READING

Read the text about Matt Harding which describes his experience travelling all
around the world and answer the following questions.

1. Why did Matt decide to start travelling?

2. How did his first video become famous?
3. What three differences are there between his first and second video?
4. Why does the author say that Matt was introduced to the Business Class?
5. A pit stop (line 49) is a short stop that you make during a long car journey in order to rest
and eat. But what does this expression make reference to in this particular context?
6. What does the author mean by It really is that simple (lines 60-61)?
7. Some words in the text are highlighted in white. Think of a similar word or expression that
can match the context.
8. Match the definitions below with the phrasal verbs underlined in the text. Some of them
are used more than once throughout the text.
a) to achieve stability, especially upon marrying
b) to finish, use, or sell all of something, so that there is none left
c) to be known or discovered finally and surprisingly
d) to publish, broadcast, or make known

e) to spend time doing nothing important or behaving in a silly way

1 Matt is a 38-year-old deadbeat from Westport, Connecticut who used to think that all
2 he ever wanted to do in life was make and play video games. He got lucky, landing a
3 job as a game designer in Los Angeles at a young age, and figured he had everything
4 pretty much figured out.
5 At 23, he moved to Brisbane, Australia, where its a pretty typical thing for people to
6 take off and travel the planet for a while before settling down. He thought that sounded
7 amazing, and was also starting to realize that maybe video games werent the only
8 thing that mattered. So in early 2003, he quit his job to go wandering around
9 Southeast Asia until the money ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family
10 and friends updated about where he was.
11 A few months into his trip, he and his friend, Brad Welch, were taking pictures on the
12 streets of Hanoi when Brad said "Hey, why dont you stand over there and do your
13 stupid dance. Ill record it." Matt did it, and he thought it looked pretty funny, so he
14 kept on doing it everywhere he went.
15 That turned out to be a very good idea.
16 He put the video of his dancing adventures on his blog (back then people had things
17 called "blogs"), and then in 2005 he found it on a new site called YouTube, where
18 some kid had uploaded it, pretending to be him, and like a million people had already
19 watched it. The kid was collecting donations and apparently got about $200 out of it.
20 Good for him.
21 Matt briefly got micro-famous as "That guy who dances on the internet. No, not him.
22 The other guy. No, not him either.
23 In the midst of all that, Matt got an email from a chewing gum company called Stride.
24 They asked if hed be interested in making another dancing video for them. He asked

25 if theyd pay for it. They said, "Yeah." He asked if he could go wherever he wanted.
26 They said, "Pretty much." So he said, "Sure!"
27 That actually happened.
28 He made the video, and he got to bring his girlfriend, Melissa, with him to film it. It
29 was awesome. And people liked it. The second video made Matt even more micro30 famous, transitioning briefly into quasi-famous.
31 He mostly just danced in front of iconic landmarks, but along the way he went to a
32 country called Rwanda, and since there arent any landmarks in Rwanda that youd
33 want to dance in front of, instead he just went to a small village and danced with a
33 bunch of kids. The kids joined him immediately and without hesitation. That ended up
34 being the best thing that happened to him on the trip. The kids taught him that people
35 are a whole lot more interesting than old landmarks and monuments.
36 Matt went back to Stride and told them he did it all wrong and they needed to send
37 him around the planet again. They said, "Okay," and in 2008 he put out another video
38 that showed thousands of people laughing, smiling, and goofing around together. It
39 took him five years and three tries, but he finally got it right that time.
40 The internet exploded. Matt briefly went from quasi-famous to not-entirely-un41 famous. Visa hired him to do his dance in a series of TV ads that air across Asia and
42 the Middle East, which introduced him to a thing called "Business Class," and meant
43 he didnt have to worry so much about money anymore. He settled down with Melissa
44 in Seattle, Washington and bought a house.
45 Eventually Matt decided there was one thing left he wanted to say that the other
46 videos hadnt quite said. He knew it was the sort of thing that was going to make a
47 sponsor uneasy, and he kind of wanted to own his work anyway, so he decided to take
48 what hed earned from endorsements and invest it into another video.

49 In 2010, Matt started travelling again. He had to take a prolonged pit stop the
50 following year when he and Melissa had a son. After that, leaving home for long
51 stretches got even harder. But he hired a small team to help him finish and they
52 eventually got it done.
53 Matt put his fourth video out in 2012. Hes really proud of it and he hopes everybody
54 likes it too.
55 Matt thinks travel is important. It helps us learn what were capable of, that the path
56 laid in front of us isnt the only one we can choose, and that we dont need to be so
57 afraid of each other all the time.
58 Matt used to think you were either good at something or bad at something and there
59 wasnt much you could do to change it. He wishes hed learned sooner that you can
60 get better at most things just by doing them over and over again. It really is that
61 simple.