Shorts: Where is Matt Dancing Today?
Posted on July 8, 2008 at 8:00 am
In 2006, a semi-slacker named Matt traveled around the world doing what he referred to as his dance. While he acknowledged that this is the only dance he can do and he does it badly, even that is probably saying too much. It’s more of a mash-up between jogging, a sailor’s hornpipe, and a leprechaun-ish little hop. But it is so undeniably entertaining that we’ll humor him and call it a dance. And somehow, when you see him in front of such a wide a variety of locations, it is endearing and inspiring. The people at Stride gum thought so, too, and so they gave Matt some money to travel around the world and make videos of himself doing his little dance. He made a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents.
Matt visited a lot of new locations, including my beloved Chicago Bean, and has now posted a new video. It is available only as a link at the moment, but please take a look at it. Remember the old advice to “dance as if no one is watching?” Matt dances as if he hopes everyone is watching and will join in. I promise, this is one of the most heartwarming little films you will ever see.
The song is great, but I cannot imagine what caused Stride to fund a six month world tour for Matt, as opposed to the fifty million other goofy people with goofy dances. There has to be a story there.
A lot of people have goofy dances but he seems to be the only one who wants to do his goofy dance in so many places. Stride has had a lot of great coverage from Matt’s travels.
The story behind Stride’s sponsorship is their understanding of today’s market and some brilliant person in their marketing department talking the bean counters into it. Matt’s first video was already getting thousands of hits per day before he was contacted by Stride. They saw the potential of that kind of exposure. They wanted to be the “cool guys” behind Matt’s “semi-fame” (as he puts it.) Personally, I love what Matt has done, particularly with the locals’ involvement in the 2008 video. It’s a positive, preach-less, feel good video. As my Mom said after watching it, “That is something we should all see every morning to start us off with a smile.”
Exactly right, SpiderMonkey! Here we are talking about Stride, which proves how savvy that marketing department person was. And I feel exactly the same way your mother does. Matt and his project are a great ambassador from us to the world and from the world to us.