I saw Matt Rife perform at the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival in Vancouver, and I was honestly disgusted and deeply disappointed by his entire set.
I had tickets for the whole weekend and decided it would be good to see him live and judge for myself instead of basing my opinion on the few clips I had seen online. My 21-year-old daughter had warned me about him, but now I have seen it for myself.
He seems completely obsessed with talking about sex in the most vulgar ways possible. I understand that sex is sometimes part of comedy, but this was beyond extreme. He argued that the United States is behind the rest of the world and needs more legalized prostitution, encouraged people to start using drugs if they aren’t already, and told a disgusting story about attending a live sex show in Amsterdam with his best friend.
I’m not going to repeat everything he said because it was that revolting. He spent what felt like half the routine acting out masturbation. At another point, they put a close-up of his face on the big screen while he described a man climaxing with a soft penis, and then he spit out of his mouth to demonstrate what it supposedly looked like. Nobody needed to see that. It wasn’t clever. It wasn’t edgy. It was just disgusting.
I understand that some people think he is sexy, and maybe if I had only seen a picture of him, I might have thought so too. But after watching him perform, he became incredibly unattractive to me. His constant need to turn everything into something graphic and sexual felt unhealthy and honestly made me wonder what his issue is.
There was also a woman who approached from the audience and said something none of us could hear. It clearly bothered him, and he retaliated by going on and on about how her shorts were too short and how much cellulite she was showing. This was not even an overweight woman, although that shouldn’t matter. I don’t care how rude she may have been. Publicly humiliating a woman and attacking her body in front of thousands of people is not appropriate. Calling it “comedy” does not make it funny.
There were also two people with severe physical disabilities in wheelchairs near the stage. One had a sign saying “Roast me,” so yes, that person knowingly opened the door to being included. But the way Rife roasted both of them made me deeply uncomfortable. Maybe those two individuals were completely fine with it because they are fans of his, but I imagine many other people living with similar disabilities would feel very differently if they came across those clips.
Overall, Matt Rife came across as someone completely addicted to talking about sex in the crudest and most degrading way possible. There was nothing insightful or intelligent underneath it. It was vulgarity, humiliation and shock value passed off as comedy.
I will never pay to see him again, and I genuinely regret going. I hope more people start taking a stand with their dollars against this type of behavior. At some point, we have to stop shrugging and accepting this as normal simply because someone calls it comedy.

About ~4 weeks ago, I posted my first ever standup set (since then I've gotten hooked) and got some great feedback. I just recorded a new set I did on Sunday and was looking for feedback on hints and tips etc.

This is my second 'completed' 4-5 minute set I've built out thus far. Trying to have 20-30 min complete by the end of October.

My name is Dan Wickes and I built a website for the global roast battle league. I’m a comedian who’s been performing and battling for about ten years and I put together a resource to track battles all over the world. You can see results, upcoming shows and full episodes from shows in any of our cities

Hey guys,

I’m desperately trying to find the name of a comedian who is a licensed therapist and comedian. I loved her work and can’t remember her name. I’m pretty sure she is based in the east coast/nyc. She is lgbtq+ and was formerly a lesbian now bi. She has a trans husband and kids. She was a niche Twitter celebrity. She had a joke about knowing the DSM and using it to get her Dr. The prescribe her controlled anxiety medication. Does anyone know her name? I think she did a live show where Rachel McAdams was a guest star once.