MatPat, the semi-retired YouTube host of The Game of Theorists, joins WIRED to answer his most searched questions from Google. What are his favorite video games? What's he up to in "retirement?" Will he ever come back to YouTube? It's MatPat's WIRED Autocomplete Interview.Director: Jackie PhillipsDirector of Photography: Ricardo PomaresEditor: Louville MooreTalent: MatPatCreative Producer: Justin WolfsonLine Producer: Joseph BuscemiAssociate Producer: Paul GulyasProduction Manager: Peter BrunetteCamera Operator: Shay Eberle-GunstSound Mixer: Kari BarberProduction Assistant: Brock SpitaelsPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinPost Production Coordinator: Ian BryantSupervising Editor: Doug LarsenAssistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00 Hey, I'm MatPat, and this is the Wired Autocomplete Interview.
00:03 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:06 This is a journey in self-discovery today,
00:08 my friends, so join me.
00:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:14 Got here.
00:15 What is MatPat's full name?
00:17 Matthew Patrick.
00:17 People to this day still ask me, what's your name?
00:19 And it's like, it's right there.
00:21 It's literally right there.
00:22 Wouldn't it be weird if it was like Brandon Rogers or something
00:25 like that?
00:25 So MatPat was one of those things
00:27 that came about in middle school.
00:28 So I grew up in Medina, Ohio, and at the time,
00:32 two elementary schools merged into middle school.
00:34 And all the kids from the other elementary school,
00:36 they were like, Matthew Patrick, you're MatPat.
00:38 And all my friends from my original elementary school
00:40 were like, how did we never think of that?
00:42 And it just kind of stuck from there.
00:44 So MatPat became the go-to name.
00:46 What did MatPat gave the Pope?
00:48 So infamously, about, what, six years ago,
00:51 I was invited to be a digital ambassador to the Pope.
00:53 And so I got to meet the Pope.
00:55 And as representative of the online gaming community,
00:58 I gave him a Steam code for the game "Undertale."
01:02 Not the physical copy, mind you, the Steam code.
01:05 For those of you who don't know, "Undertale"
01:07 is a game all about solving problems
01:09 with pacifist solutions, where it's not just
01:11 about fighting and killing, but actually like coming
01:14 to agreements with people and finding out what they need
01:16 and having conversations with them, which felt like a really
01:19 good example of the positive messaging that gaming can have.
01:23 What is MatPat?
01:24 Favorite game.
01:25 At this point, so much of the games that I play
01:27 have been for work, things that need theories about
01:30 or are popular games.
01:31 But my true favorite games are "Chrono Trigger"
01:33 and "Earthbound" from the Super Nintendo era.
01:36 "Chrono Trigger" is a game all about time travel
01:38 and manipulating the future and saving the world
01:40 from an alien threat.
01:41 And "Earthbound" is basically a wacky adventure
01:45 of you with psychic powers going around your hometown,
01:47 fighting giant ants and evil moles,
01:50 and again, saving the world from an evil alien power.
01:54 What is MatPat known for?
01:55 I'm the nerdy guy online who says,
01:57 but that's just a theory, a game theory,
02:01 or film theory, style theory, food theory, et cetera.
02:03 I'm the theory guy on YouTube.
02:05 I take science, math, history, and deep nerdy research
02:09 and fuse it with nerdy topics like movies, TV, video games,
02:13 things like that to come up with wacky solutions.
02:16 What is MatPat doing now?
02:17 I am retired.
02:18 I retired about three weeks ago as we're recording this.
02:21 It is great.
02:22 What does that mean?
02:23 That means that I have less time spent in a recording booth
02:26 polishing and writing episodes, and it gives me more time
02:29 to pursue things like the podcast that I do
02:32 and collaborations like this and the mystery lo-fi project
02:37 that I have going on, or creators in fashion,
02:39 where we spotlight a bunch of different creators
02:42 who are doing amazing work in the apparel space.
02:45 So really, at this point, my job has transitioned away
02:47 from online talent and online personality
02:50 and into a creator who is telling cool stories
02:54 and trying to uplift the next generation of creators.
02:57 [MAKES EXPLOSION SOUNDS]
03:00 Seamless.
03:02 Where did the MatPat PNG come from?
03:04 I was one of, if not the first, PNG-tuber.
03:08 That is you using a flat cutout of yourself
03:11 and animating it around on screen
03:13 so that way you don't have to appear on camera.
03:15 And that really was born out of when I started my channel.
03:17 I was destitute in New York and in between jobs,
03:21 and I didn't have money for good camera equipment,
03:23 good lighting, things like that.
03:24 And so I didn't like the way that I looked online.
03:27 And so I'm like, let me just do everything in VO.
03:29 And then just we inserted this little PNG of me
03:31 to represent me on camera, right?
03:33 So that image has persisted and withstood the test of time.
03:37 I think I can maybe do it again.
03:38 It's like-- I don't know if I'm getting the angle right,
03:41 but this is updated for 2024.
03:45 When did MatPat retire?
03:46 A couple of weeks ago, I did my last video.
03:48 It was March 9, 2024.
03:51 And it has been great.
03:53 It has been so wonderful and celebratory to have this time.
03:57 And so thank you.
03:59 Thank you for 13 years.
04:00 And I am so excited for what the next couple have to offer.
04:05 Why is MatPat so smart?
04:06 I feel like that is not necessarily
04:09 a sentiment that is shared across a wide swath
04:11 of the internet.
04:12 So thank you.
04:13 What I would say is I was lucky enough
04:16 to have parents and teachers that really
04:18 fostered a sense of curiosity in me when I was growing up.
04:22 They told me that school was my job
04:24 and that the best thing to be in life is a lifelong learner.
04:28 And to question everything, I recognized
04:30 that I was in a really fortunate position where not
04:32 a lot of people have that support around them.
04:35 And so if I can serve as that to the next generation of people
04:39 watching online video, that's awesome.
04:41 How does MatPat edit his videos poorly and slowly?
04:46 I believe the videos that I edited myself
04:48 were compared to a bad PowerPoint
04:52 presentation at one point.
04:54 That's why we hired on a lot of editors, my friends.
04:57 I recognized early on, about maybe two or three years
05:00 into my YouTube career, that I was not an editor.
05:04 And for me to actually make the show what I had always
05:06 envisioned it could be, I would need years of practice
05:09 and training.
05:10 And I just didn't have that.
05:11 And so that's when we partnered up
05:12 with one of my earliest collaborators.
05:15 His name was Ronnie Edwards.
05:16 And he was an expert in flash animation.
05:19 And he was the man who truly made
05:21 game theory look the way that I always wanted it to look.
05:25 And together, the show was able to really thrive and grow.
05:28 And at this point, now with us producing between 11 and 13
05:33 videos every single week--
05:35 so that's unsustainable and why I had to retire--
05:39 at this point, we have an army of around 20 editors.
05:42 And they are fantastic.
05:43 They're some of the most talented people in the world.
05:45 And as a result, it's one of those things
05:47 where the editors now have their own editing school, where
05:50 they train up the next generation of editors.
05:52 And it's kind of a rite of passage in a lot of ways
05:55 to bring in kind of like the upcoming group of editors.
05:58 Ah!
05:59 Smooth.
06:02 Is MatPat coming back to YouTube?
06:05 Yes and no.
06:06 Yes, insofar as I am popping on for new projects.
06:10 You know, I just did this fashion show
06:11 over on Style Theory and Game Theory,
06:13 where we spotlight a bunch of creators doing awesome work
06:16 in the apparel space.
06:16 There's a new project that's going
06:18 to be launching in a couple of weeks.
06:19 It's this music mystery project, where it's a lo-fi channel.
06:23 And you can lean back and relax and do homework to it.
06:26 But hidden in the cracks of it, there's
06:28 a mystery and a narrative attached to it,
06:30 for all you lore hounds out there.
06:32 So is there a day where I might start a new channel?
06:35 Maybe.
06:35 But not for a long, long time.
06:38 Is MatPat's-- is MatPat on Jeopardy?
06:42 No.
06:43 500,000 people signed a petition to get me on Jeopardy.
06:47 Nothing.
06:48 Not even like the college tournament, the kids turn--
06:52 throw me a bone, man.
06:55 It has always been a life goal of mine to be a game show host.
06:58 I think it would be super fun.
07:00 I love playing games.
07:01 But I also love hosting games.
07:03 And then someone else connected us with people from Jeopardy.
07:07 And they never got back to our emails.
07:10 So, you know, I feel like that ship has sailed.
07:15 Is MatPat a millennial?
07:16 Very clearly, yes.
07:17 You can tell a person's generation
07:19 by what they call Instagram.
07:21 But I'm not cool for any of those,
07:22 so I just call it Instagram.
07:23 But we have members on our team that
07:25 keep me hip with the trends.
07:26 We have Ash on our team, who's our resident Gen Z.
07:29 And so anytime I'm like, hey, is this Chuggy to say?
07:32 She's like, the fact that you called it Chuggy is Chuggy.
07:35 All right, duly noted.
07:37 Is MatPat in the new FNAF movie?
07:38 Yes.
07:39 Yes, I am.
07:40 It was an incredible experience.
07:42 Never before in my life would I have
07:43 imagined that I would be able to be on an actual film
07:46 set of that size, of that caliber.
07:49 And not only to be in a movie, but then
07:51 to see reaction compilations of people seeing me in the movie
07:55 and theaters erupting in cheers.
07:56 I am at 28 minutes and 22 seconds into the movie.
08:01 And the go-to line there is the classic line
08:04 that I say all the time, buddy, you know, it's just a theory.
08:07 And audiences really enjoyed that.
08:08 Will I be in the new FNAF movie?
08:10 I don't know.
08:10 Time will tell.
08:11 My schedule's open, Scott.
08:14 Transition.
08:14 All right.
08:19 Does MatPat have a podcast?
08:22 Kind of.
08:23 Our GT Live channel, which is our live streaming channel,
08:25 I've always kind of run as a podcast where, yes, there's
08:28 gaming attached to it.
08:29 But really, I want there to be a large conversational component
08:32 at the beginning and the end.
08:33 So that way it feels like you're just hanging out on the couch.
08:36 So that is probably the closest thing that we produce.
08:38 I am also the official host of Like and Describe,
08:41 YouTube's first official trends podcast.
08:43 But no, do I personally have an official podcast?
08:46 No, I don't.
08:47 I host one.
08:48 I have a live stream.
08:49 But I do not have one.
08:51 Does MatPat regret selling his channel?
08:53 For context, I sold the Theorist brand and the Theory channels
08:58 to a company named LunarX at the end of 2022.
09:02 Do I regret it?
09:03 Not in the slightest.
09:05 It was the single best decision that I
09:07 could have possibly made.
09:08 The ability to kind of scale out what we've been doing
09:11 and have more resources to attack more of these projects
09:15 that were outside of my personal expertise,
09:17 our team's personal expertise, our wheelhouses,
09:19 has been wonderful.
09:21 One of the things that you don't really appreciate
09:23 until you're in the position is when you employ people,
09:26 that's a heavy burden.
09:27 And that's a huge responsibility to take on.
09:29 And so to be able to offload some of that responsibility
09:32 onto a separate company and to know that there
09:35 was financial stability there, to know
09:37 that they were experts in hiring and processes
09:41 and this and that has been tremendous.
09:43 MatPat movies and TV shows.
09:45 The Five Nights at Freddy's movie
09:47 is probably one of the biggest ones
09:48 and the most known of all of those.
09:50 I also did another movie called Hero Mode,
09:53 where I played myself as an online commentator talking
09:56 about like, oh, this game company's
09:57 making terrible decisions.
09:59 I'm in two Transformers series, two animated series featuring
10:03 the Transformers.
10:04 And like, that's a huge deal.
10:06 In fact, Mark Hamill is one of the voices
10:09 in one of those series.
10:10 So it's like, oh my gosh, I did a project with Mark Hamill,
10:14 if you squint at it.
10:15 We were at booths in probably separate parts of the world
10:18 at two very different times.
10:20 But we worked together.
10:22 MatPat sub count.
10:23 I honestly don't know.
10:24 We have so many damn channels.
10:26 I think my last total ended up being about 41 million
10:31 across the YouTube channels.
10:34 And then on Twitter, I think I'm like 5 million followers.
10:37 And then on Instagram, it's 1 million.
10:39 And so in total, it's probably around like 50 million.
10:41 At the end of the day, the thanks goes back to you.
10:43 Without you watching, without you subscribing,
10:46 without you clicking on that video, giving us a chance,
10:49 we wouldn't be able to do this.
10:50 I wouldn't be able to employ all those people.
10:53 I wouldn't be able to have a team of 20 editors
10:56 and a full staff of 40 people around us
10:59 to make the videos that we do.
11:00 So you're welcome.
11:02 Without you, none of it's possible.
11:04 So thank you guys.
11:06 Transition.
11:07 And I think this is the last board.
11:11 Who did MatPat marry?
11:13 I married a beautiful woman named Stephanie Quiridato,
11:17 now Stephanie Patrick.
11:18 She is my best friend.
11:18 She is my partner in everything.
11:20 We met in college.
11:21 We met programming video games together, funny enough.
11:24 We both needed an extra math credit in college,
11:26 and neither of us wanted to take calculus.
11:29 It would have been like 3D calculus.
11:30 And it's like, why?
11:31 That's stupid.
11:32 So instead, we took this course that
11:33 was considered to be an easy A. It was video game programming.
11:36 We ended up sitting next to each other in the class
11:38 while everyone else was coasting through the class,
11:40 because it was very much an easy A course.
11:42 Steph and I were the try-hards of the group.
11:45 The two of us kept trying to out-compete each other
11:48 for best game in the class every week.
11:49 But the final project was you had to partner
11:52 with someone in the class.
11:53 We ended up partnering with each other.
11:54 Everyone else did like one level of a basic mini-golf game.
11:58 We did a five-level quest with eight enemy types,
12:02 all with different attack patterns, scrolling backgrounds,
12:05 and a final boss battle with multiple phases.
12:08 It was the second half of freshman year in college,
12:10 and we've been hanging out together ever since.
12:12 Who bought--
12:14 MatPat's channel?
12:14 Yeah.
12:15 Who bought MatPat's channel?
12:16 It's a company named LunarX.
12:17 They see YouTube brands as kind of the next generation
12:22 of the biggest brands in the world,
12:23 both entertainment-wise and product-wise.
12:25 And they're able to kind of deliver the resources, manpower,
12:29 and expertise of really scaling those out and doing things
12:32 that we ourselves always wanted to do,
12:34 but we're holding ourselves back on.
12:36 And last-- last and hopefully not least--
12:38 who is Ash to MatPat?
12:40 Ash is our resident Zoomer.
12:42 Ash is 24.
12:43 They are my co-host and producer on our GT Live channel.
12:48 To me, our relationship is one of older statesmen
12:52 and younger person teaching me how to stay up with the times.
12:56 They tell me when I have to transition away from using
12:58 the word "drip" and just, in general,
13:01 keeping me up to date on all the spiciest of TikTok memes.
13:04 So we're going to toss it slightly off camera
13:06 so I don't knock any--
13:08 I definitely ruined something behind the camera at this point.
13:10 Thank you, Wired, for this autocomplete interview,
13:12 and I will see you next time.
13:14 And that's not a theory.
13:16 That right there, that's a fact.
13:18 See ya.
13:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]