Comedian Matt Rife may lose a chunk of followers and work opportunities over controversial jokes in his new Netflix special, but will ultimately land on his feet, according to one expert.
Rife's Natural Selection landed on Netflix on November 15 and he quickly came under fire for a joke he made about domestic violence.
The comedian opened the special by telling a story of a waitress with a black eye who served him in Baltimore. He joked that the reason she was given the black eye was because her cooking at home was not good enough and the result of domestic violence.
Rife doubled down after the calls for him to be canceled with an incendiary Instagram story where he wrote: "If you've ever been offended by a joke I've told—here's a link to my official apology." That link read "tap to solve your issue" and led people to a website selling helmets for people with special needs.
But despite the swift and widespread backlash on social media, one public relations expert thinks Rife will survive the storm.
Newsweek contacted Rife's representatives by email for comment.
"Of course he's going to dodge the bullet," Molly McPherson said on a TikTok viewed almost 160,000 times, adding that her analysis was based on her professional opinion as someone who works in PR crisis management.
McPherson compared Rife to Colleen Ballinger, the comedian behind the viral Miranda Sings YouTube persona, for her "cringe" apology after she was accused of questionable behavior with some underage fans at her shows. Ballinger also doubled down and labeled her video "not an apology."
"One of the reasons why she glossed over it is because she knows she's lost so many people... and so she's not going to roll over and give full accountability and explicitly apologize for what she did," McPherson said. "She's going to cut her losses and she's going to try and find new people."
She explained Rife was doing a "very similar strategy" and what was changing in these cases was that "people are now willing to sacrifice universal acceptance."
"He is a part of bro culture bro, comedian culture, such as Joe Rogan who has a top podcast for a reason because people listen to it, they follow him and if there's a genre that makes money, there's going to be more people who do it," she said.
"If he didn't double down he would have lost his comedy credentials."
McPherson admitted his strategy doesn't come without "risk and collateral damage" because a lot of doors will be shut to him now.
"Is Matt Rife going to be hosting SNL anytime soon, no?" she added.
The 28-year-old began his standup career when he was 15, saw a huge rise in his following on TikTok, including getting more than 1 billion views on some of his videos.
Rife's other comedy specials include Matthew Steven Rife and Walking Red Flag. He also appeared on shows such as Wild 'n Out, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Fresh Off the Boat.
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