Matt Harding Explained

Matt Harding
Birth Name:Matthew Harding
Birth Date:27 September 1976
Birth Place:Norwalk, Connecticut

Matthew Harding (born September 27, 1976) is an American traveler, video game designer, and Internet celebrity who is 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 in 2008.[6]

He is originally from Westport, Connecticut.[7]

Video-Game developer

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, Queensland.

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. He said, "...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, which was uploaded to YouTube in July 2006.[8]

Where the Hell is Matt? videos

See main article: Where the Hell is Matt?.

Where the Hell is Matt? is an Internet phenomenon that features a video of Matt, aka Dancing Matt, doing a dance "jig" in many different places around the world in 2005–2006. The background music in the video is the song "Sweet Lullaby Dancing Remix" by Deep Forest. The video garnered popularity on the video sharing site YouTube. There are now five major videos plus outtakes and background videos on YouTube.

The titles in the five major videos are all titled Dancing without the year in the videos; Harding labels them as Where the Hell is Matt? (year) on YouTube. The 2012 YouTube titles have also been titled Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth as well as Happy New Year! Peace on Earth in 2013.

However, some of these locations are repeated in different videos, such as San Francisco, New York City, or Papua New Guinea. Therefore, as of the filming of Dancing 2016, Matt had visited approximately 99 countries, 21 states, Washington, DC, Guam, Puerto Rico, 4 Canadian provinces, and Antarctica.

In 2007, Jawed Karim, one of the founders of YouTube, stated that Harding's video was his favorite on YouTube at that time.[9]

In November 2008, Matt and the vocalist Palbasha were interviewed by KFAI radio in Minnesota.[10] The interview focused on how the "Dance 2008" project came to include Palbasha.

Video game development credits

Harding's development credits include:[11]

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Dance, dance, wherever you may be . Benji Lanyado . December 23, 2006 . The Guardian . 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. . https://web.archive.org/web/20080701023441/http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2006/dec/23/budget.saturday.egypt . July 1, 2008 . dead.
  2. News: The Guy Who Danced Around the Globe . Andrea Sachs . October 22, 2006 . Washington Post . 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. . https://web.archive.org/web/20080829230901/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102000373.html . August 29, 2008 . dead.
  3. News: The Internet Traveler. James . Gilden. September 17, 2006. Kansas City Star. July 11, 2012. 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..
  4. News: Dancing around the world (and Web) . Kristin . Jackson . October 5, 2006 . Seattle Times . 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. . https://web.archive.org/web/20080917171214/http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2003172815_dancingguy06.html . September 17, 2008 . dead.
  5. News: Product Placement Creeps Into Amateurs' YouTube Offerings. Mike Musgrove. July 13, 2008. Washington Post. 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..
  6. 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."
  7. News: Charles. McGrath. A Private Dance? Four Million Web Fans Say No. New York Times. 2008-07-08. 2008-07-08. Mr. Harding, who grew up in Westport, Conn., skipped college at the suggestion of his father,. https://web.archive.org/web/20161117221507/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/arts/television/08dancer.html?ref=technology. live. 2016-11-17.
  8. News: Dancing Matt coming to town . Jordan Smith . August 26, 2005 . . 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 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070930190553/http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:286843 . 2007-09-30 . dead.
  9. Web site: YouTube co-founder tells grads to be persistent, take risks . 2008-10-14 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090313060505/http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/news/articles.php?id=2007May15-266 . March 13, 2009 . dead .
  10. Web site: Rajib interviews Matt Harding & Palbasha Siddique – KFAI – Pt. 1 . https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/ZEPlVmn5YLY . 2021-12-21 . live. . November 21, 2012.
  11. Web site: Matthew Harding . . 2008-07-10 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080628001927/http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,20581/ . 2008-06-28 . 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. . dead .

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