Celebrating April Fool’s Day with @mattsteele’s Visual Wordplay
For more of Matt’s creative humor, follow @_mattsteele_ on Instagram.
For Ohio Instagrammer Matt Steele (@_mattsteele_), photography doesn’t always have to be a serious matter. For this April Fool’s Day, Matt—who’s “always doing something silly"—shares his thoughts on combining creativity and humor.
"In terms of a photograph, I’m drawn to silliness because it gives me the opportunity to create something unique and share it,” Matt explains. “I have an incredibly tight-knit group of friends here in Ohio, and each of us are funny in our own distinct way so we’re always exchanging laughs.”
Many of Matt’s photos are visual takes on wordplay and often make up part of his #WHPwhoopsie and #autocorrectgonefishing series, which are either puns on the Instagram Weekend Hashtag Project or scenes built out of humorous autocorrect malfunctions.
As Matt tells it, “The ‘whoopsie’ started when Instagram chose #WHPlighthouse as their weekend project. Arkansas isn’t exactly close to any lighthouses. I thought it would be fun to make a typo out of 'lighthouse’ and photograph the result by creating something fun and silly, which happened to be a horse with a light bulb glued to it (’lighthorse’).”
From there, the lighthearted series has grown into a weekly staple, with many looking forward to Matt’s creations and some even creating their own spin-offs as well. “When I posted the first whoopsie, I remember someone telling me to 'please do this every weekend,’ so it stuck ever since. The encouragement I get to keep creating, as well as seeing other Instagrammers contributing their interpretation of the idea is what keeps me going.”
Can you guess the wordplay behind any of Matt’s photos above? Click on each to see the captions and inspiration for each project.