The only person you are fooling...

 Dear magicians,

When you make posts like these....

It makes you look mentally challenged.

I understand rage baiting is all the... rage.. nowadays and a seemingly surefire way to get people to engage with your, I'll be nice and call it "content", but it looks like you don't know how your own craft works.

If I was a client looking for someone to hire for whatever magical reason, I sure wouldn't go with the person who seems to not know how their own tricks works. Now if you were posting someone else's work saying the same things, that's a different matter but... IT'S CLEARLY YOU IN THE VIDEOS! 

Please stop doing this, you're better than that...

Or maybe not?

                                                                                                                                        Sincerely,

                                                                                                                                                    Everyone
 

 

Comments are disabling...

What hurts magic more? Bad magic or people encouraging bad magic?

How many times have you seen a photo of a girl online in some very pre-planned pose (and likely filtered/photoshopped) that is meant to look off the cuff but probably asked the person taking the photo to re-do it 5 times to get it just right? Plenty I am sure. Now look below the photo. What do you see? The same one word praise "Beautiful", "Gorgeous", "Sexy", etc.

Now I am not here to debate about girls putting images online for whatever reason. It's more the knee-jerk praise that feels a little insincere. It's like... filler text because that person wants to be seen saying something but can't be bothered to write anything of substance... or... do they really mean it because they are easily impressed by a shiny object?

That is the crux of my discussion here today. Are encouraging comments on bad magic videos placed there because they want to be seen doing so or are they themselves bad magicians and think it's good?

First, we should probably define what "bad" magic is. Is it like porn and "we'll know it when we see it"? One bad trick can be gold in another's hands. I propose it's when the method is obvious and doesn't actually fool 80% of non-magicians. So perhaps bad magic is just poor performance? (or as per usual, no performance at all)

Social media is chocked full of quick videos of people doing magic quickly and poorly. Chances are they don't know it's bad and they are pretty proud of it. Now perhaps I am just being harsh and overly-critical as usual, but I see so many people who "know better" saying things like "so great" on these videos when it's... not.

I understand being encouraging. I'm all for it. However, you can be encouraging without it being a lie. Personally, if I see something that has merit but isn't executed great, I will message the person and offer constructive criticism without tearing it down. Some people just don't know certain things because they haven't reached a certain level of knowledge and I get that.

On the other side, I see people do questionable things and get praise for it and it makes me wonder if that person commenting is just trying to be seen in the community or if they too just have really bad judgement. There is no way to know, unless you are friends with them. Then you can message them and be like "WTF are you doing?" It could also just be habit. Much like people mindlessly clicking "like" on a post without actually reading it. Pavlov would love the internet.

Let's go back to my photos example. Are they commenting on the image just because they are female? Are they offering false praise because of their (perceived) gender? If you tell someone who is not good they are, they will stop striving to be better and perhaps that is my biggest problem with any performer in this scenario. Heaps of hollow compliments make them think they are doing a good job and don't try to improve because they are clearly not harsh enough on themselves or they might not have posted that video in the first place.

Yes I know "bad" and "good" are subjective as $^%&. It's hard to write about this without sounding like a judgey dick and I know it. "Yer just over-thinking it" I am sure some of you might be saying. You also might be right but at the same time, I might not be. Hell I have been guilty of it too when it comes to magic. However, when I say "that's real nice", I mean it but perhaps that is the problem. Too many people do mean it and their vocabulary and mental capacity is just that limited.

I guess my point is, be mindful of what you say to someone online and perhaps try to contribute to the conversation with more than one word that you might not actually mean.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Can we just... not?

I know you are supposed to use a metric ass load of hashtags to "get views" on Instagram but for the love of...  maybe don't use #femalemagician if there are no performers of the feminine persuasion in it? It's pretty damn sleazy.

(Post edited to make a bit more sense)

Negative Reinforcement....

We all know the internet, and social media specifically, is an echo chamber right? It's a place where people go to justify their bad behaviors and prove themselves right to other people and themselves. We all mostly agree on this correct?

Well before social media, to inflict your bad performing habits on others, you had top go to your local magic club or, Zeus forbid, a paid gig. The average bear who knows little to nothing about the "secrets of magic" can be easily impressed by the simplest of store bought mysteries. Even the ones you weave some overly contrived story about a fictional elderly family member teaching you.

If you do enough performing for people, you will get better and start to hear how "great" you are. "You should be on America's Got Talent!" they say. The problem comes when you start to believe this stuff. It digs into your brain and you start to think you are better than you might actually be. You start to make some questionable decisions because you have had some modicum of success fooling people at private gigs or, more currently, on the internet. You start to believe your own bullshit.

Due to social media some people think they are more amazing or funnier than they actually are. Let me give you an example: Remember that magician who got in trouble for doing questionable material at a college? Do you think he learned a lesson from that? Well if Instagram is to be believed.... nope. Why do you think that is? Take a gander at the comments. They are encouraging of this behavior. In his social media bubble he gets the ego stroke he needs to believe this is another good idea and he's not alone. Tons of mediocre practitioners of the art get this fluffing every day and every hour.

I'm not saying praise is bad. What I am saying is that you need to remember that the things people are saying to you online they would say to anyone doing the same thing. They might even say it to a video of someone microwaving a burrito. It is the internet after all. You are not a beautiful and unique snowstorm snowflake. These are the same people who can't think of anything better to put other than "Beautiful" on every photo of a girl they see on the internet. I'm just saying temper what people say with reality.

I know that's asking a lot.

The new currency...

How do you think knowledge should be passed on?

Before people were "literate" and could read and write it was all oral (giggity). Knowledge was passed down from parent to child, elder to contemporary, master to novice. Someone who had been there and done that. As times changed, knowledge became easier to come by. You no longer had to prove yourself to receive these trade secrets.Technology has helped people find jobs and hobbies they never would have found in the aforementioned archaic system.

As we have progressed through the ages, trade has also been a way to garner favor. Scratch my back and I will teach you something. Sometimes it's tit for tat with a skill but more often than not, in today's society, it's monetary in nature. In the last few decades, this is how a lot of magic knowledge has been spread across the globe. From books and videos to magic shops both online and brick and mortar. You can learn how to do some cool stuff to pick up gals, amuse friends and sometimes even jump start a career for some of your hard earned cash. Seems fair right?

Why did I regale you all of this? Well it's because today I saw a video that made me want to punch babies (more than usual).

Yah good luck with that kid...

It seems the new stock and trade for learning something is now fake internet points. The worst part is, it's not even THEIR secrets to give away. It's other people's knowledge they are offering to divulge. Information they are selling and the perpetrator has likely not even paid for themselves. They didn't earn this knowledge through hard work or trade and yet are willing to offer it up freely for a fleeting moment of "fame" and a few button presses.

We are living in a world of amateurs teaching amateurs and I'm not sure how I feel about.

Social Disease...

The past week, (hell the past few months), have been rough on magic. A lot of magicians are in a period of mourning and if you don't know why you might just need to look into it.

I could do one of my usual waxing poetic posts about who we lost like I have in the past and I still might but today I decided to do an experiment... a social experiment.

I thought to myself, "I wonder if any of the high profile social media guys have posted anything about any number of the people we have lost."

Did I find anything you ask?

Male, female, none of the people whose social media I slogged through said word one about Johnny, Dusheck, Sonny, Denny, or any of the others who have recently passed. Actually, I take that back. One person mentioned Johnny. So that means I could find 7 whole words across 4 platforms about one of them.

Why is that you ask? Could it be because the current crop of people using magic to garner attention couldn't be bothered to acknowledge that which has come before them and pay respects to the shoulders of those who they are treading all over?

Most of their pages are just a glut of "LOOK AT ME BUY MY STUFF LOOK AT ME!" To be fair I didn't see EVERY page they post on. Some have their personal FB profiles hidden well (or don't exist). However, you would think that even on their "official" pages they would mention the passing of SOMEONE to the public out of respect. I don't care if you have millions of invisible fans or won a TV show competition, you should take your blinders off and look around sometime.

Acknowledge the knowledge that has gotten you this far.