A plea to the multitudes...

Jan 13, 2008
1,137
0
I know this will offend some, spur controversy, but I also know this will completely hit home with some people and there will be people agreeing both openly and secretly.
To be quite honest, I laughed at this statement...just let the responses speak for themselves; talking big like this is just silly.

tokyoUW said:
STOP treating magic like a get rich quick, half-assed approach, "I am so gooood already" type of hobby. Magic, like a lot of other hobbies/sports/activities takes an extreme amount of practice and requires countless hours of experience performing for real people. However, lately, with all these posts about "please watch my new video, though, it isn't so good," and the absurd number of new videos being posted by our T11 members on youtube, it is becoming sickening to think about people starting out in magic as a new hobby.
You had me until the last part (bolded for emphasis). Just because someone treats magic poorly does not mean they have to be in it as a hobby. Likewise, just because someone is in magic as a hobby does not mean they don't take it seriously--they just don't necessarily perform often.

You've made two statements in the above, and combined them, making a loaded "double barrel" statement (which I've outlined above), which is fairly bad form for an argument. Having pointed out both statements, I'll respond to both separately, and hopefully others will be able to do the same from now on. With the way it was originally posted, it could have easily produced a "hobby vs. professional" argument, and I can see that that was not the intention (at least, I'd hope it isn't, because that's a silly argument).

So, your first point (taken from the non-bolded stuff in the above quote), is that people are performing online far too soon after learning a new sleight. They aren't putting in adequate practice, and thus when they try to show off, it comes off as sloppy. And to add insult to injury, they often have a giant ego.

Looking past the ego part, as that seems to be common with a large majority of magicians (both good and bad), I have to agree with the statement. It's the same with a lot of things outside of magic, though, so it's kind of a "no duh" type statement. Have you seen American Idol? Those people think they're the best ever, yet very few can sing worth anything. There's been dance competitions, talent competitions, etc on television of people performing something far before they should be. It looks like magic is no exception (go figure).

As for the second point (the bolded portion in the above quote), you seem to be implying that these people are purely hobbyists. Labeling everyone who doesn't perform adequately as a "hobbyist" is pretty insulting...that implies that they have no intention of doing anything with their magic (in a professional sense). It's pretty difficult to imply intention from skill level--just because they obviously lack the ability to have their magic take them anywhere, does not mean they don't intend for that to happy. I guess it just depends on how you would define "hobbyist", I suppose. :)

tokyoUW said:
Magic is the same way... please put in the effort that is required and get rid of the mindset, "dude... I am like sooo pro now and awesome, and I'm gonna sell ma tricks now, and make money... and get famous.. and stuff."

Treat magic with more respect than that.
To be honest, this statement will just be preaching to the choir. Those who should listen, won't. Those who agree will sing their praise accordingly.

People don't like being spoken down to or in a negative tone, and when that happens, they get defensive and listen even less. While I agree that those crotch-shot YouTube videos are just awful, I don't believe this is the way to go about inspiring change.

Now, I realize that sometimes people need to hear the facts, no matter how they sound--but that's just not the best way to go about it. At least, not if you want people to listen. You need a supportive, open discussion where both sides can say what they like, but cut out the negativity and any sense of "I'm better than you" or "I'm more right than you"...it just doesn't support an environment where one wants to listen to you.

If I were to suggest anything to work towards a solution to the problem, it would start with educating those who act in that manner about how to properly treat the art. I'd also lead by example...post up some videos of well executed magic, in front of an audience (the audience is a huge point--the internet as a whole, not just T11, is lacking in videos of people performing in front of real people).

While not a full solution, it's a start, and it would likely accomplish a lot more than just whining to the people does. Like I've mentioned, whining posts like this will just spawn defensiveness in those it targets, and praise from the choir.

Can we get on with the magic, now? I've seen enough whining. Let's see some magic (with an audience present). :)
 
Oct 1, 2008
26
0
Northwest Indiana
I'm gonna have to reply to this. I agree with the original poster. I'm 30, just started in card magic/flourishing about 6 months ago and while I've picked up flourishing rather quickly... I by no means consider myself 'pro' or 'awesome' ... I give about 6 hours average practice time to sleights and flourishes...but I won't perform for a real audience yet. Not anytime soon in fact. I've learned some very good, easier pieces of magic...but I'm not happy with the consistency or the fluidity of the routines yet. I refuse to just pull out a deck of cards and do a great trick poorly. Just isn't going to happen. I think it trivializes the work the creators put into making these pieces of magic short, simple, and overall...realistic. I would hope that just out of respect for these great minds coming up with the current material, no one else would, as I put above, perform great tricks badly. Magic, is quite simply, a hard skill. If you want to go out and perform, do everyone, including yourself a favor...and practice the crap out of the material first so as not to trivialize the art. Just my opinion.

I saw an earlier post about suggestions to making the art more consistent for the new people like me. Um...at least to me, isn't it obvious? As a magician, yer a performer. "perform" the effect. Anyone can whip out a deck of cards or whatever and just...do a trick. People have done it to me before and while the trick was good, they didn't draw me in...at all. For that 5 minutes or whatever it takes to complete your effect, suspend your audiences disbelief. For the brief time you spend with them, make them question their own senses. Did I really just see that? There's no way that could have happened.... isn't that the whole point of being a magician? I thought it was.

K thats good enough /rant=off
 
hey guys! checks out my cool youtube channel! i know lotz of grate tricks for the streetz like tivo! i didn't actually learn it, but i made up my own even better version!!
here you go.
wow, i actually had difficulty writing that. the link is to a video so i can see how many people click on it.

Tally I am going to find you and hit you with a blunt object that I found in my backyard.


Any way, yes I don't generally buy from sites where anyone can submit a trick to no matter what age you are. I know there are a lot of talented folks out there. But just because one person got great success from creating an effect, doesn't mean you should submit every trick you create to a magic dealer.

Another thing that "grinds my gears.." is the amount of single effect dvds out there now a-days. It is ridiculous single effects are selling for the amount of a multi trick dvd.

Also just hop over to the what I am going to call an unneeded disaster, the saturday night contest thread. It was a great contest, also it was a great example at how exploded people's egos are.
 

bd

Jun 26, 2008
584
2
San Francisco, California
How dare you call threads like these meaningless, when there are countless threads about TiVo's, Sybils and other "Watch my youtube channel" stuff that are a disgrace to Magic.

This guy is absolutely spot-on. Magic is treated as an easy thing to do. There is no practice or respect with these beginners that want to be cool and popular and think magic is the easy way. Does anyone practice presentation, or god-forbid, write a script?

I think the popular "learn street magic" sites hurt magic more than any Masked Magician special. It's all for the money.

I enjoy these "pointless rant" threads, at least there are some people that care on here.

-Sebastian

Quoted, because I would have typed the same exact thing.
 
Feb 20, 2009
9
0
Hell
I know this will offend some, spur controversy, but I also know this will completely hit home with some people and there will be people agreeing both openly and secretly.

STOP treating magic like a get rich quick, half-assed approach, "I am so gooood already" type of hobby. Magic, like a lot of other hobbies/sports/activities takes an extreme amount of practice and requires countless hours of experience performing for real people. However, lately, with all these posts about "please watch my new video, though, it isn't so good," and the absurd number of new videos being posted by our T11 members on youtube, it is becoming sickening to think about people starting out in magic as a new hobby.

Just because you learned and practiced a draw stroke and can now adequately draw the cueball a good foot or two 80% of the time in practice, and all in one day, it does NOT mean you would be able to actually do it in a real 9-ball game when it actually counts.

Magic is the same way... please put in the effort that is required and get rid of the mindset, "dude... I am like sooo pro now and awesome, and I'm gonna sell ma tricks now, and make money... and get famous.. and stuff."

Treat magic with more respect than that.

I know this does not accurately label everyone here... but lately, it is good 50% of the forum posters here.

Whether you like it or not, since when is it your choice how other people act?

If somebody isn't quite ready and decides to try and market a trick, let them make the mistake. If somebody tries to be too cool an messes up in front of an audience, that's their fault. You have absolutely no say in it, an threads like these on ANY website on ANY topic are ridiculous. It's their magic, their life, their mistakes. Not yours.

Jesus.

Fantastic post btw cm763.
 
Sep 1, 2007
3,786
15
This is swiftly becoming a thread in which everyone involved is irritating me.

Do they put estrogen in playing card ink these days? What is with you people?
 
Feb 1, 2009
976
0
Manchester, UK.
I don't actually see the point in this topic whatsoever, it's obviously going to spark a huge arguement. If a beginner was foolish enough to try and sell a trick he made which is crap, then why would anyone buy it?
 
Sep 30, 2008
144
0
Funny how this is the "General Discussion" forum, thus making any thread extremely difficult to justify being called "pointless." In addition, I apologize if paying close enough attention to and being justifiably annoyed at the present state of the online magic community. Again, I apolgize for posting a pretty blunt post directed towards a situation where being blunt is the only way to be heard when 80% of the comments under all of the videos posted are, "SMOOOTH," "sooo goooood," "tutorial plz!!!" and "you are great, keep up the good work," when they should say, "keep practicing," or "not a bad start, but not good enough," and when they should be password protected in the first place.

But cheers to you for showing how much you actually care about the current state of your hobby.

How does my post convey how I feel about the current state of the hobby? Besides, I don't do any flourishing and I do hardly any magic.
Watch my media around here for an example. And yes, this thread is meaningless and all it is is a poor attempt at making an argument rather than "spark thinking". You don't want to make magic better, you were just bored on weekend
 
Sep 20, 2008
1,112
3
Do they put estrogen in playing card ink these days? What is with you people?

No wonder they smelt like roses.. Ah, my feminine side coming out again.

Skimming through everything and taking a risk here from being flamed for doing so:

They're kids. You dont tell a 5 year old to grow up now do you? in the same sense, you dont tell a teenager to grow younger when they **** up.


There are far better things to worry about that kids performing for webcams in youtube. Go and watch some news.
 
Jan 13, 2008
1,137
0
This is swiftly becoming a thread in which everyone involved is irritating me.

Do they put estrogen in playing card ink these days? What is with you people?
If you don't like it, you can feel free to contribute "properly", since apparently everyone else is unable to. Lead by example.
 
Sep 1, 2007
3,786
15
If you don't like it, you can feel free to contribute "properly", since apparently everyone else is unable to. Lead by example.

Or the rabble could hall themselves up by the mental bootstraps and shut me up that way. But I kind of doubt that will happen.

As for leading by example, feh. Herding cats, more like. That would be an even bigger waste of my time. At least what I do now has a cathartic element.
 
Jan 1, 2009
2,241
3
Back in Time
I see nothing wrong with making money with magic. It's pretty much one of the only careers out there that allow YOU to also enjoy it. I doubt people who work behind desk's really enjoy what they do. I doubt cashiers enjoy what they do.

Plus it's a career that allows you to be your own boss. Which is another great thing about it, you can also travel when you want to and aren't stuck making min wage for the rest of your life.
 
Sep 26, 2007
591
5
Tokyo, Japan
Unfortunately I went to sleep shortly after I started the thread... downside to living on other side of the world I guess, and was surprised to see four pages of responses.

Here is the thing: I wrote the original post in the way that I did, for a specific reason. I know everyone on here enjoys magic, if they didn't they wouldn't feel the need to respond... or so I thought.

Lately, and I get this way too sometimes, although I try to fight it off as much as possible, that most people argue, just "for the sake or arguing." Even though someone might agree with the overlying purpose/meaning in a post, they will look for something that they can argue against, and then focus on just that one point, forgetting for a minute that actually, deep inside, they completely agree. Which is what I refered to as "agreeing silently" rather than "agreeing openly."

I know the original post had a somewhat "above the rest of you" tone / nuance (I know there is a better way to express this, but I am forgetting my English nowadays), and I know that there were CAPS, and explicit expressions etc... but if you strip that all away, what do you get? You get an extremely valid point that only 2 or 3 people decided to focus on.

So, some might say, "why didn't you just write it stripped of all the negativity in the first place?" Well, my answer would have to be, "I would have woken up this morning to a thread with only 5 responses, rather than four pages of responses."

Mainly, people get drawn to these types of threads because everyone "has a thing to say" about them. Now, even though they might not show that they listened, or agreed on the forum, because they want to get their "2 cents" in showing how keen they are to the English word and how cunning they can be in a response... at the end of the day, they will have at least remembered the discussion, and maybe think twice about their practice routine/ practice methods/ etc...

That is actually all I care about. The number of people who publicly agree with me vs. the number of people who actually might take something away from this both privately and publicly... well, I would have to care more for the latter. Chances are I am never going to meet ANY of you anyway, so my reputation doesn't really matter. But, I have been doing magic for 8 years, never even seen a magic DVD until my 3rd year into magic really, and would like to think I know a little bit of what I am talking about.

Now, on the chance that I did actually offend someone, like, truthfully... than I am sorry, as it was not my attention.
 
Sep 1, 2007
3,786
15
So, some might say, "why didn't you just write it stripped of all the negativity in the first place?" Well, my answer would have to be, "I would have woken up this morning to a thread with only 5 responses, rather than four pages of responses."

Preach it, brother.

As obnoxious as most of the replies were, they were still more lively and interesting than the usual cretinous droning about finding Theory 11 decks at Wal-Greens or whatever.
 
Jul 16, 2008
362
1
30
somewhere in New York
the only thing i got to say here is...u'll find some people that take it seriously and have respect for it and u'll find some that dont give a sh*t. there'll be begginers that think theyre the shiz and put up videos with a huge ego thinking its so good...let them. the reactions they get from people will speak for itself. saying something in a thread won't really do anything to stop that nothing can...we cant stop exposure videos we cant stop people from preforming unprepared. if we know someone doing that thn well u can help them or try to...but u can never control someones actions. i believe that all begginers of magic [maybe not all] may not have as much respect for magic i believe its something thats learned or tought from experience.

jus my 2 cents.
 
Feb 20, 2009
9
0
Hell
Preach it, brother.

As obnoxious as most of the replies were, they were still more lively and interesting than the usual cretinous droning about finding Theory 11 decks at Wal-Greens or whatever.

I hate that ****.

I'd rather have people ranting about finding Old Studs in Walgreens.

Then again, any T11 member would probably have the uber-war-white-turkey deck from T11 than a great deck of Old Studs.
 
I know this will offend some, spur controversy, but I also know this will completely hit home with some people and there will be people agreeing both openly and secretly.

STOP treating magic like a get rich quick, half-assed approach, "I am so gooood already" type of hobby. Magic, like a lot of other hobbies/sports/activities takes an extreme amount of practice and requires countless hours of experience performing for real people. However, lately, with all these posts about "please watch my new video, though, it isn't so good," and the absurd number of new videos being posted by our T11 members on youtube, it is becoming sickening to think about people starting out in magic as a new hobby.

Just because you learned and practiced a draw stroke and can now adequately draw the cueball a good foot or two 80% of the time in practice, and all in one day, it does NOT mean you would be able to actually do it in a real 9-ball game when it actually counts.

Magic is the same way... please put in the effort that is required and get rid of the mindset, "dude... I am like sooo pro now and awesome, and I'm gonna sell ma tricks now, and make money... and get famous.. and stuff."

Treat magic with more respect than that.

I know this does not accurately label everyone here... but lately, it is good 50% of the forum posters here.

I agree and disagree at the same time. The problem isn't new. People have ALWAYS had flirting relationships that are on and off again with the magical arts. There have always been the amatures in the wings who purchase the "next big thing" in part to learn it's secrets and in part to amaze their friends with no real intention to master the art. All of that has been happening for years. The only diffrence is the communication technology made available to today's youth.

Like it, love it, or hate it, the internet is here to stay. It's becoming the next form of entertainment and it ~will~ be the next stage to make a magician famous. Mark my words, the next Criss Angel will be an internet star before he/she has a vegas act. The internet is to magic today what Television was to magic in the 40's. We simply need to embrase it. Because to try and cercomvent it would be foolish. It's like standing infront of a train and expecting to stop it by sheer muscle strength alone.

Sure posting horrible half assed performances online sucks. It kills the art, and you kids really don't have a clue how idiotic you look to the rest of the professionals out there, but screaming "don't post these vids!" at the top of your lungs is only going to end in you going horse. ...And probably a fair amount of frustration. I think it would be good practice to not contribute to the wave of amatures posting their inadaquate performances online unless you are certain your presentation merrits attention, but saying "don't do it" just is silly. You won't stop the videos, and it would take a larger organised force or conscience to stop that kind of nonsesnse than what is humanly feasable. (Note: I did not say possible. Sure it's possible. It just won't happen.)

I look at it like this. All these kids out there performing poorly their tilts, and dl's, with their magnetic underhand reversals into their outjogged three king monte with a half buck twin twist ending just makes the working magicians richer. Because the working magicians will realize that all they have to do is make a quick 40 minute video, put some techno music into it, get some quasi famous "celebrity" of magic to sign off saying "This video rocks!" and slap a cool "edgy" sounding one word verb for a name on the DVD box and they'll be good to go. All these little street magician wanna be's will buy it up in masses, and they'll laugh their way to the bank. The trick doesn't have to even be any good!
 
May 3, 2008
1,146
4
Hong Kong
I agree with Tokyo to some extent
Majority of the forum members are between the ages of 13-17.
This may mean that they only have been in magic for 1-2 years or even less. Some of them may be really good, but some are just plain ignorant. You can and will never stop this. Its not something a thread like this can do.
Just go kill everyone who is bad at magic and everyone will be happy.....
kinda...
 
Nov 15, 2007
1,106
2
35
Raleigh, NC
So, some might say, "why didn't you just write it stripped of all the negativity in the first place?" Well, my answer would have to be, "I would have woken up this morning to a thread with only 5 responses, rather than four pages of responses."

It's the damn truth.

I actually laughed when I saw people calling it a meaningless thread, they might be offended, but they might also be the people you're refering too. :rolleyes:
(the two or three people who did this...don't spout off about how that isn't true...if it's not then just keep it to yourself as it won't help you to argue in this thread now, you've already deemed it meaningless...)

Now, on the chance that I did actually offend someone, like, truthfully... than I am sorry, as it was not my attention.

I don't think anyone should have taken your original post as a direct attack. I think more people need to open their minds just enough so they can learn a lesson or two in life. They're entitled to their opinions though...

Steerpike said:
People are entitled to opinions, but opinions can still be wrong.
I couldn't word it any better.

Having an opinion is a good thing. If the opinion was created over time based on your experience in this world. Not just what others say, but what you see and believe in this world. And when you form a strong, valid, and impermeable opinion you should stick to it and be able to back it up.

However, being able to hold to your convictions is probably the greatest of all virtue, it's just as great to be able to stop, think, and re-configure your opinions so that they're both realistic and have some truth to them.

Don't hold onto something that has no proof backing it. Learn to let go of things you believe when you realize they're not relevant or have no support.

This world has done that many times. Heck this world use to end at one point and hot damn the sun use to orbit around us too. My how things change.


-Rik

Oh and if I offended anybody, good. Bout time you stopped getting apologies for having your feelings hurt once or twice in this world. Don't take offense, take what was said and either prove it wrong (with valid points) or accept it as true and substitute it into your opinions.
 
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