Is Matt Rife Popular Because He's FUNNY or GOOD LOOKING?

Is comedian superstar Matt Rife actually funny or is he just really good looking? Or also, is he about to get canceled? Let's talk about it. Yeah, we got to talk about Matt Rife. I mean, Andrew, you're talking about a guy having a meteoric rise through TikTok, various social media platforms for his crowd work, right? Of course, he had been on Wild N Out and other things. We actually were supposed to work with Matt Rife a long time ago on a piece back in LA. Anyway, then it leads into a YouTube special, which leads to a Netflix special, Andrew. But today, everybody on TikTok, not everybody, but some people are trying to cancel him for jokes that didn't land during that same special. And even the New York Times has an article that went really viral about, is Matt Rife really funny or is he just a gorgeous man? Yeah, so let's talk about the main question, whether he's actually funny or is he just good looking for a comedian. We're gonna break it down, give you our opinion. So please hit that like button and check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys as we talk about this. Because, you know, we're fans of comedy. We do some comedy ourselves, so this is relevant. Yeah, but you know what isn't debated? Small Ass Sauce, guys, check it out. It is shipping out right now. It's our very own finishing oil. Very excited about it. SmallAssSauce.com, guys, it's shipping. Thank you for being patient. I mean, I will say this. The amount of material, Andrew, that is being made about Matt Rife, whether it's in support of him, neutral, 50-50, or against him, it reminds me of almost when Eminem was being debated at his peak. You know what I mean? Like Eminem was like in the news nonstop and it's because these guys are like, I almost want to say the once in a decade type personas. Right, right. They capture, and let's be honest, I think most of the people making videos about him are white. I'll play some of the videos right now. I think his biggest fans are white. Matt Rife's problem is that he has cultivated an entire audience worth of people whom are just uninterested in what he's trying to sell them. Zendaya called it in 2017 when she was not having it with Matt Rife. Hey, Zendaya. I'm Matt motherfucking Rife. You're mixed. I want to be black. Let's make a lifestyle. I've been saying that this guy hasn't been funnier than a fart for a long time. I think he has a little bit of insecurity because he got famous from being attracted to women. And now he's trying to pander to men and seek validation from them by making these crude jokes about women. I mean, is it because he's a threat to a genre or is he just representing a changing of the guard or is this the same situation that Dane Cook had or you know, an MGMGK type situation? What is going on? First of all, there have always been good looking comedians both on the female side and the male side. Okay, so this is nothing new to see a good looking person do comedy and be debated. Every good looking person who is famous that does comedy has been debated about whether they were funny or not. You're talking about Dane Cook specifically, right? Yeah, Dane Cook is the biggest example because he's hyper successful. But what I will also say is that just like, it's just, he can be a comedian and not be super funny but be boosted by his looks. I don't understand how hard it is for people to understand this. Is it like how Kevin Durant, you know how he just does like hezy pull mid ranges? That's really bolstered by the fact he just shoots over the top of people. If he was six foot tall, KD wouldn't be KD. Listen, if Victor Wembanyama was not seven five and instead was six five, he's still good at basketball, but it's different. Just like if Kevin Durant is not seven feet, instead he's six feet two, that's also gonna be different for him. Same skill, everything. If LeBron James is six foot three and not that strong, it's also different for him. So I don't understand why it's so hard for people to understand that Matt Rife can be kind of funny maybe not hilarious. Like let's say what, a six, seven out of 10, a six? He can be six out of 10 on the funny scale and 10 out of 10 on the look scale. And maybe he's getting nine out of 10 success, but that still makes sense to me. Right, you're saying that you're having a hard time understand why there's literally 50 threads on Reddit, 50 articles being written on different publications and just like endless debates on TikTok and Twitter. I think people are doing it for the clicks. I really don't think the equation is that hard to understand. Yeah, I will say this though. Somebody did point out that Matt Rife, Andrew, is not just considered good looking. He's considered a ultra unique mixture of feminine and ultra Chad features, almost like a handsome Squidward that makes him sexy and sultry. So even the previous guys that you listed that were good looking with a good feature set, like young Jon Stewart or something, they never were considered sex symbols, even if they were like just objectively good looking. Yes, it is true that Matt Rife is kind of like, I guess, sexy on a level that we haven't really seen. I mean, listen- Almost like a fireman, you know, those like fireman shirtless calendars. Like, yeah, let's just point out some other comedians real quick. Dane Cook, Colin Joss, Daniel Tosh, Chris DiStefano, Anthony Jeselnik, Chris D'Elia, Trevor Noah, Russell Brand, Sebastian Maniscalco, John Mulaney, Matteo Lane. These are all guy comedians who are helped by their looks, but I think Matt Rife is considered the most Chad sexy model of them all. He's also very ripped. He's young. He's got that Southern twang. No, he got the Bieber, MGK, Eminem look, right? And he's very charming to women. So I guess, yeah, I guess all those factors. He's just like, it's a bigger effect. Yes, yes, yes. And that's why there's so many clips of even other famous comedians that are also rich sort of like talking about it, right? But you know what I compare it to, David? It's like when people hate on the Yankees or the Lakers. Are these teams actually good? Yes, the Yankees and Lakers are good. They have an illustrious history. But why do a lot of people hate them? Also, a lot of people hate them because of who loves them. Because you meet your average Lakers fan, average Lakers fan, and they don't know much about basketball. They're just like, I don't know, Lakers are my favorite. And you're just like, you don't know anything about basketball, I hate Lakers fans. Do you think that, I guess a better comparison, and I don't really see Kelly Oubre get that much hate, even though he was balling out this season to the BMX thing. But is this sort of like the same hate that people give Kyle Kuzma? Because Kyle Kuzma is considered more, I guess, like a better looking than average NBA player who does some flashy things on the court. But also, there's a huge bunch of people who hate Kyle Kuzma too. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think Kyle Kuzma's fan base is that big. But anyways, guys, Matt Reif, definitely being a white guy, good looking, buff, ripped, young, Southern twang, charming, and smiley. He definitely is able to capture a lot of- Non-comedy fans. A lot of large audience that other comedians cannot. You know what they call it? Activating a dormant fan base. So basically, they're dormant for everybody else, but for whatever reason, maybe it's your look, your archetype, the fact that he's from the trailer parks in Ohio, he can draw an audience out that otherwise, the whole year, or maybe for the next five years, is not gonna watch another comedian. It's not his fault, but I think Trump, Donald Trump probably would like Matt Reif, because Matt Reif represents and his kind of appeals to a lot of a blue collar, white fan base, which is a huge fan base, by the way. I think- That is kind of actually ignored by Hollywood, right? Yeah, exactly. I wouldn't doubt that a lot of a good amount of the people who come to his shows also like country music. Also like Marky Mark, or young Mark Wahlberg. The country white boy comedian right now of the moment, even though he might not see himself that way. I'm just saying- Right, because he identifies more with the urban culture, right? Yes, yes, yes. I mean, I guess, how much is it ultimately, a lot of the debate boils down, because I don't want to get into the article that all this advanced Harvard prose that all these New York Times writers are using is- It's not that complicated. Is comedy just supposed to be traditionally driven by people who are outsiders? And his current status of his looks, even though, of course, it's pretty clear that he used to not look like that. He used to look way like, I guess, more poor or trashy or whatever. Like, he would not be on the inside. He's dating like models, and people are popping bottles for him. Like, almost like a, you know, like a Jeremy Meeks or something like that. I mean, listen, I don't think Matt Reif is gonna go down in history as one of the goats of comedy. He definitely isn't. It's not genius comedy. I don't love it. But it's not that bad. I can see he is a real comedian. He's put in many years. So to me, I think that people are just threatened thinking that he's setting precedent for just a bunch of other good-looking, not super funny people to get popular doing comedy. Right, which was the same fear with Dane Cook over a decade ago. Yeah, but I would think that this fear has always existed, but maybe with social media, obviously his clips are able to circulate even more. You know what I mean? But I think it's going to, what is it called? Deviate to the mean? What's it called? Regress to the mean. Regress to the mean, where after this blow up that Matt Reif has, and after his specials come out, and people realize, like, listen, he's a great crowd work guy. He's a really good-looking dude, but he's not like a comic genius. His fan base will shrink a little bit and cool down, but he's gonna have a great career. Yeah, anyway, guys, make sure you let us know what you think in the comments section below. I'm just gonna get, read off some of the comments from a multitude of articles. Somebody said, there's a big difference between somebody who's good-looking and somebody who leads with their looks. It's hard to find people in the latter group funny because they come across as narcissistic, self-centered, and boring. And then there was a bunch of arguing, Andrew, in the comments section, whether Matt Reif, his comedy, fits into this guy's definition or not. Does he lead with his looks? Does he lean on it too much? Is that cringey to guys, but not cringey to girls? So that's why he made the quote-unquote misogynistic jokes, because he wants to bring this guy fan base back, because he doesn't want to get known as a girl comedian. And of course, these are all the layers that, you know, just go back and forth on the internet. I think that's up for you guys to decide, I don't know. Somebody said, I heard that many attractive people typically, probability-wise, have bad senses of humor because people are charmed by their looks and reflexively laugh at everything mildly amusing that they say. And for example, I just watched Matt Reif's Netflix special and some of his other content, and I suspect his humor barometer has never been properly calibrated. Hard pass on him. This is obviously a more critical comment, saying that a lot of good-looking people are not funny because they can get away with a lot more. Yeah, what works for Matt Reif may not work as well for someone else who doesn't look like Matt Reif. That is 100% true, but that has always been that way. It's like we said, man, KD, he doesn't handle court awareness very good. To me, these are not new dynamics. These have existed for hundreds of years. Somebody said Matt Reif has put in the work just because everybody assumes that he's new because they just heard of him. He has put the work in. So really, at the end of the day, he's a legit comic. He's been doing it. He had a traumatic childhood, poor experience. His dad committed suicide. It just so happens that he grew into his looks and started taking care of himself, stopped drinking, stopped doing drugs, and now he turned into a Chad. What's everybody mad at him for? Of course, I was in support of him. I think that's true too, right? Somebody said, it's nice to see other comedians be happy for Matt's success because there's a whole clip of people saying it, and they're like, they're not happy for him. They're just saying it. What do you think, Andrew? Are people happy, unhappy? Because they're looking at this guy who looks like an Abercrombie model, or even something, I don't know, what's a more modern brand than Abercrombie? All Saints or something, you know? I think there's, to be practical about it, there is no benefit in being negative about him. If you are a comedian coming up, you just have to, I guess, see the positive that he was able to open up the market and bring in a lot of new comedian fans, people who are not constantly going to comedy shows, and maybe- Right, I never even heard the word bit. Like, they don't even know what a bit is. Yeah, and maybe some of them are gonna start going to more comedy shows. So maybe that's going to increase the overall comedy market. I think that- Do you think it really does, or is it just the market for- I think it does a little bit. And I think that there is a, possibly a slight macro positive effect on the comedy world. You know what? I think anybody who's watching right now who wants to see like an Asian version, check out our boy, Jason Cheney. Jason Cheney. Shout out Jason Cheney, man. Somebody said, women say they like a man with a sense of humor. Turns out they just laugh at handsome guys. That's a quote from Norm MacDonald. And Bob Newhart also said, you know, I don't like handsome comedians, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for, by the way, for the people who like handsome comedians, denigrate means put down. That's funny. Obviously, this is Bob Newhart, who is a classic comedian from like way back in the day, indicating that people who only want to listen to handsome comedians are not smart. Right, right, right. Which is a funny joke in itself. Right, right, right. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, guys. Listen, Dane Cook and Matt River are the only people, times where I've seen like, college sororities from like state schools make it like a college sorority night to go watch them, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I do think if you watch a comedian morph and you're enraptured by their looks, then you're probably not the highest sophisticated comedy consumer. That makes sense. What did you think, Andrew, you recently watched his new Netflix special about, you know, sometimes there's screaming, almost like in a, for a pop star type of way, you know, like in the middle of the set. Yeah, there was a lot of crazy cheering, like even at things that weren't that funny, but I mean, I didn't love the special. I don't think he's a genius comic. I think his crowd work stuff did really well, but I would, I even think Dane Cook is funnier than him, to me, in my opinion. I think Dane Cook's performance was more engaging than even Matt Rive's performance. I think Matt Rive, to me, and man, I've heard he's a really cool guy. We met him back in LA like 10 years ago. He's a nice guy, for sure. We met him, actually, when he was still on Wildin' Out, and I will say this, it's like, he represents something in the zeitgeist right now. His, like, what he represents, though, is something special, because you don't get talked about this much pro or con. And he's more like the Jack Harlow than he is the Eminem, because Eminem, when he launched, he clearly had skill. Now, maybe you didn't like Eminem's sound or things he talked about, and you didn't like that he was white, but he, you could not deny that Eminem was talented. It was undeniable. But Jack Harlow and Matt Rive are probably more similar in that they're good, but it's debatable if they're, they're not great. Right, right, right. And some people, this goes to this comment, where some people on a pro level and a con level have said that Matt Rive sort of, like, just acts like a black comedian, in the same way that people say that Jack Harlow sort of raps like old mixtape Drake, right? I actually, I agree with that a little bit, yeah. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just like, it is just kind of an observation. This guy said, I feel like the vacuum that Chris D'Elia left in the scene because he got canceled sort of allowed him to fill in that really good-looking comedian guy lane. Chris D'Elia actually got for real canceled, right? Right, right, right. Somebody said, crowd work is a double-edged sword. I feel like the downside is everybody just comes to see you in hopes of seeing the next viral moment, which means it really takes away from your prepared material. Once you get known as a crowd work comedian, Andrew, is it a little bit known for, like, being a battle rapper or a freestyle rapper? And then it's just like, people are not necessarily coming for your songs. Right. Yeah, somebody's saying, you know what my big issue nowadays with comedy is, Andrew? That the comedians that used to be on the side of the underdog or the people left out of the party or on the outskirts of the party now became so rich that they're almost associating themselves with the people in the party. He's referring to Dave Chabelle hanging out with Elon Musk, Tom Segura laughing at the pores. Basically, people who are on the outside that are now on the inside, and they said that Bill Burr is one of the only guys who keeps it real because he's super rich now, but he still feels like the guy ranting at the bar. Right, right, right. Somebody was saying good-looking people are really endearing when they make complete buffoons of themselves. Timothee Chalamet is known for doing that on SNL. Brad Pitt is known for doing it occasionally. George Clooney dancing like a hillbilly. Alec Baldwin in a lot of SNL skits. So this guy was like saying, it's just charming because it's, like, unexpected. And maybe a lot of Matt Wright's appeals, like, you just don't expect a guy who looks like that to be that quick with the crowd work. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's, you can say it's impressive for a guy who looks like that. Actually, I would say it's really impressive. But obviously, you know, if you look at it, Andrew, Matt Wright, he said, I didn't always look like this. I had really bad teeth. I had really bad skin. I wasn't lifting. So I wasn't, like, the reason I'm still funny is because I have all those muscles from the old days when I was just getting picked on as a poor kid in a near trailer park in Ohio. Yeah, I mean, overall, David, how would you sum up your opinion on the rise of Matt Reif? What do you, how would you put it? I would say that I haven't put too much thought into it because it kind of reminds me of the Kevin Durant situation where I'm just like, yeah, man, when you got a wingspan like that and you can move like that, you got a lot of leeway to make a lot of, you know, different types of jokes. I do think he embodies a certain persona that feels like a chill guy from your high school. He doesn't feel, actually, to me, like a conventional comedian who has been trained in Second City or like, you know what I mean? Like all these like formal ways of, you know, obviously stand up is informal, but as formal as it can get, he feels like the opposite of that. He feels like hyper organic, maybe to your point, like a Jack Harlow. Yeah, I think that he doesn't have to be re, it's not that, oh, you either hate or love Matt Reif. I'm just saying he is what he is and he fits a certain image. He's 10 out of 10 good looking. He's maybe only anywhere from four to six out of 10 funny. Right, he's not that funny. I could see for some people, he pushing 7.5. Yeah, he's good, but definitely not great. So I'm saying, but he's just hitting on something that's so relevant right now and he's seeing a major boost from social media. Are people mad that comedy is looking like pop music though? Or something, you know how like for pop music, it matters, you know, you gotta be the single guy if you don't look like that. I think there are more comedians making a living than there ever has been before and part of it is because of social media. There's a lot of comedians who got their chance on social media. They never would have found their audience otherwise. That would have not been that big unless otherwise, Fahim Anwar, Nimesh Patel. Burt Kreishner. Burt Kreishner, Matt Reif is one of them, obviously they all. Bobby Lee, right? Yeah, well, they've seen their careers get multiplied due to social media clips. So other people are getting benefits from social media, but I think Matt just benefited the most out of everybody. Right, because he kind of had the IG model thing mixed with comedian. And I just, I guess for me, it's like, this sounds weird, but it's like, I'm almost just more interested at why everybody else is so interested. Because I'm just like, yeah, I don't know, the equation makes a lot of sense to me. I know how entertaining words have been in this game. It's not that ridiculous, guys. Your good looking friend in high school makes a joke. The nerd geek, not attractive guy makes a joke. Which one gets the bigger laugh? I mean, if Victor Wemignano was 6'5", like you said, instead of 7'5", it's different. I mean, Chet Holmgren moves great for his size. Listen, I mean, I guess if you just compare it to basketball, just everything makes sense because the height is the height and the wingspan and the agility is the agility. I don't know, David, do comedians start working out more? Is every comedian gonna get buff? I think, for example, like a Gabriel Inglisius, he can't lose the weight, fluffy. It's like part of the thing, because then where does the material go? Like, I know, you know what I mean? It could change though, but Amy Schumer, she was on the borderline, she could get thin and then like switch it up. I don't know, it just works different for everybody, man. It's hyper nuanced. Anyway, guys, let us know what you think in the comment section below. Do you think Matt Rife is super funny? Do you think he's just hot? Is he a mix and why does everybody care so much and debating it back and forth? Like it's the hottest topic of the century. Until next time, we're the Hot Paw Boys, we out, peace.