In November, the comedian Matt Rife released his first Netflix special, "Natural Selection." Early in the show he made a joke about domestic violence that many people took offense to. Since then, he’s clapped back at a number of people on social media (including a six-year-old boy), published a fake apology that linked to helmets for people with disabilities, and has been praised by many right-wing pundits, including the focus of today’s bonus episode, Jordan Peterson.
Derek looks at the escalation and rhetoric that’s occurred since the special, arguing that the real misogynistic thinking has taken place since the special first aired.
Note: Derek states that biologist EO Wilson is famous for popularizing the term "alpha male." This was actually primatologist Frans de Waal.
Show Notes
Bunny Hedaya claps back at Matt Rife
Should you rely on first instincts when answering a multiple choice exam?
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In November, the comedian Matt Reif released his first Netflix special, Natural Selection.
Early in the show, he made a joke about domestic violence that many people took offense to.
And since then, he's clapped back at a number of people online and on social media, including a six-year-old boy.
He also published a fake apology that linked to helmets for people with disabilities, and since he's been praised by many right-wing pundits, including the focus of today's bonus episode, Jordan Peterson.
And so I want to look at the escalation in rhetoric that's occurred since the special, This is Conspiratuality, where we investigate the intersection of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience, and authoritarian extremism, and that includes many of the figures that are contributing to that movement.
I'm Derek Barris.
So in a little bit, I'm going to play Rife's explanation about the joke in question, but I want to state off the top that I don't think that he's necessarily misogynistic for making a domestic violence joke.
Whether or not you agree with or like a comedian, their content doesn't necessarily reflect their personal views.
Now I personally think the joke was in bad taste, I didn't think it was funny.
But as Rife tells Peterson, his audience during the special laughed along, and his audience was predominantly women.
So I'm not really looking at this through the lens of that joke itself.
It's the way that he's responded, and specifically, some of the things both he and Peterson say during this 70-minute podcast that I suffered through.
That's really the heart of the problem here.
I also want to flag off the top a big-picture issue I have with my ever-evolving segment that's loosely titled, Men Talking to Other Men About What Women Want on Podcasts.
And if there's ever a candidate for that series, oh Jordan, you nailed it.
In a segment that gets orangutan mating habits all wrong, I'll explain that in a bit, Peterson makes the argument that men who stick up for women are really just trying to get into their pants.
Now you probably won't be surprised to learn that Matt Rife laughs along with this and agrees.
And you also won't be surprised that Joe Rogan has been spouting this nonsense for years.
This idea that men who stick up for or come to the defense of women are really just trying to get with them?
It's contagious in the podcast bro network.
And I know that this might be hard for them to understand, but there's a spectrum of men out here.
Some of us even have the audacity to treat women as equals, and yeah, we even speak up when creeps like you guys misread evolutionary biology to position yourselves as the brave cavemen who use clubs to bring home your catch.
Now you've long proven yourself incapable of even trying to understand gender dynamics and ideology.
Jordan, you made your name by screaming against a Canadian law that didn't even exist.
And all you do is complain about things you don't actually understand and then you bloviate on topics you half understand.
The fact that anyone would turn to you for advice on masculinity is a joke.
The type of man you idealize is a caricature of a fool.
And yet, in your tiny, tiny, limited worldview, you treat that man as a god.
Okay, so back to Matt Reif.
Now here he is complaining to Peterson about his critics.
And I just want to say, if you want to hear the original joke that I'm referencing, I'm not playing it on purpose.
You can find it.
It's pretty out there.
But let's hear him talking to Jordan.
If you're on this earth for such a limited amount of time, How insane is it to sit behind your phone and computer and complain about something you don't like when you have a world at your hands of all the things you do like?
What an absolute waste of energy, time, and emotion.
That's a really interesting perspective, Matt, considering you recently went after a six-year-old boy on TikTok.
You replied to Instagram, but it was originally on a TikTok, and you told the boy that his mom buys him gifts with the money she makes on OnlyFans.
