The Cringiest Crowdwork In Matt Rife's New Christmas Special

Picking the cringiest moment in a Matt Rife crowdwork set is like choosing the roundest marble in a bag full of ‘em. Is the shiftiest point in Matt Rife: Unwrapped — A Christmas Crowdwork Special when the square-jawed comic suggests a man’s girlfriend is wearing a cast because she didn’t do enough housework? Or is it the bit when he introduces his cameraman, who has the hots for Latinas, to a Mexican woman in the audience for a racial-fetish love connection? 

Rife knows what the people want, which is why he dives right into the cringe near the top of the show. In a preplanned bit that constitutes “crowdwork” because he seeks out audience members of color, he proclaims he loves a white Christmas. “I’m sure a Black Christmas is fun, too,” he says to a Black guy in the crowd. “I’m sure it’s equally as fun. I’ve just never been invited.”

Christmas is great, but Black holidays are second best, Rife tells us. Which holidays? Juneteenth, that new one. Friday. (Black Friday — get it?) Ash Wednesday. 

Yikes. The special cuts to the crowd reaction on the Ash Wednesday line — notice who’s grinning and who’s not. 

Cut to another Black guy in the crowd, who simply mouths the word, “Wow.”

There’s more race-baiting to come, asking a Black woman to explain Kwanzaa, wondering about all the Black Santas who’ve visited the Kardashian house and speculating about the Black version of White Elephant gift exchanges (the presents start out stolen). Might as well throw in the obligatory trans joke while he’s at it, referring to Caitlin Jenner coming down the chimney as Tranna Claus. “You made me racist for no reason!” he tells another young woman, but of course there’s a reason. It’s red meat for social media.

Is any of this actually offensive? For sure, at least to some viewers. But it’s lazier than that. Rife is playing the dumb hits here, pushing the same tired racial and gender buttons that he knows will get people arguing in the comments section. None of it is particularly clever or funny once you get past the gasp of “Did Rife really say that?” But because we expect him to go there, he doesn’t even earn those cheap shock laughs. 

The funniest part of Rife’s special might be that it’s another crowdwork exercise, his second in a row for Netflix after complaining in his first effort that people don’t think he can write an hour of actual jokes. He tries to split the difference here, doing a few minutes of written material (boys give up Santa Claus when they discover masturbation), before quizzing the crowd about their holiday traditions. 

Near the end of the special, Rife talks about getting on the naughty list, and that’s entirely the point of this hour. His last Netflix special, Lucid, did just fine, but didn’t get nearly the buzz of his first, Natural Selection, which pissed off so many with its jokes about domestic violence. Can Unwrapped deliver the same kind of online vitriol? Too soon to tell, but Rife clearly wants some Christmas controversy under the tree this year.