Tag: Hoaxes About Hoaxes View All Tags
Tags: Hoaxes About Hoaxes / Hoaxes / Where The Hell is Matt? / → All Tags
Teachable Moments: What the 'Where The Hell is Matt?' Pseudo-Hoax Says About Us
Funny story: I was surfing the web last Saturday, looking for travel-related items that might make for good Jaunted fodder, when I came across a video featuring Matt from the Where The Hell is Matt? series. Having enjoyed his original videos - in which former computer guy Matt Harding does a nerdy dance in exotic locations as downtempo music plays in the background - I gave it a click, expecting a few chuckles.
In the video, Matt addresses a crowd at the Entertainment Gathering conference in California last December, nervously narrating a slide show that purports to reveal that the whole Where The Hell is Matt? series was a hoax. Telegraphing his punchlines and sabotaging any effort at deadpan delivery, Matt talked about how he was really an actor, and the videos were created by a viral ad agency using robots and cutting-edge video technology to dupe a gullible public.
It's clear from watching the video that nobody in the audience believed Matt was serious about his travels being faked, but they laughed at the appropriate times as he stiffly read his lines off index cards. I was left thinking that the joke was funny in concept and lame in execution, but nonetheless worth sharing with Jaunted readers. Thus, I typed up an entry entitled Matt Comes Clean: He Was Faking It All Along.
