In Episode 2 of The Taylor Swift Archives, I wrote:
"Selena Gomez once spoke about this -- that she might have fans singing "Who Says" back to her at concerts, but she felt discouraged by the constant disrespect she received from the industry critics and executives, who didn't believe she was an artist worthy of legitimate praise. There's a video of Harry Styles skipping across stage at one of his concerts, joking that "we are serious artists", obviously poking fun at the fact that nobody really thought that. But why not? I've written about this phenomenon on this very blog before -- these "teenage girl" artists were massively successful by all measurable standards (because teenage girls propel the consumer economy), but somehow only begrudgingly accepted by the high-brow elites. Taylor Swift, prior to folklore, very much fell into this category. Magazines that reviewed her albums praised her album with an asterisk; 'it's good for a silly little girl writing about her silly little girl things', which was partially why it was so easy for the media to weaponize her romanticism against her."
And, well, call me clairvoyant because mere weeks later, Matt Rife's domestic violence joke has taken over the internet.
For context, Matt Rife is a young, conventionally attractive TikTok comedian. When his newly released Netflix special (titled "Natural Selection") opened with a domestic violence joke, fans were understandably quite angry. The special in question had more problematic jokes than I could possibly outline here -- misogyny, ableism, the works! -- and his response to the backlash was to post a link to... *checks notes*...special needs helmets. So...that's not great. But frankly, I was more bothered by an interview he gave ahead of the special's release, in which he seemed incredibly disgusted by the fact that his audience is primarily young-women.
I swear it's not all women! He assured his interviewer. Dudes come, too. Whole groups of them. Tons of men. Lots of testosterone in this audience. In fact, he later confessed, "Natural Selection" was specifically designed with his male audience in mind! Reading this interview, I was left with only one question: why?
Why is Rife so averse to his own fans? After years of being sustained by his female fans' support (without which he never would've been able to secure his own Netflix special in the first place), why is his first televised comedy special "for the bros"? Why is he so eager to convince everyone that men show up to his shows? And somewhat as an aside, why is this what he views as "male-centric" comedy?
All of these questions answer themselves. It's embarrassing to Matt Rife that his audience is mostly women, because women cannot possibly be good markers of quality (especially in comedy). And so, he will spend the next phase of his career pandering to men, hoping to finally break into the ranks of Dave Chapelle (his self-admitted hero) & Co., because women might pump and funnel the economy and transform the lives of those they choose to support, but god forbid we respect how much it means for a woman to invest in someone wholeheartedly.
Side Note: I acknowledge that this post has very little to do with Taylor Swift, but it's my blog and I'll write about Matt Rife if I want to!
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