Um.

Comedian Matt Rife set it off.

How you feeling?

Let's do it.

Is gearing up for a big show. The fans eager and ready to see the man whose jokes have dominated their social media. The 28 year old is back home in Ohio, where his career began when he was just a teenager. This night, one of more than 100 sold out shows dubbed the Problematic Tour.

Happy to be home, man.

Something about Ohio.

Looking forward to this leg of the tour. Ohio somehow always and never disappoint at the exact same time.

All of this seemed unlikely a year ago.

The shows I was doing a year and a half ago were, I'm flying across the country, middle seat, Southwest C 21 boarding group to go. Probably lose money. You could only take so much rejection and sacrifice before you're finally like, okay, this might not actually pay out for me. And I had so many moments in my career up 13 months ago, I wanted to quit everything.

But Reif has gone from almost quitting comedy to reaching a milestone peak in his career.

We're doing Netflix, baby.

A new Netflix special debuting this week called Natural Selection.

If I hear one more person blame how their life is going on Mercury, I will kill you myself. Do you understand? You leave that planet alone.

His comedy going viral, earning him more than 18 million followers on TikTok and heartthrob status amongst some of his adoring fans.

You're a grandma.

Chair to use.

So for that very small group of people who don't have the Internet or who are not scrolling on their phones, what can they expect to see when they come to a notorious Matt Rife show?

Just a good time, dude. My style of show is I've always described it as just, like, a group hangout, and I'm the host. We're just having a fun conversation. One sided. I talk. Oh, man, I wish you would love listening to me.

A lot of his crowd work is, I think, some of his funniest stuff that he does just because fans get into it.

What's his thing that he's really good at?

So he's hyperlexic.

Hyperlexic?

What's that? He's very, very good with numbers, shapes. Colors.

Yeah. That dude about to rob a casino.

When did you realize you were funny, that you were that class clown?

I'd say about 14 years old. So it wasn't until I kind of discovered what stand up comedy was that I go, oh, people are funny for a living. This is a thing. The person who encouraged me the most was my grandfather.

I think it's a tale of as old as time is, people sort of pursuing creative jobs. The parents, their grandparents, kind of telling them, get a real job. Like, go focus on focus on school, focus on work. What did having that support system mean to you?

Nobody in my family has ever gone to college. Nobody. So there was never that pressure and the hometown I grew up in, nobody leaves the town, so I didn't really have anything to lose. So I think their support really came from ignorance as well, but in the best possible way. They had no idea what this could even possibly lead to. So I thank them for being ill informed.

By age 20, Rife had made it onto MTV's Wild and out.

It's my aunt and uncle. And they drove here from Aurora. After years of trying to smash Erkel finally got Laura.

But his real breakout moment came thanks to the Internet. The post that catapulted him to stardom is this one. Interacting with an audience member talking about her ex boyfriend.

He didn't do anything wrong or in life. He worked in the Er also. Are you working with a hero?

And over the next two days, it did like 20 million views. And then it just snowballed so quickly.

Rife decided to bet on himself, self releasing two specials on YouTube. The first called Only Fans, a nod to his good looks.

This just happened. Puberty hit me so disrespectfully late, I was ugly as for the first 22.

Years of my life, the second special called Matthew Stephen Reif nodding to his granddad Steve.

Apparently I'm not very PC. I'm not very politically correct. Sorry, I don't know if that term made it down here yet or not. You all don't seem to give a.

So when it comes to comedy. Would you say cancel culture is real or is it something that comedians are just sort of screaming at the sky about?

Cancel culture is definitely a real thing. I've lost fans, but the way I see it, I go that I'm just not for them. That's fine. You don't have to like me. Funny is subjective. I pride myself on being able to do the same jokes in front of different audiences in hopes that it brings everybody together collectively. How are you? I'm good, how are you?

But one person missing from the comics homecoming, his grandfather Steve, who passed away last November. This couple waiting to meet Rife had a touching surprise.

Before I make this awkward, have I met you guys before?

Yeah, I had.

They'd known his grandfather when he worked on their house.

So from the time you were like.

Work at your house?

No.

He was so proud of you.

You've talked about your goal.

This time you guys are going to make me cry. Please stop. I love so much that my fans have all the power of my career. I think what drives me is making them proud and making them laugh. I love you guys. Have a wonderful week. And if that's my only obligation for a job, I have the best job in the world.

Hi, everyone, George Stephanopoulos here. Thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel. If you'd like to get more videos, show highlights and watch live event coverage, click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel. And don't forget to download the ABC news app for breaking news alerts. Thanks for watching.