Matt Squared

Mar 10, 2025

I originally published this piece on my old Google blog in 2015. The writing and illustration was inspired by blogs like Hyperbole and a Half and Wait But Why, which discussed fascinating ideas and packaged them in silly drawings. I emulated their styles as I wrote and illustrated this piece.

I consider most of what I’ve written 10+ years ago to be quite bad. However, I remember this specific piece very fondly because of its creativity and silliness. I have reposted it here because I am still proud of it today.

Note: The content of this piece is unedited, but I added transcripts underneath most images with text. The original images I made are so low-quality that the text feels unreadable to me now.

A couple of my good friends are also named Matt, so when people see us together they choose different ways to greet us: "Hey guys!" "What’s up, Matts?" "Top of the morning, ruffians.” But one greeting bothers me more than all the others, and if you decided to read the title of this piece before the body (freak), then you already know what it is. Yes, I’m talking about the infamous "Yo, it’s Matt squared!”1

It’s the kind of cutesy, I-know-what-math-is way of acknowledging two people with the same name. But here’s the thing: it’s wrong.

This is what you have when you see two Matts:

Now let’s assume that instead of a pair of Matts, you’re greeting a pair of 7s.

Two anthropomorphic 7’s. The first 7, looking dejected: “I’m getting really sick of that ‘7-8-9’ joke.” The second 7, looking angry: “They’re turning us against each other, man!”

First 7: I’m getting really sick of that “7-8-9” joke.
Second 7: They’re turning us against each other, man!

When you say "Hey, what's up, 7²?" you’re calling them 49.

Person offscreen: Hey, what’s up 49?

The first 7, looking devastated: “But…we’re not…” The second 7, looking irate: “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?!”

First 7: But…we’re not…
Second 7: Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?!

Because when you see people together, you add them, you don't multiply them.

Two stick figure heads. Head 1: “You see see those 9 people over there?”

Person 1: You see those 9 people over there?

2 groups of 3 stick figure heads, 6 total heads

Stick figure heads 1 and 2. Head 2 looks at the reader, annoyed.

Person 2: Good try.

So when seeing us, there are two Matts and two Matts only. Saying Matt squared means you’re multiplying “Matt” by itself--that there is a “Matt” amount of Matts, which I imagine might look something like this:

Mutant Matt, a large, distressed, squiggly stick figure, in front of a multi-colored background. The name “MATT” covers its mouth, and its arms and torso have “M²” written all over in different colors. A medium-sized stick-figure comes out of Mutant Matt’s left eye. There are smaller stick figures, matt mutants, in the background mutating out of five different letter M’s. They each say something: “Way to go, buddy” “This doesn’t seem right…” “This is fun!” “are we riding a camel?” “Why did you do this???”

matt mutants (clockwise, starting from top left):
Way to go, buddy.
This is fun!
are we riding a camel?
Why did you do this???
This doesn’t seem right…

So yes, it sounds cute and funny and smart and whatever, but just as 7+7 = 2*7 (or 14), so does Matt + Matt = 2Matt.

The Matt community faces a host of issues and we’d really appreciate it if you would greet us correctly. And if you are aware of this and continue to willingly perpetuate erroneous arithmetic, well, then there’s a special place in H-E-(hockey sticks)² for you.

I have no problems with people saying “Yo” followed by a contraction.

Matt Mignogna

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