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, and was hired by Visa to star in their Travel Happy campaign.

He is originally from Westport, Connecticut. 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.

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. 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.

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" by "Deep Forest". The original Song uses samples from a dying Solomon Islands language which 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 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 24,699,622 times on YouTube as of November 2, 2009 and Harding's YouTube channel is ranked "#83 - Most Subscribed (All Time) - Directors" as of March 31, 2009.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 known 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.

As of August 2008, Harding is represented by Creative Artists Agency.

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.

In 2007, Jawed Karim, one of the founders of YouTube, stated that Harding's video is his favorite video posted to Youtube.

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". Harding himself has joked that he is impressed with this, especially since the video has nothing to do with astronomy, nor is a picture.

On November 2008, Matt and the vocalist Palbasha were interviewed by KFAI radio in Minnesota.. It is a behind-the-scene story about finding the musician.

Videos

First video

1. Beijing, China.
2. Hanoi, Vietnam.
3. Delhi, India.
4. Moscow, Russia.
5. Bangkok, Thailand.
6. Agra, India.
7. Prague, Czech Republic.
8. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
9. Bengal Jungle, India.
10. Los Angeles, California.
11. Suhbaatar, Mongolia.
12. Kilimanjaro Summit, Tanzania.
13. Siberia, Russia.
14. Monte Alban, Mexico.
15. Tsavo, Kenya.
16. Impenetrable Forest, Uganda.
17. Yangon, Myanmar.
18. Westport, Connecticut.
19. Seattle, Washington.
20. New York, New York.

Second video

1. Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.
2. Petra, Jordan.
3. Machu Picchu, Peru.
4. Venice, Italy.
5. Tokyo, Japan.
6. Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
7. Brisbane, Australia.
8. Luang Prabang, Laos.
9. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.
10. Area 51, Nevada.
11. Tikal, Guatemala.
12. Half Moon Caye, Belize.
13. Sossusvlei, Namibia.
14. Routeburn Valley, New Zealand.
15. Monument Valley, Arizona.
16. South Shetland Islands.
17. Chuuk, Micronesia.
18. London, England.
19. Very Large Array, New Mexico.
20. Abu Simbel, Egypt.
21. Easter Island, Chile.
22. Haute-Picardie, France.
23. Mutianyu, China.
24. New York, New York.
25. Ephesus, Turkey.
26. Guam.
27. Mokolodi, Botswana.
28. Berlin, Germany.
29. Sydney, Australia.
30. Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
31. Rock Islands, Palau.
32. Mulindi, Rwanda.
33. Neko Harbour, Antarctica.
34. Kjeragbolten, Norway.
35. San Francisco, California.
36. Seattle, Washington.

Third video

1. Mumbai, India
2. Paro, Bhutan
3. Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland
4. Stone Town, Zanzibar
5. Lancelin, Australia
6. Lisse, Netherlands
7. Christmas Island, Australia
8. Kuwait City, Kuwait
9. Teotihuacán, Mexico
10. Seljalandsfoss, Iceland
    1. (Quick scenes of transition from dancing alone to with others) Dublin, Ireland
    2. Boston, Massachusetts, United States
    3. Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    4. Atomium, Brussels, Belgium
    5. Praça do Comércio, Lisbon, Portugal
    6. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
    7. Paris, France
    8. San Francisco, California, United States
    9. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
    10. Washington DC, United States
    11. Chicago, Illinois
11. Madrid, Spain
12. Antseranana, Madagascar
13. Brisbane, Australia
14. Dublin, Ireland
15. Buenos Aires, Argentina
16. Chakachino, Zambia
17. Istanbul, Turkey
18. Wainivilase, Fiji
19. London, England
20. Stockholm, Sweden
21. Auki, Solomon Islands
22. Sana'a, Yemen
23. Ala Archa Gorge, Kyrgyzstan
24. Tagaytay, Philippines
25. Demilitarized Zone, Korea
26. Timbuktu, Mali
27. Warsaw, Poland
28. Austin, Texas
29. Tokyo, Japan
30. Poria, Papua New Guinea
31. Miami, Florida
32. Munich, Germany
33. Tongatapu, Tonga
34. Chicago, Illinois
35. Thimphu, Bhutan
36. Gurgaon, India
37. Sydney, Australia
38. Lisbon, Portugal
39. Seoul, South Korea
40. Soweto, South Africa
41. New York, New York.
42. Tokyo, Japan
43. Vava'u, Tonga
44. Cape of Good Hope, South Africa
45. Panama Canal, Panama
46. Wadi Rum, Jordan
47. Lemur Island, Madagascar
48. Auckland, New Zealand
49. Batik, Morocco
50. Amsterdam, Netherlands
51. Atlanta, Georgia
52. Mexico City, Mexico
53. Brussels, Belgium
54. San Francisco, California
55. Taipei, Taiwan
56. Vancouver, British Columbia
57. Washington DC, United States.
58. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
59. Cologne, Germany
60. Singapore
61. Alhambra, California
62. Tel Aviv, Israel
63. East Jerusalem, West Bank
64. Paris, France
65. Montreal, Quebec
66. Nellis Airspace, Nevada
67. Los Angeles, California
68. Sao Paulo, Brazil
69. Seattle, Washington

Videogame development credits

Harding's development credits include:

• 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

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).

• College Humor created a video Where the Hell is Matt's Girlfriend which depicts Matt's girlfriend cheating on him as he dances around the world.

References

1. 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."

External links

• Official homepage and blog