Matt Daniels

Matt Daniels is a journalist-engineer at The Pudding. He first experienced Internet fame in 2014 and has been chasing that feeling ever since. You can follow him on the socials or check out his website. He has worked on 54 stories to date. Explore them all below.

Get in touch: matt@pudding.cool

Stories

We examined what shapes “greatness” in music, according to Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums of all time.

March 2024
Spotify tracks over 6,000 genres—everything from "rock" to "stomp-and-holler." Here's why that's cool.

October 2023
We're tracking how the hottest year on Earth is affecting U.S. heat records.

August 2023
We unsubscribed from 16 subscription services and documented the ways companies made it challenging.

May 2023
We explored university syllabi to identify the literary canon.

January 2023
Is TikTok helping artists become commercially successful, or does the medium present a new opportunity worth pursuing?

July 2022
In a collaboration with Vox, we tracked what happens after TikTok songs go viral.

June 2022
We’re tracking heat records in 400 U.S. cities, and you can look up your city.

May 2022
How many days since a record temperature high? Check the always-updating scoreboard.

March 2022
We tried to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest by making AI-generated captions.

January 2022
To help you get out of your geographic music bubble, we found the songs that are most popular far away from you.

April 2021
How bad is your Spotify or Apple music? Our sophisticated A.I. judges your awful taste.

December 2020
Take the quiz: Can you identify when these photos were taken? It may not be as easy as it sounds.

October 2020
A data comic to help you understand how the dance floor is generationally divided.

September 2020
We quizzed people on how well they recognized ’90s songs by their birth year. Britney and Whitney have staying power.

July 2020
Nearly 14.6M properties in America are in a flood zone, with more likely in the near future. We mapped the scenarios.

June 2020
Take this quiz to see if you’re better than others your age at recognizing songs from history.

April 2020
Emojis are nice, but GIFs have range. We looked at how we use these looped clips of celebs to convey feelings.

March 2020
Find your new jam here. We mapped several month of #1 songs in 3,000 places.

February 2020
Ranking player performance against pay, we found the worst, highest-paid NBA player, ever. Sorry, Melo.

December 2019
When an elected official promises to transform prosecution, do their actions live up to their words? We investigated.

October 2019
Are men singing higher in pop songs today? Biebs, the JoBros, the Weeknd, we’re coming for you... with data.

August 2019
Sit back and relax as we take you on an updated journey through every Billboard Top 5 hit to find music’s greatest era.

June 2019
We made a map that replaces UK city names with their most Wikipedia’ed resident.

June 2019
We made a map that replaces US city names with their most Wikipedia’ed resident.

May 2019
Can you spell the hardest names in the NBA? Or will you miss and spell H-O-R-S-E?

March 2019
Think Gyllenhaal is a hard name to spell? It gets worse. Here are the many ways to misspell big names in pop culture.

February 2019
Who’s the most prolific rapper of all time? We try to answer that by measure vocabulary. Happy debating.

January 2019
This is a story about how to perceive the population size of cities. Hint: perspective helps.

December 2018
We charted new terrain in these 3D maps of human population.

October 2018
Who has more emotionally vulnerable lyrics, emo-rap or Dashboard Confessional? We measured each album’s sentiment.

August 2018
Instead of measuring a city by it’s GDP or population, what if we measure it by its airport traffic?

July 2018
Think you’ve heard that before? Turns out, hit songs are becoming less musically diverse.

May 2018
We watched Ali Wong’s Baby Cobra too many times and charted out how she built the routine around a laughter climax.

February 2018
What is the taco capital of the US? Where does BBQ reign supreme? These maps have you covered.

February 2018
What is black and white and red all over? The racial gap between a newspaper’s staff and the community it covers.

October 2017
How would you define an NBA superteam? We couldn’t decide so we built this tool to give you the power.

October 2017
In a musial language that’s gone worldwide, we uncover the words that are "most hip-hop"

September 2017
A story about how film plots mirror (or shape) historical events.

June 2017
What’s the most timeless NBA play? We turn to YouTube views to determine which have the most replay value.

May 2017
Why does the U.S. lead the world in incarceration? We try to answer this question with data.

March 2017
In the NBA, is home court advantage down to favorable home court officiating? We break down the stats.

March 2017
Like teams in the Super Bowl, the popularity of Oscar contenders can also be regional. Here are the hotspots from 2017.

February 2017
We used Google search data to measure slang, and it has us shook.

February 2017
Inspired by Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th, we mapped the change from "slave to criminal with one amendment."

January 2017
An interactive story of what happens when a genius samples a genius: Robert Glasper, Miles Davis and “Ghetto Walkin.”

September 2016
Miles Davis is mentioned on 2,452 Wikipedia pages. We analyzed them all.

June 2016
These are the most unlikely NBA comebacks from the 2015–16 season. Harden, Curry, James: the gang’s all here.

April 2016
This is the largest analysis of film dialogue by gender. Yes, even Disney has films with fewer lines for women.

April 2016
What counts as "punk" music? We turned to Spotify and YouTube playlists to answer this question.

January 2016
Here are the writers, directors, and producers who make films that fail the Bechdel test.

January 2016
Is it an east coast vs. west coast thing? Every hip hop record label, since 1989, sorted by Billboard chart performance.

November 2015
We used Spotify plays to track the most timeless songs of all-time.

September 2015
How Outkast brought their southern roots to hip hop, in charts.

March 2014

Matt Daniels

Stories

We examined what shapes “greatness” in music, according to Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums of all time.

Spotify tracks over 6,000 genres—everything from "rock" to "stomp-and-holler." Here's why that's cool.

We're tracking how the hottest year on Earth is affecting U.S. heat records.

We unsubscribed from 16 subscription services and documented the ways companies made it challenging.

We explored university syllabi to identify the literary canon.

Is TikTok helping artists become commercially successful, or does the medium present a new opportunity worth pursuing?

In a collaboration with Vox, we tracked what happens after TikTok songs go viral.

We’re tracking heat records in 400 U.S. cities, and you can look up your city.

How many days since a record temperature high? Check the always-updating scoreboard.

We tried to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest by making AI-generated captions.

To help you get out of your geographic music bubble, we found the songs that are most popular far away from you.

How bad is your Spotify or Apple music? Our sophisticated A.I. judges your awful taste.

Take the quiz: Can you identify when these photos were taken? It may not be as easy as it sounds.

A data comic to help you understand how the dance floor is generationally divided.

We quizzed people on how well they recognized ’90s songs by their birth year. Britney and Whitney have staying power.

Nearly 14.6M properties in America are in a flood zone, with more likely in the near future. We mapped the scenarios.

Take this quiz to see if you’re better than others your age at recognizing songs from history.

Emojis are nice, but GIFs have range. We looked at how we use these looped clips of celebs to convey feelings.

Find your new jam here. We mapped several month of #1 songs in 3,000 places.

Ranking player performance against pay, we found the worst, highest-paid NBA player, ever. Sorry, Melo.

When an elected official promises to transform prosecution, do their actions live up to their words? We investigated.

Are men singing higher in pop songs today? Biebs, the JoBros, the Weeknd, we’re coming for you... with data.

Sit back and relax as we take you on an updated journey through every Billboard Top 5 hit to find music’s greatest era.

We made a map that replaces UK city names with their most Wikipedia’ed resident.

We made a map that replaces US city names with their most Wikipedia’ed resident.

Can you spell the hardest names in the NBA? Or will you miss and spell H-O-R-S-E?

Think Gyllenhaal is a hard name to spell? It gets worse. Here are the many ways to misspell big names in pop culture.

Who’s the most prolific rapper of all time? We try to answer that by measure vocabulary. Happy debating.

This is a story about how to perceive the population size of cities. Hint: perspective helps.

We charted new terrain in these 3D maps of human population.

Who has more emotionally vulnerable lyrics, emo-rap or Dashboard Confessional? We measured each album’s sentiment.

Instead of measuring a city by it’s GDP or population, what if we measure it by its airport traffic?

Think you’ve heard that before? Turns out, hit songs are becoming less musically diverse.

We watched Ali Wong’s Baby Cobra too many times and charted out how she built the routine around a laughter climax.

What is the taco capital of the US? Where does BBQ reign supreme? These maps have you covered.

What is black and white and red all over? The racial gap between a newspaper’s staff and the community it covers.

How would you define an NBA superteam? We couldn’t decide so we built this tool to give you the power.

In a musial language that’s gone worldwide, we uncover the words that are "most hip-hop"

A story about how film plots mirror (or shape) historical events.

What’s the most timeless NBA play? We turn to YouTube views to determine which have the most replay value.

Why does the U.S. lead the world in incarceration? We try to answer this question with data.

In the NBA, is home court advantage down to favorable home court officiating? We break down the stats.

Like teams in the Super Bowl, the popularity of Oscar contenders can also be regional. Here are the hotspots from 2017.

We used Google search data to measure slang, and it has us shook.

Inspired by Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th, we mapped the change from "slave to criminal with one amendment."

An interactive story of what happens when a genius samples a genius: Robert Glasper, Miles Davis and “Ghetto Walkin.”

Miles Davis is mentioned on 2,452 Wikipedia pages. We analyzed them all.

These are the most unlikely NBA comebacks from the 2015–16 season. Harden, Curry, James: the gang’s all here.

This is the largest analysis of film dialogue by gender. Yes, even Disney has films with fewer lines for women.

What counts as "punk" music? We turned to Spotify and YouTube playlists to answer this question.

Here are the writers, directors, and producers who make films that fail the Bechdel test.

Is it an east coast vs. west coast thing? Every hip hop record label, since 1989, sorted by Billboard chart performance.

We used Spotify plays to track the most timeless songs of all-time.

How Outkast brought their southern roots to hip hop, in charts.