Move over Umbrella Academy, Netflix has a new number one show

The Umbrella Academy is the number one Netflix show globally, but in the US one man is holding it off the top spot.

That man is Matt Rife. His Lucid comedy special is the most popular piece of TV content in the US right now according to Flixpatrol.

This isn’t a normal comedy special either, but one focused on audience interaction. It’s “a crowd work special” that feeds off what the audience says.

The special is also the top Netflix show in Slovenia and Iceland, and is currently number three in the UK.

Who is Matt Rife? He’s a bit of a comedy sensation at present, a 28-year-old with an enviable jawline and social media presence. He caused a stir in 2023 after a previous special made light of domestic violence.

The Variety review slots this into the Netflix comedy special toy box inhabited by the likes of Joe Rogan, whose recent special Burn the Boats shot to the top of the Netflix charts just days ago.

“The onetime home of Maria Bamford’s wacky, ingenious “Lady Dynamite” now partners with the likes of Rife, Joe Rogan and Shane Gillis: plainspoken men who are sometimes controversial in an exhausting, culture war sort of way, but mostly offer low-effort laughs,” says Variety.

We’re yet to see how popular Matt Rife’s comedy special is in terms of views. But it’s in competition with Rogan. His Burn the Boats racked up 5.4 million watches its first two weeks on stream.

Sure, that may not sound like a lot by YouTube standards, but Netflix figures are based on total time watched. Clicking, watching the first few seconds and then bouncing off doesn’t count here.

Rife’s last Netflix special, Natural Selection, was watched an impressive 12.7 million times in 2023, making it the 107th most popular piece of TV content in the second half of the year.

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