Matt Rife’s Key to Success (or Failure) Is in the Hands of His Audience in ‘Lucid’ Netflix Special

For a full hour at The Comedy Zone in Charlotte, North Carolina, Matt Rife relied solely on his audience to keep his show afloat. The comedian spent the duration of his set engaging with the crowd, bouncing off of their anecdotes with jokes and rebuttals of his own. Rife’s off-the-cuff performance was captured for his upcoming Netflix special Lucid , set for release on Aug. 13.

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“This show is going to be completely different from anything you’ve ever seen live or on Netflix before,” Rife says at the start of the trailer for the special, which has been branded as the streaming giant’s “first-ever crowd work special.” “This is just me and you guys,” he continued. “I don’t know what you’re gonna say, I don’t know what I’m gonna say. I want you guys to be aware you are equally as at fault for how this goes as I am.”

Last year, Rife premiered his debut Netflix comedy special, Natural Selection , to bleak reviews from both audiences and critics. The routine opened with a domestic violence joke and leaned heavily on Rife detailing his preferences in women as a comedic crutch. The comedian’s career was built largely through clips from his standup performances going viral on TikTok, many of which centered around his crowd work. Natural Selection was a chance for him to prove to a wider audience that his jokes worked on paper, too, and wasn’t just reliant on his audience, essentially teeing them up for him. Lucid , in that sense, is a return to what he seems to know best.

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“Clearly rankled by claims that he’s merely famous for small comedy club sets where he talks to audience members — these provide the bulk of his TikTok clips — Rife concludes his scripted, long-form show on a triumphant note, saying, ‘But what do I know, I only do crowd work, right?'” Rolling Stone ‘s Miles Klee wrote in a review of Natural Selection . “He wants us to believe he showed up the doubters. Too bad it reads as painfully insecure, the taunt of a comic who indeed manipulates his fans by telling them they are a different breed, the “fun” ones, connoisseurs of dangerous and unspeakable facts. The truth is, you can hear this shit anywhere.”

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