Matt Harding
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Matt Harding | |
 Matt Harding in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, Japan on January 27, 2007. |
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| Background information | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Matthew Harding |
| Born | September 27, 1976 |
| Internet activity | |
| Web alias(es) | Matt |
| Host service(s) | YouTube |
| Meme | Where the Hell is Matt? |
| Official site | http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/ |
Matthew "Matt" Harding, (born September 27, 1976) is an American video game designer and Internet celebrity known as Dancing Matt for his viral videos that show him dancing in front of landmarks and street scenes in various international locations. Harding has since received widespread coverage of his travel exploits in major print and broadcast media outlets,[1][2][3][4][5] and was hired by Visa to star in their Travel Happy campaign.[6]
He is originally from Westport, Connecticut.[7] He began his game industry career working for a video game specialty store called Cutting Edge Entertainment. Harding later worked as an editor for GameWeek Magazine in Wilton, Connecticut, and then as a software developer for Activision in Santa Monica, California and then Brisbane, Australia.
Harding claims that a sarcastic joke about the popularity of shoot 'em up games led Pandemic Studios to develop the game Destroy All Humans!, on which he received a conceptual credit. Saying he "didn't want to spend two years of my life writing a game about killing everyone", he quit his job and began traveling, leading to the production of his first video.[8]
On 11 December 2008, Matt Harding sarcastically revealed at the Entertainment Gathering that the videos were a hoax and that he is an actor, not a game designer, and the videos were made using animatronic puppets and extensive video editing.[9] A month later, during the MacWorld convention, Matt revealed the "hoax about the hoax" and joked about the fact many people took it seriously and the outrage it caused. He also made it very clear that the videos he made were indeed 100% real.[10]
Contents |
[edit] Where the Hell is Matt?
Harding was known by his friends for a particular dance, and while videotaping each other in Vietnam, his travel companion suggested he add the dance. The videos were uploaded to his website for friends and family to enjoy. Later, Harding edited together 15 dance scenes, all with him center frame, with the background music "Sweet Lullaby (Nature's Dancing 7" Mix)", a 1992 world music song by Deep Forest. The original Song that uses lyrics from a dying Solomon Islands language was recorded in 1971 by a French ethnomusicologist at the Solomon Islands near Papua New Guinea. The Song, Rorogwela, was sung by a young woman named Afunakwa. According to the video "Where the Hell is Afunakwa" by Matt Harding, Afunakwa died in 1998.
The video was passed around by e-mail and eventually became viral, with his server getting 20,000 or more hits a day as it was discovered, generally country by country due to language barriers, before the launch of major video upload sites.
Harding created a second version of the video in 2006, with additional dancing scenes from subsequent travels, called "Dancing 2006". At the request of Stride, a gum brand, he accepted sponsorship[11] of this video, since he usually travels on a limited budget.
His videos are viewable on YouTube, Google Video, Vimeo and his own site wherethehellismatt.com. His second video has been watched 19,860,041 times on YouTube as of March 31, 2009 and Harding's YouTube channel is ranked "#83 - Most Subscribed (All Time) - Directors" as of March 31, 2009.[12][13] Harding released his third dancing video on June 20, 2008. The video is the product of 14 months of traveling in 42 countries. The background music/song of this video is called as "Praan" composed by Garry Schyman and sung by Palbasha Siddique, with lyrics adapted from the poem "Stream of Life," a part of the Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore.[14]
[edit] Major media coverage
Matt's video clips have appeared on television shows including:
- The Screen Savers (March 17, 2005)
- MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann (August 18, 2005)
- Inside Edition (August 19, 2005)
- The Ellen DeGeneres Show (October 10, 2005)
- Rude Tube (February 15, 2008)
- 40 Greatest Internet Celebrities on VH1
- Jimmy Kimmel Live (August 6, 2008)
- Enough Rope (August 18, 2008)
- The Daily Show (November 6, 2008)
Matt was bumped from Good Morning America on September 8, 2005, due to coverage of Hurricane Katrina, but appeared May 31, 2006, dancing outside the GMA studio in Times Square with footage from his videos displayed on the Panasonic Astro Vision screen on One Times Square.
In November 2006, Harding was invited to lecture at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont about the experience of making the video and subsequent fame. He also was filmed dancing with students from the college.[15]
In 2007, Jawed Karim, one of the founders of YouTube, stated that Harding's video is his favorite video posted to Youtube. [16]
On July 22, 2008 NASA featured Harding's 3rd video on their APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) website, titled "Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth", making claim of humans worldwide sharing a common love of dance. The website states that "few people are able to watch the above video without smiling".[17]
[edit] Videos
[edit] Videogame development credits
Harding's development credits include:[18]
- Destroy All Humans!
- Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
- Army Men RTS
- Dark Reign 2
- Battlezone II: Combat Commander
- Battlezone
- Zork: Grand Inquisitor
[edit] Parodies
- On the FX sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Matt Harding is parodied on episode "Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire" by "The Dancing Guy" (a bald local celebrity on a local access channel that dances to rave music in front of different shots of nature while wearing nothing but his underwear or a diaper).
[edit] References
- ^ Benji Lanyado (December 23, 2006). "Dance, dance, wherever you may be". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2008-07-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5ZDNiue2N. Retrieved on 2006-12-28. "In the year we became obsessed with YouTube and MySpace, perhaps it's no surprise that a blog of a bloke doing a silly dance around the world got five million hits [...] Tis the season to give out awards. So, here's another one. My award for Alternative Travel Hero for 2006 goes to (cue drum roll, split screen of smiling nominees) ... Matt Harding."
- ^ Andrea Sachs (October 22, 2006). "The Guy Who Danced Around the Globe". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2008-07-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5ZDM15iMn. Retrieved on 2006-12-28. "So, where the hell is Matt? We found him in Seattle, but before that, Matt Harding, 30, was everywhere. In 2003, the video-game maker performed a silly free-form dance in more than a dozen countries, which he filmed and then posted on his Web site at http://www.wherethehellismatt.com."
- ^ James Gilden (September 3, 2006). "Amateurs' talent: Giving us a local perspective on the world". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-internet3sep03,1,6277665.column?coll=la-travel-headlines. Retrieved on 2006-12-28. "THE man in the video is doing some sort of quirky dance in a foreign land, arms flailing and flopping, feet moving as if walking over hot coals. There is nothing graceful or beautiful about the dance. Nonetheless it communicates an infectious joy that defies easy characterization. In short, it is fun to watch. [...] "It's just something I've always done," said Matt Harding, who created and stars in the video. "It's that dance that kids do when they're 2 or 3 years old."
- ^ Kristin Jackson (October 5, 2006). "Dancing around the world (and Web)". Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 2008-07-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5ZDNzonS2. Retrieved on 2006-12-28. "It's a 20-something's fantasy: Travel around the world, dance a lot and get paid to do it. [...] Matt Harding of Seattle made that dream come true. And he's turning into an Internet star, thanks to a short video he made of his recent trip that's become wildly popular on the Web."
- ^ Mike Musgrove (July 13, 2008). "Product Placement Creeps Into Amateurs' YouTube Offerings". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/12/AR2008071200141.html. Retrieved on 2008-07-14. "Matt Harding has this silly dance he does, this running-in-place thing where he waves his arms around spastically. If it had a name, you might call it the Excited Toddler."
- ^ Travel the world with the currency of the world, 20 November 2008. Press release by Visa. "Visa's new travel-focused commercial recreates the dance made famous by internet celebrity Matt Harding in his self-made quirky video travel diaries."
- ^ McGrath, Charles (2008-07-08). "A Private Dance? Four Million Web Fans Say No". New York Times. Archived from the original on 2008-07-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5ZDP8FJWx. Retrieved on 2008-07-08. "Mr. Harding, who grew up in Westport, Conn., skipped college at the suggestion of his father,"
- ^ Jordan Smith (August 26, 2005). "Dancing Matt coming to town". Austin Chronicle. Archived from the original on 2008-07-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5ZDPxw6P5. Retrieved on 2006-12-16. "Harding didn't. "I … didn't want to spend two years of my life writing a game about killing everyone," he said"
- ^ "Matt Harding: Where the Hell is Matt? a Hoax". FORA.tv. December 11, 2008. http://fora.tv/2008/12/11/Matt_Harding_Where_The_Hell_Is_Matt_an_Elaborate_Hoax.
- ^ "Not to dwell but...". January 09, 2009. http://wherethehellismatt.typepad.com/blog/2009/01/seattle-washington-not-to-dwell-but.html.
- ^ "Meet Matt". Stride gum. Archived from the original on 2007-03-20. http://web.archive.org/web/20070320072824/http://www.stridegum.com/whereismatt.asp. Retrieved on 2006-12-16. "We really liked the idea of a ridiculously long dance round the world. So we supported him on his second tour."
- ^ "mattharding2718 Channel". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2008-07-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5ZDQqM8Ds. Retrieved on 2007-03-15. "#100 - Most Subscribed (All Time) - Directors #12 - Most Viewed (This Month) #7 - Most Viewed (This Month) - Directors"
- ^ "Directors - Most Subscribed (All Time)". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2008-07-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5ZDR6GJyJ. Retrieved on 2008-07-10. "#99"
- ^ "where the hell is matt". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY&fmt=22. Retrieved on 2009-02-07.
- ^ Harding, Matt (2006-12-14). ""Where the Hell is Matt?" Lecture Part 1 of 3". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2008-08-29. http://www.webcitation.org/5aRZyWIFg. Retrieved on 2008-08-29.
- ^ "YouTube co-founder tells grads to be persistent, take risks". http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/news/articles.php?id=2007May15-266. Retrieved on 2008-10-14.
- ^ "Astronomy Picture of the Day". ASD at NASA. 2008-07-22. Archived from the original on 2008-08-29. http://www.webcitation.org/5aRaALDTS. Retrieved on 2008-08-29.
- ^ "Matthew Harding". MobyGames. Archived from the original on 2008-07-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5ZDVnibB0. Retrieved on 2008-07-10. "Games Credited Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow (2006), Bethesda Softworks LLC [...] Destroy All Humans! (2005), THQ Inc. [...] Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), Activision Publishing, Inc. [...] Army Men RTS (2002), 3DO Company, The [...] Dark Reign 2 (2000), Activision Publishing, Inc. [...] Battlezone II: Combat Commander (1999), Activision Publishing, Inc. [...] Battlezone (1998), Activision, Inc. [...] Zork: Grand Inquisitor (1997), Activision, Inc."
