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
00:00 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.
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