Matt Follows Up

Do you remember Matt, who danced his way across the world with a bunch of strangers? The video was one of the most popular viral videos of 2008. I found it joyful and brilliant and elevating.

Then I read an article yesterday talking about how he’s faced a lot of skeptics, saying the video is “fake”. Here is his response:

I love this guy. What an attitude.

However, I did find this response a bit disappointing, because I learned that the video was not quite as indie and viral as I’d originally assumed. As it turns out (gleaned from Matt’s web page), there was a real, individual “dancing” video made back in 2005. This is it:

Still beautiful, still uplifting. As it turns out, this was also a viral success, though on a far smaller scale. It was such a success that Matt found himself a sponsor in Stride gum company, and talked them into funding another trip around the world where he’d have the opportunity to dance with people who had written him about his first video. Stride no doubt assisted him with access to the more difficult locations (like the weightless jet, the Papua New Guinea tribesmen, the dancing next to the guard in the DMZ, etc.) And thus you got the Hi-def “Where the Hell is Matt” that we all enjoyed last year.

I think it’s an amazing story, and in the end, I don’t care that it wasn’t as “indie” as I’d assumed. It was still gorgeous. Good on Matt for being so creative, and managing to make a living out his silliness. Good on Stride for giving this guy a little money (and it was probably a very little, in the scheme of things) to create such an uplifting piece of art. Good on the people of the world for participating.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what I do for a living as art, though perhaps I should, I know that when I’m writing, I want people to be uplifted and transformed. I want their hearts to pound in the romantic scenes, I want them to grow breathless in the action sequences. I want them to laugh and to cry, to be swept away in the story, even if it’s only for three or four hundred pages. And that’s what good art can do. When I watch Matt, I feel something big stir inside me. I want to create that in the reader.