On April 29, Matt Shearer, a Massachusetts-based journalist and Mass. native came to the University of Massachusetts.

Shearer is best known for his “man-on-the-street” videos that he creates independently for WBZ NewsRadio. When his bosses at WBZ approached him asking to start making TikToks for the station, he was all in, given free range to create anything, no matter how outlandish.

“I was basically at first just taking my stories from the air and slapping random video on top of it, but then over time, I got a little bit better at shooting video and then just started having fun and playing around with it and seeing what kinds of dumb things I could do and how far I could push it,” Shearer said.

“After a while, [WBZ] started being like, ‘Okay, I don’t really get the concept, Matt, but you know, you’ve had a lot of success, so go do your thing,’” Shearer recalled.

One day, he got a comment under one of his TikToks stating, “Go to Bellingham. Try to find something cool,” so he did just that.

After his Bellingham video was posted, more and more people started commenting, “Go to my town,” which Shearer now does every couple of weeks with random towns with zero preparation and research prior.

Shearer has a raw talent, being able to encapsulate the uniqueness and character of numerous Mass. towns that most individuals would describe as mundane.

“Something that I really relate to about growing up in a small town is not having a lot to do, and when that happens, you don’t realize it in the moment, but it really brings friends and the community together,” Shearer said.

Shearer continued, saying, “You don’t have a lot to do, but you have each other. I have so many stories about just the chaos that my friends and I inflicted upon our town.”

While at UMass, Shearer was in the process of creating a new video about one of UMass’ most recognizable figure, Hamp Pizza Joe.

Shearer is dedicated to his journalistic craft. While at UMass, he worked to showcase the diverse students by approaching them with his iconic blue microphone. He filmed the same lines multiple times throughout the day in different locations and was eager to learn as much as possible about the UMass campus.

What matters most to Shearer in terms of how he can achieve his journalistic goals is not how many views he gets on his videos or even coming up with the most “viral” concepts; it’s how he can make a positive impact on a subject’s life.

“My mom was a social worker growing up,” Shearer said, going on to tell the story of a time when his mother asked to give Shearer’s Nintendo away to a kid who was removed from his home because the child’s dad was abusive.

“I think about that a lot, weirdly, that moment and that kid, what’s he up to now? How much did that Nintendo mean to him? I’ll never know,” Shearer said. “But it was the kind of start of me thinking about, man, I have it pretty good. And there are people out there who don’t, and I want to help those people when I can, tell their stories, have fun and bring people together.”

In one of his most popular and favorite videos, Shearer was able to achieve this goal with a subject named Ara B., a homeless woman with a golden voice who spent most of her time in Boston’s Downtown Crossing singing for anyone who walked by.

“She told me her dream was to get into a recording studio. She didn’t have the funds for it, so I managed to talk to some people that I knew to pull some strings. We got her in a studio, and she made thousands and thousands of dollars off this song that we produced for her totally for free,” Shearer said.

“After that, so many cool things started happening for her; she got a call from America’s Got Talent, she got to go on CBS Evening News and CBS Sunday Morning, and just tons of cool stuff,” Shearer said.

Another one of his favorite videos is his most recent one with “Love on the Spectrum” star Pari, who is known for her vast knowledge of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). In the video, Shearer took Pari to old “T” trains not used by the public anymore and even allowed her to meet Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.

“Every time I’m shoveling snow in the winter, I think about moving somewhere else. Every time my back is in pain. I’m like, ‘Why do I live here?’ But generally speaking, I’ve never left the same 20-mile radius my whole life, and I don’t feel a real rush to get out anytime soon,” Shearer said.

Shearer continued, saying, “Everyone I care about is here. My whole family is here, and I have everything I need here. I love it here; Massachusetts is like one big fun playground and I wish that everyone could see it that way.”

Shearer still has so much he wants to pursue in terms of his video content creation, he has a big list of towns and cities he still wants to visit. 

“I don’t think there’s one specific town that I’m dying to get to anytime soon. It’s just all of them. I really like the unexpected towns, too, you know, don’t get me wrong, I’ve done the bigger communities, the bigger cities, but I’m less eager to do a whole thing on Worcester or Lowell,” Shearer said.

“It takes a lot of effort and a lot of work. And so the fact that people actually like the fruits of that effort means a lot.”

For more on Matt Shearer, you can visit his Instagram page @reportermatt.

Paige Hanson can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X/Twitter @Paige_Hanson1.