MatPat

MatPat
Patrick at VidCon 2016
Personal information
Nationality	American
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Internet personality
Spouse(s)	Stephanie Cordato (m. 2012)
YouTube information
Pseudonym	MatPat
Years active	2009–present
Genre	Gaming education culture
Subscribers	7.2 million (The Game Theorists) 3.7 million (The Film Theorists) 878k (GTLive)
Total views	922.1 million (The Game Theorists) 261.5 million (The Film Theorists) 73 million (GTLive)
Associated acts	ScrewAttack Did You Know Gaming?
Play buttons 100,000 subscribers 2013 1,000,000 subscribers 2013
Subscriber and view counts updated as of 12 November 2016.

Matthew Robert Patrick,^[1] more commonly known by screen name MatPat, is an American actor, writer, and internet personality. He is best known as the creator and narrator of the YouTube webseries Game Theory, where he comments on things such as the logic, scientific accuracy, and lore of various video games and the gaming industry. He is also known for creating YouTube Red series MatPat's Game Lab and the spinoff Film Theory, centering around cinema and internet filmography instead of gaming. As of August 19, 2016, Patrick has amassed over 7 million subscribers and over 923 million views over his three YouTube channels, with his main channel The Game Theorists being the first and most subscribed.

On July 1, 2016, the game show The Runner starring Patrick premiered. The show is available on Go90 and is produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.^[2]

Early life

Matthew Patrick was born on November 15, 1986 in Medina County, Ohio. Growing up, Patrick was very involved in the arts, especially musical theatre. Patrick valued education and spent most of his school career studying or taking classes. According to Patrick, his enthusiasm led him to skip his lunch periods to take classes and to spend his summer vacations taking courses at college campuses. Patrick was the valedictorian of his graduating class, and earned a perfect score on his SAT. His strong academic record earned him acceptance into the prestigious Duke University.^[3]

After graduating from Duke University with a double major in neuroscience and theater, Patrick moved to New York City in order to pursue an acting career, which he eventually quit. After two years of mostly unemployment, he uploaded the promotional trailer for Game Theory, and four days later, he uploaded the first episode, explaining the scientific accuracy of the time travel of the SNES game Chrono Trigger.

He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.^[4]

Career

The Game Theorists

Patrick first created a YouTube account under the name "MatthewPatrick13" in 2009. He uploaded numerous videos of his performances and auditions for musical theatre, including one where he sang "It Takes Two" from the musical Hairspray.

The Game Theorists logo.

On April 18, 2011, Patrick uploaded the first episode of his new show, Game Theory, where he discusses the relationship between reality and gaming in terms of science, math and culture. Inspired by the YouTube series Extra Credits he created Game Theory with the goal of creating "gaming's tangential learning experience" to show his abilities to companies that might watch his channel.^[5] He frequently uploads episodes covering Nintendo characters, as well as popular games such as Minecraft, Five Nights at Freddy's, Call of Duty and Pokémon, as well as numerous other games.^[6][7] He occasionally uploads videos commenting on the gaming market, as well as on other matters that he deems noteworthy.^[8] He gained subscribers and his videos were being posted on the front pages of sites such as ScrewAttack and GameTrailers.^[5] Game Theory has become known for Patrick's educational, consistent and in-depth approach to game analysis.

During the course of its life, The Game Theorists has hosted numerous spin-offs and separate shows. Some of the shows are only partly on The Game Theorists and consist of more episodes on the creators' channels.

• Game Exchange (July 19, 2012 – January 25, 2014 on The Game Theorists, still on Gaijin Goombah) is a show by Michael Sundman^[9] where he talks in a high-pitched voice as a Goomba character named Gaijin Goombah about gaming in relation to various international cultures. The version on The Game Theorists has since been replaced with Culture Shock which started on April 10, 2014 as a show very similar in style and content.
• Digressing and Sidequesting (December 26, 2011 – ) is a show hosted by Ronnie Edwards which focuses on game design. It started on the YouTube channel DigressingNSQ and moved to The Game Theorists on August 30, 2012.
• Crossover (December 28, 2013 – September 9, 2014) was a show hosted by Drake McWhorter which proved that a two selected gaming characters or series exist within the same universe.
• Smash History (August 26, 2014 – ) is a show that focuses on the development and content of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
• A Brief History (February 4, 2013 – ) is a show hosted by Ryder Burgin that covers the entire development of a game series in a very fast-spoken manner. It started on the YouTube channel FootofaFerret and moved to The Game Theorists on April 20, 2015.
• Deadlock (February 17, 2015 – ) is a show by Matthew Patrick that pits two video game concepts against each other to show their flaws and strengths. Each episode usually features Patrick and another member of The Game Theorists debating these concepts. However, a special episode released on June 25, 2016 features Patrick debating against Nintendo of America's own Reggie Fils-Aimé on the grounds of motion controls versus traditional controls in The Legend of Zelda series. As of October 25th, 2016, there are seven episodes of the show.
• Break Down (December 25, 2015 – ) is a show by Forrest Lee (tehFurst) which similarly to A Brief History talks about the development of a video game series.

The Game Theorists reached one million subscribers in 2013.

The Film Theorists

The Film Theorists logo.

On May 12, 2014, Patrick created a second channel called The Film Theorists where he debuted his second show, Film Theory. The first episode was uploaded on June 2, 2015, focusing on the science of the TV series Doctor Who.^[10] Film Theory follows the same formula as Game Theory, but in relation to films and series as well as the film industry instead of gaming. Within a month following the first episode, The Film Theorists reached one million subscribers.^[11]

Like The Game Theorists, The Film Theorists is a host of spin-off shows.

• Did You Know Movies? (June 2, 2015 – ) is a spin-off of the popular video game-based blog Did You Know Gaming?.
• Frame by Frame (June 9, 2015 – ) by Kyle Adams of YouTube channel PwnageShow is a show analyzing film techniques.

Film Theory has covered episodes on franchises like Star Wars, Marvel Studios, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, and even the 2016 United States presidential election.^[12][13]

MatPat's Game Lab

On June 8, 2016, Patrick posted via his YouTube channel his new show, MatPat's Game Lab, on Google's new paid subscription service, YouTube Red. The show mainly focuses on placing video game players in real life scenarios mimicking scenarios that occur in video games, such as bomb defusing, parkour, and military training.^[14][15][16]

GTLive

Patrick started a Let's Play series called GTLive on August 26, 2015^[17] where he streams mostly gameplay with his wife Stephanie and then uploads it to the GTLive archive channel he created on September 14, 2015. Streams are usually conducted at 4 pm PST. Also appearing on the streams regularly are Jason, the producer of GTLive, their cat Skip, also called “CatPat” and “Peepachu”, a cushion in the form of a Bunny Peep. Repeated themes of this livestream include the Mario Maker Wednesday (abbr. “MMW”) and the Scary Games Friday (abbr. “TGISGF” for “Thank God It's Scary Games Friday”). A common feature is the 'clap-and-a-half' which Patrick reclaimed from his seventh grade Social Studies teacher. On the live stream, they used Verizon's in-game Minecraft smartphone for ordering pizza as well as taking "the worlds largest [in-game] selfie".^[18]

Starting on October 3, 2016, the Monday streams became part of YouTube Gaming Primetime and are therefore scheduled for 3 pm to 5 pm PST. It also includes a voting mechanism, which can be used by Patrick to conduct quick polls.^[19]

Personal life

Patrick became engaged to Stephanie Cordato, whom he met while studying at Duke University, on November 17, 2010, their 1500th day anniversary. The two became close after creating a Legend of Zelda parody called The Epic of Stew. The couple married on May 19, 2012 in North Carolina.^[20]

Collaborations

Patrick has collaborated with numerous channels, featuring them as guests on his own shows, or being featured himself. He has done numerous voice-over work for video game-based blog Did You Know Gaming?, covering episodes on Portal, the Super Mario games, and the Five Nights at Freddy's series. He often shouts out the Wisecrack channel at the end of videos from his Film Theory series.

Patrick has also worked with over 100 clients, including Samsung, Warner Bros., Ubisoft, Defy Media, and YouTube.

Numerous internet personalities have done voice-over work for Patrick's numerous shows, such as Austin Hargrave (PeanutButterGamer) and Jonathan Jafari, as well as Arin Hanson (Egoraptor) and Dan Avidan of the webseries Game Grumps.

Awards and nominations

See also

• List of YouTube personalities
• The Runner (2016 reality series)

References

External links

• MatPat at the Internet Movie Database