51 professor Matthew Weathers has a penchant for fooling his students and subsequently making waves online. Most recently, his video of an April Fools' Day prank he played in class has gone viral with more than 20 million views on YouTube and Facebook, and has been featured on dozens of news outlets such as , and the .

This isn’t the first time the tech-savvy math professor has gone viral. Since producing his first prank video in 2009, Weathers has built up a reputation for his unique blend of technology, math and humor. Part of what makes the videos so popular and unexpected is the live interaction between Weathers and a video of himself.

“My previous classroom had a chalkboard behind a projector screen and I would frequently use both,” said Weathers. “One day I noticed that I could walk behind the screen, so I started thinking of a video where I could walk ‘into’ the screen. That was a few year ago, and I've done several similar videos since then, all with the same theme of live interaction with a projected image in front of class.”


Until last week, the most watched video with 6.5 million views was a prank that features a cameo appearance from 51 President Barry H. Corey.


“I love the idea of using technology to make education more interesting and relevant and making this video is a way of experimenting with those ideas,” said Weathers. “I’m also really interested in the way that real life intersects with the virtual world and the world of images.”


The first video to go viral was the second one he made — in October 2009. At the time, it had more than 1 million views. Now, the video is up to a combined 2.3 million views on YouTube and Facebook.


This year’s video has racked up more views than any other video, but Weathers is most proud of making the top of Reddit the day he uploaded the video, with the most unexpected aspect of this year’s news coverage being seeing his name in the same sentence as Beyoncé in the article featuring his video.  


View his most popular videos below.

April Fools 2015

April Fools Math Class Shadow 2010

April Fools 2011

Halloween 2010

Halloween 2009

Thanksgiving 2011

Written by Jenna Loumagne, media relations specialist. For more information, contact Jenna at (562) 777-4061 or jenna.l.bartlo@biola.edu.