket

00:35 for that, just for like overhead stuff.

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

00:42 and were like, hey, we would love to, you know,

00:44 kind of expense everything for you on this.

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

00:50 They were like, we just want to be credited

00:52 as executive producers.

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

00:55 And they were like, yeah, that's all.

00:56 And then my career kind of exploded right before

00:59 we shot the special.

01:00 And they were like, yeah,

01:01 we'd actually like to get that money back.

01:02 So essentially I still did kind of fucking pay for it

01:06 a little bit.

01:08 I would say OnlyFans gave me more of a prominent,

01:11 like standup audience.

01:14 'Cause before, I mean, a lot of my audience,

01:16 it'd be younger women or like wild and out fans

01:19 and stuff like that.

01:20 But when OnlyFans came out,

01:22 it gave me like actual comedy fans,

01:24 like real comedy fans found my special,

01:27 like randomly on YouTube via the algorithm they work with.

01:30 So I would say like, I want to say last summer

01:34 when the special had been out for like six months,

01:37 people were coming out to shows,

01:38 like ticket sales were doing like really well.

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

01:41 but it was like, I was having good comedy audiences

01:44 at my show of still a couple hundred people.

01:47 So I was at that point in my career,

01:48 just very excited to have that.

01:50 And then once TikTok blew up, everything kind of changed.

01:55 Now I'm back to having a predominantly young female audience

02:00 but like, they're so passionate

02:02 and they love to share everything.

02:03 Like I don't have to do any advertising.

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

02:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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