He's a Goofy Dancer, Not a Prophet of Peace

No doubt you've seen or heard of the YouTube phenomenon in which Matt Harding dances his way across the world and its cultures, set to a New Age song poem. And no doubt you've heard fans refer to Harding as nothing less than a purveyor of world peace. But please, let's give it a rest, writes Meghan Daum in the Los Angeles Times.

Harding is a "skilled multimedia edtor," but he's no prophet, Daum writes. And his video isn't so much a "commercial for happiness" as a "commercial for commercials themselves," she says. "Even though it's well established that images have replaced words as our main communication currency, I think we're less aware of the way that adding music can trick us into thinking we're experiencing something deeper than we really are." (More YouTube stories.)