"Dancing Guy" strikes again -- in the best possible way.
If Matt Harding's name isn't familiar to you, his dance moves might be. Harding is better known as the star of the YouTube video "Where the Hell Is Matt?" -- and, in that, perhaps best known as Dancing Guy. Capital D, Capital G. In 2005, Harding posted a YouTube video of himself dancing -- well, "dancing" -- in locations across the globe, celebrating his presence in each spot by doing what can only be described as a manically maniacal jig.
"Where the Hell Is Matt?" is totally joyful and totally charming, and, with its "We Are the World"-meets-"Jackass" vibe, it went totally viral. The original video has nearly 3 million views. Harding, newly minted YouTube Celebrity, followed up that original piece with another, in 2006, along the same lines: jiggy and jiggly and jolly. Together, the videos treated Harding's dance as an awesome little metaphor -- for fun, for community, for traveling, for the great things that can come when people get together and make fools of themselves. The New York Times called the video "an almost perfect piece of Internet art." And it made Matt Harding, Dancing Guy, into the best kind of Internet meme: an earnest one.