Matt Comes Clean: He Was Faking It All Along

Update: Just in case you don't watch Matt's own video, posted to the right, he explains that his dancing is indeed real and spectacular here...

I always thought there was something fishy about that Matt kid, but the truth is even worse than I could have imagined. That's right, after riding his cute "Where The Hell is Matt?" video series to internet stardom and a lucrative gum sponsorship, Matt Harding - world traveler, goofy dancer, and international goodwill ambassador - admitted that it was all an elaborate hoax. Matt's actually an actor, he's afraid of flying, and he's never left the country.

In a recent address to a technology conference, Matt confessed that the skeptics in the YouTube commenting community were right all along: "Where the Hell is Matt?" is essentially a Photoshop job, nothing more. Matt was hired by a viral marketing ad agency in New York named Buzzbrain to dance in a studio in front of a greenscreen, and the international settings - from the zero-gravity experience at Nellis Airspace in Nevada to the bouncing tribesmen in Poria, Papua New Guinea - were added during the production process.

The shop went so far as to create an army of robots to dance gleefully alongside Matt in many scenes, but he said it wasn't technology that enabled them to pull off the sham. It's the gullibility of people who want so badly to believe that all it takes to connect across cultures is a smile and the flailing of limbs. Take his rainy dance in Stone Town, Zanzibar. It could be anywhere, but we believe it's Stone Town because that's what it says on the screen. It's all so simple.

Now that the gig is up, Matt's really sorry and wants to make up for it by inviting everybody to dance with him for real this time. Fat chance. The millions of people who misted up while watching him dance around the world won't be hurt again. Our emotions aren't to be trifled with.

[Photo: Where The Hell is Matt?]

Related Stories:
· Matt Harding: Where The Hell is Matt? an 'Elaborate Hoax' [fora.tv]
· Where The Hell is Matt? [Official Site]
· Hoax Coverage [Jaunted]

Comments (12)

Return to » Matt Comes Clean: He Was Faking It All Along

Wow. Seriously? Something tells me this kid has a whole lot of e-hate and e-hurt feelings coming his way...

That's the part I'm really having trouble buying... Are there hoaxes within hoaxes at work here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Harding Jaunted, you were just making fun of all us gullible folk all along, weren't you? Now who's hurting whose feelings?

It is disappointing to learn that something so joyful and happy as his dancing around the world is fake. A world traveler myself, I wished I had thought of the real concept myself and had the time to go back to various sites and do the same thing. For real, I have been able to post a selection of images of me taken in various scenic spots around the world. Check it out at:

http://www.carousel-press.com/carole_on_location.html

As you can see, I actually gave Matt a link at the top of this page. It will stay for now, but with a new link revealing the scam.

One of the suckers,
Carole Terwilliger Meyers
http://travelswithcarole.blogspot.com

also why does everyone feel the need to fake everything these days???

Do you honestly think they got animatronic robots? Seriously? He's being sarcastic. He's making fun of the people who think it was a hoax.

I'm not trying to cover up the fact I bought it. I'm just saying I think the act in saying it is a hoax may be the hoax. This sucks now! Either way I still liked the video!

So Matt's claim that the video is a hoax, is a hoax? Wow this is confusing. Stride gum actually paid him some sponsorship $, and the site is still up here: http://www.stridegum.com/#/mattsplace/. Jaunted needs to interview Matt and ask him some point blank questions. If you watch the video, it definitely looks suspect.

well now this clears everything up: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/643fac7cb2/where-the-f-is-matt-from-whereismatt

that's my final answer. although some of those videos do look really suspect!

This video is obviously a joke. Please kill yourselves if you actually thought it was a hoax.

and the funny thing is, the whole dancing Matt thing really annoyed me before but now that I've seen his presentation I've got a much better opinion of him! He has a proper Australian sense of humour, I think he's secretly an Aussie.

Jaunted

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