Matthew Harding (born September 27, 1976) is an American traveler,

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

designer, and

Internet celebrity An Internet celebrity, also referred to as an Internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large ...

who is known as Dancing Matt, for his

viral video Viral videos are video, videos that become popular through viral phenomenon, a viral process of Internet sharing, primarily through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhon ...

s 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 Broadcasting is the distribution of audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began wit ...

outlets, and was hired by

Visa Visa most commonly refers to: * Travel visa, a document that allows entry to a foreign country * Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Vi ...

to star in their ''Travel Happy'' campaign in 2008. He is originally from

Westport, Connecticut Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Located in the Gold Coast (Connecticut), Gold Coast along the Long Island Sound, it is northeast of New York City and is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region, Connec ...

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 Wilton is a New England town, town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the town population was 18,503. The town is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region, Connecticut, Wester ...

, and then as a software developer for

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

and then

Brisbane, Queensland Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

. Harding claims that a sarcastic joke about the popularity of

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a Video game genre, subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain typ ...

games led

Pandemic Studios Pandemic Studios, LLC was an American video game developer based in Westwood, Los Angeles. Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick founded the studio in 1998 after leaving Activision. Pandemic Studios, alongside BioWare, was acquired in 2005 by Elevation ...

to develop the game ''

Destroy All Humans! ''Destroy All Humans!'' is an open world action-adventure video game franchise that is designed as a parody of Cold War-era alien invasion films. '' Destroy All Humans!'' and '' Destroy All Humans! 2'' were released for the PlayStation 2 and X ...

'', 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.

''Where the Hell is Matt?'' videos

''Where the Hell is Matt?'' is an

Internet phenomenon Internet phenomena are social and cultural phenomena specific to the Internet, such as Internet memes, which include popular catchphrases, images, viral videos, and jokes. When such fads and sensations occur online, they tend to grow rapidly ...

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 Deep Forest is a French music project that originally began as a duo consisting of Michel Sanchez (musician), Michel Sanchez and Éric Mouquet. They compose a style of world music, sometimes called ethnic electronica, mixing ethnic with electro ...

. The video garnered popularity on the video sharing site

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. There are now five major videos plus

outtake An outtake is a portion of a work (usually a film or music recording) that is removed in the editing process and not included in the work's final, publicly released version. In the digital era, significant outtakes have been appended to CD and D ...

s 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.'' *''Dancing 2005'': filmed from 2003 to 2004 (15 countries and 4 US states) *''Dancing 2006'': filmed from 2005 to 2006 (28 countries,

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

, 6 US states, and 1 US territory

Guam Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...

) *''Dancing 2008'': filmed from 2007 to 2008 (42 countries, 8 US states and the District of Columbia, and 3 Canadian provinces) *''Dancing 2010'': filmed in 2010 (note this was filmed exclusively in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

to promote the

2010 World Cup The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. ...

) *''Dancing 2012'': filmed from 2011 to 2012 (40 countries, 13 US states and

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

, and 1 Canadian province) *''Dancing 2016'': (15 countries, 12 US states and the District of Columbia, and 2 Canadian provinces) However, some of these locations are repeated in different videos, such as

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, or

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. Therefore, as of the filming of ''Dancing 2016'', Matt had visited approximately 99 countries, 21 states,

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

, 4 Canadian provinces, and

. In 2007,

Jawed Karim Jawed Karim (born October 28, 1979) is an American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur. He is one of the co-founders of YouTube and the first person to upload a video to the site. The site's inaugural video, "Me at the zoo", uploaded o ...

, one of the founders of YouTube, stated that Harding's video was his favorite on YouTube at that time. In November 2008, Matt and the vocalist Palbasha were interviewed by KFAI radio in Minnesota. The interview focused on how the "Dance 2008" project came to include Palbasha.

Video game development credits

Harding's development credits include: * '' Zork: Grand Inquisitor'' (1997) * '' Battlezone'' (1998) * '' Battlezone II: Combat Commander'' (1999) * '' Dark Reign 2'' (2000) * '' Army Men: RTS '' (2002) * ''

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'' (also simply known as ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'') is a 2004 American black comedy adventure film directed by Brad Silberling from a screenplay by Robert Gordon, based on the first th ...

'' (2004) * ''

'' (2005) * '' Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow'' (2006)

References

External links

Official homepage and blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harding, Matt 1976 births American humanists American video game designers Living people YouTubers from Brisbane People from Westport, Connecticut YouTubers from Los Angeles YouTubers from Seattle Viral videos