Remember, we’re all lost together, everywhere the same.
—Garry Schyman, Alicia Lemke, & Matt Harding, “We’re Going to Trip the Light”
Here’s another story for you all today about how life works and who we are.
There’s this guy named Matt. You might know about him. He’s a perfectly ordinary American who lives in Seattle with his wife and baby. Some years ago Matt and a friend made a short video of Matt doing a bizarre little awkward dance he does, in dozens of quick moments in dozens of countries, all edited together and set to music.
He called it Where the Hell is Matt?
And he released it on the Internet.
It went viral, and by the next year he was getting pretty well-known for his random global dance (he calls it “bad dancing”), and he got a sponsor. So he made another video, this one slightly more coordinated. In some places he’s dancing in front of historical monuments, and in other places he’s dancing in nowhere in particular. In Rwanda a small gang of laughing children dances with him. But he’s still mostly just dancing his heart out alone, all across the planet.
He called it Where the Hell is Matt? 2006
And again he released it on the Internet.
Then something utterly extraordinary happened.
It occurred to Matt that the small gang of laughing children in Rwanda is the whole point of his story. (You all knows about the whole point of a story, right?) So he and his crew made another video, this one set to a haunting piece of music, “Praan,” sung in Bengali by a young woman named Palbasha Siddique. In the beginning of the video there’s Matt, still dancing like a fiend all over the world, one scene after another, the sheer epitome of optimism about this great world in which we live.
And then people start running into view around him, scene after scene, while Siddique sings. And suddenly, in a sort of primeval explosion of exuberant insanity. . .the crowds of people are dancing with him.
One scene after another. Madagascar, San Francisco, Tokyo, Botswana, all over Europe, all over Africa, all over Asia, all over the South Pacific, with native tribal dancers of Papua New Guinea and children from every continent—there’s Matt, lost in a crowd of people dancing their hearts out in their own random awkward little global dances, all to this haunting, beautiful song. There’s a single, brilliant moment when he’s dancing with a group of women in India and he suddenly breaks character to do their choreographed dance with them.
The result is beyond moving. Simply seeing with your own eyes the unbelievable diversity and beauty and humor and humanity we all share. . .it will make you cry.
He called this video Where the Hell is Matt? 2008
And my husband found it on the Internet.
When I saw it I suddenly realized what an unprecedented force for good the Internet can be. Yes, I know it’s teeming with lowlifes and spammers and hackers and thieves. I know our shared etiquette of what’s honorable and what you just don’t do to other people has taken a massive hit through the advent of trolls.
But, still, the open, grassroots nature of the Internet can unite us, every human being alive in this moment of coordinated (and uncoordinated) joy. Our entire species can be given to us—homo sapiens—by a handful of lunatics inspired by one person who just keeps pursuing what they love and know to be good and true.
In 2012, Matt and his crew went beyond, again, the bounds of their last video. Again, he saw the whole point in that one, brilliant moment of dancing with the women in India. So this time, although the crowds are bigger and more enthusiastic than ever, it’s no longer just random awkward dancing.
It’s thousands of people from all cultures all over the planet moving in choreography to music, creating beauty out of their bodies together.