Where the Hell is Matt

Matt Harding...now here's a weird guy for you. Professionally speaking, the Connecticut born is a video game designer. But many people don't know him that way. He is more popularly known as "Dancing Matt" for his viral videos that show him dancing in front of landmarks and street scenes in various locations around the globe. Hit "Matt Dancing" on YouTube, and you will get a list of videos showing a guy dancing: a big, doughy-looking fellow in shorts and hiking boots performing an arm-swinging, knee-pumping step that could charitably be called goofy. It’s the kind of semi-ironic dance that school boys do by themselves when they are sure that no one is looking.

He started doing it at work, years ago, when he was living in Brisbane, Australia. Now he’s on the streets in Mumbai one minute, balanced on the Giant’s Causeway rock formation in Northern Ireland the next, and then he’s in a tulip field in the Netherlands or in front of a geyser in Iceland. Sometimes Mr. Harding dances alone. On a Christmas Island beach he has an audience of crabs, and on Madagascar he performs for lemurs. But more often — and this accounts for much of the video’s appeal — he’s in the company of others: South African street children in Soweto, bushmen in New Guinea, Bollywood-style dancers in India, some oddly costumed waitresses in Tokyo, crowds of free spirits in Paris, Madrid and rainy Montreal, all copying, or trying to, his flailing chicken-step. Mr. Harding even dances for a lone military policeman (unmoved to join him) in the Korean demilitarized zone.