is the drop in the popularity of magic that happened a few years ago because of people knowing that its a trick? during the golden age of magic magic was the top form of entertainment and people believed that these men had supernatural powers. magic throughout history has been portrayed as real. examples: egyptian priests, houdini escapes etc..........these where all seen as real and even in anicient cultures magicians where the head of religions. so has the popularity of magic dropped due to the rising intelligence of audiences and some magicians themselves even presenting magic as slight of hand?
Magic Popularity
- Thread starter dasmagic
- Start date
I agree with Drew, and the simple fact of Youtube Exposure videos are ruining it.
Before it was " yeah my uncle can pull a coin out of my ear" and now its "oh yeah my son/nephew/cousin's son/dog can do that.
~PaCo
Before it was " yeah my uncle can pull a coin out of my ear" and now its "oh yeah my son/nephew/cousin's son/dog can do that.
~PaCo
i see your point and hate that type of performer but they cant bring down an arts popularity. for example a 12 year old can show off a really bad painting but this doesnt effect the overall personality of painting if you know what i mean it would take more then a few idoits to do that and instead of blaming a minority i think magicians in general need to look at themselves and other magicians ( not those idiots doing youtube magic which most of the time is the wrong method. for example their criss angel revealed vids are a joke) to find the bigger problem!
Exactly. People haven't changed at all. They think that criss angel, David blaine, David Copperfield, etc have real powers. The only magicians that ruin the magic in my opinion are magicians who complain that magic is dead and they don't do **** about it. All they do is complain and practice in front of the mirror.
In my opinion magic has been decreased in popularity, because of the image. The image of big props and people sawed in half. However if you take something from people's everyday lives, including playing cards, if presented the right way, it doesn't matter what people think. You have to be able to do something a person admire and not something they think everyone can do.
The hardest thing I think is to present the trick, not as a puzzle of something you can do and they can't, but they want to figure it out - but as something that just is what it is, and nothing needs to be figured out.
The hardest thing I think is to present the trick, not as a puzzle of something you can do and they can't, but they want to figure it out - but as something that just is what it is, and nothing needs to be figured out.
AHHA I find you comment very funny. And that's true, some magicians only complain. I don't see anything really wrong with magic now. Mabye I just don't see the problems....or mabye I haven't been in magic long enough to realize that it's a problem. I don't know but I love magic...ahha
i have to say that famous tv magicians have done a lot to bring magic back but them using camera tricks has damaged magic. if u look on youtube the solution in most of the criss angel or david blaine revealed is a camera trick even when most of the time it isnt. but by doing it once they believe that even a the card tricks are camera tricks and that means people dont want to watch it.
about the youtube exposers. there is only one way to stop them and its simple. if the creator of the effect writes to youtube about the exposure they will be removed. but most dont know this or are too lazy to write the letter. this would stop these videos straight away. for example match highlights are delete off the site really quickly because the owner of their rights contacted youtube.
now bad magicians. theyre are a lot of them. well u cant stop them performing but u can over shadow them. firstly most people here are better then them and good magicians alos out number the bad ones in my opinion because most people who have an interest in magic practyice so they get reactions. the solution. perform more for strangers. i hear a lot oin these forums about nerves and being scared but to put it bluntly if your a magician and spend money learning tricks but dont perform due to fear or nerves u migt as well throw your money out the window. its pointless if your that scared for your own sake and for your money get over it and just do it everyones nervous but just do it whats the worst that can happen or else give it up and dont waste your money.
to sum up lets get performing and make it so that people wont ever say oh my god your athe first magician i have ever met. lets be everywhere so magic becomes like art, music and dance unavoidable and popular. Wayne even said he used to hide the fact that he was a magician because it can be seen as uncool and geeky. lets show the world that the image of a magician has changed from a geek to a cooler one!!!!!!!!!!!!!
about the youtube exposers. there is only one way to stop them and its simple. if the creator of the effect writes to youtube about the exposure they will be removed. but most dont know this or are too lazy to write the letter. this would stop these videos straight away. for example match highlights are delete off the site really quickly because the owner of their rights contacted youtube.
now bad magicians. theyre are a lot of them. well u cant stop them performing but u can over shadow them. firstly most people here are better then them and good magicians alos out number the bad ones in my opinion because most people who have an interest in magic practyice so they get reactions. the solution. perform more for strangers. i hear a lot oin these forums about nerves and being scared but to put it bluntly if your a magician and spend money learning tricks but dont perform due to fear or nerves u migt as well throw your money out the window. its pointless if your that scared for your own sake and for your money get over it and just do it everyones nervous but just do it whats the worst that can happen or else give it up and dont waste your money.
to sum up lets get performing and make it so that people wont ever say oh my god your athe first magician i have ever met. lets be everywhere so magic becomes like art, music and dance unavoidable and popular. Wayne even said he used to hide the fact that he was a magician because it can be seen as uncool and geeky. lets show the world that the image of a magician has changed from a geek to a cooler one!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe that a major cause of the decline in magic's image is the rapid rate at which technology improves and scientific advancements are made. Most people now are very fixed in their mind set of "I know what is, and what is not possible. If it does not coincide with my knowledge of science, and what I 'know' to be true; it is a trick."
You cannot blame the decline of magic in the sence of how realistic it is portrayed and persieved purely on people's poor performances over youtube. This makes the assumption that the wide majority of an audience has browsed for, and viewed poor performances.
One way that you can tell that the increasing quality of education affects the way magic is persieved would be to perform for a younger child one on one. I've done this a couple of times for the sons / daughters of some friends of mine and have realised that they are very open to the concept of magic. They will, however, usually not hesitate to tell you when they believe that they have an explanation. The problem comes from the fact that many adults believe that they already HAVE the explanation, and that the details are merely to be found out. This is also why some tricks these days can cause spectators some pretty severe confusion when they are unable to match what happened to any logical explanation that they can come up with.
I think we're at a turning point in the art. With the media revolution, things will change. Magic will no longer be seen as realistic as it once was. Let us try to move into the next era, where magic can not only be considered an art in OUR eyes, but the spectator's aswell.
Another main difference between now and hundreds of years ago is the fact that now, magic is a common form of entertainment. Where-as it used to be a mysterious act that would have it's spectators spreading rumors about. That brings me to my next line of thought; the methods of communication now also affect the world of magic greatly. A long time ago, stories would be told, and those stories would through excessive telling become exagerated (what I like to call the "I once caught a fish" effect xP). Now with the new, sturdier methods of communication, stories are less likely to have the same amount of exageration (stuff like 'carbon copies' in emails and video recordings for example).
And finally, I get to the topic of videos
. Now that magicians are being recorded, or in many cases record themselves, potential live spectators can simply go on youtube (for example) and view magic to their hearts content. This of course leads us to the magician's worst enemy: THE DREADED REWIND. Spectators can now rewind, and rewatch the same effect over and over untill they get some idea as to the method. This can be an instant kill to any effects recorded that use misdirection as their main element (two examples from the Trilogy of this would be "Card Across" and "Hand to Mouth").
As a final note, I would just like to say that the changes do not have to be bad. Change happens, we can either adjust, or not. Personally, I will do my best to adapt magic to the 21st century, as our decendants will have to do after us.
*END WALL OF TEXT*
ehm, sorry.. It's late.. flying to the states tommorow, had nothing better to do
You cannot blame the decline of magic in the sence of how realistic it is portrayed and persieved purely on people's poor performances over youtube. This makes the assumption that the wide majority of an audience has browsed for, and viewed poor performances.
One way that you can tell that the increasing quality of education affects the way magic is persieved would be to perform for a younger child one on one. I've done this a couple of times for the sons / daughters of some friends of mine and have realised that they are very open to the concept of magic. They will, however, usually not hesitate to tell you when they believe that they have an explanation. The problem comes from the fact that many adults believe that they already HAVE the explanation, and that the details are merely to be found out. This is also why some tricks these days can cause spectators some pretty severe confusion when they are unable to match what happened to any logical explanation that they can come up with.
I think we're at a turning point in the art. With the media revolution, things will change. Magic will no longer be seen as realistic as it once was. Let us try to move into the next era, where magic can not only be considered an art in OUR eyes, but the spectator's aswell.
Another main difference between now and hundreds of years ago is the fact that now, magic is a common form of entertainment. Where-as it used to be a mysterious act that would have it's spectators spreading rumors about. That brings me to my next line of thought; the methods of communication now also affect the world of magic greatly. A long time ago, stories would be told, and those stories would through excessive telling become exagerated (what I like to call the "I once caught a fish" effect xP). Now with the new, sturdier methods of communication, stories are less likely to have the same amount of exageration (stuff like 'carbon copies' in emails and video recordings for example).
And finally, I get to the topic of videos
. Now that magicians are being recorded, or in many cases record themselves, potential live spectators can simply go on youtube (for example) and view magic to their hearts content. This of course leads us to the magician's worst enemy: THE DREADED REWIND. Spectators can now rewind, and rewatch the same effect over and over untill they get some idea as to the method. This can be an instant kill to any effects recorded that use misdirection as their main element (two examples from the Trilogy of this would be "Card Across" and "Hand to Mouth").As a final note, I would just like to say that the changes do not have to be bad. Change happens, we can either adjust, or not. Personally, I will do my best to adapt magic to the 21st century, as our decendants will have to do after us.
*END WALL OF TEXT*
ehm, sorry.. It's late.. flying to the states tommorow, had nothing better to do
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Nope. That won't do squat. The only exposure videos that can be removed by the creators are the ones that are taken directly from a copyrighted source and put on YouTube. For example, snippets of explanations/performances from The Trilogy, unless posted by Dan/Dave, are illegal. But if it's just some punk kid on a webcam explaining the effect, there's nothing anybody can do to have it removed.
As the times change the art has to change. I think as the times change we as magicians and I'm talking REAL MAGICIANS need to make new effects and put twists on old effects. I don't think that people don't like magic but if someone is not good at magic or does not practice the person who is seeing the magic might think that all magic is like that which is bad for the art form. Practice is a huge part of magic, you need to put in alot of time to make something look good, you cant do something in 2 seconds. Hopefully magic will never fade away and stay forever.