Exposure is one of the smallest problems in magic today.
Want me to elaborate? I'd love to, but first I'd like you to think about something. Not one of these let-me-keep-reading-so-I-can-see-where-he's-going-with-this things. I'm actually posing this question to you:
When has exposure interfered with a performance of yours, or of your audience's enjoyment of your magic?
Has it? If so, I’d really like to hear about it, because exposure has never affected me or my performances in any way, shape or form. At all. Not even a little bit. Exposure is a problem that really only magicians worry about, and we worry about it only because we know it’s there. And therein lies the difference; most laymen don’t know that magic exposure is on the internet, and even a smaller percentage of people actually care.
As a magician, it may be hard to put yourself into laymen’s shoes, but please humor me for a minute and try. Is your definition of ‘fun’ really going home and watching videos of how magic tricks are done? Why the hell would you even care how magic tricks are done? Laymen don’t search for magic tutorials as much as we think they do. Maybe once in a while if they have nothing to do after watching David Blaine re-run or something, but not every day.
Now I’m aware of the loss of profit for the production companies (not the artists, as they are always paid up front for magic projects. The producers distributors are the ones losing money), are magicians really bombarded by people who say they learned such-and-such on YouTube to the point where they can’t get a double lift or a palm past anyone?
The fact remains that I am a performer; an entertainer. I really don’t care if some pre-teen is out there exposing Indecent so all of his 12 year old subscribers can perform it for their mirrors (one thing you must also acknowledge is that the people learning these effects and exposing them simply view magic as a fad and it will pass straight over them and they will, more likely than not, never perform for anyone outside of their mom or their webcam). I don’t ‘do’ magic, I entertain people with it. Magic is much more about entertainment and presentation than the secret, a point that all too many of us have forgotten as we rush to buy the newest and latest and greatest. Entertainment is not something you can expose, my friend, and entertainment, not the secret, is what magic is all about. If a professional gets hired for a gig, he’s getting hired for himself. Sure, the magic he does plays a part in it, but not the main part - a magician performing simple tricks with amazing presentation and showmanship will always do better than a magician performing the most mind-numbingly awesome trick with the presentational depth of a computer manual.
Now I'm willing to bet some of you are just about ready to jump out of your seat and yell, “Ryan, you’re wrong!! What if one of my spectators sees something on YouTube and then calls me out on it when I perform it??”. Well that may be true, but you must ask yourself how much this actually happens. And the honest-to-god truth is that it does not happen very often. You also need to accept that this is going to happen if you’re performing big-ticket effects at school, so adjust and adapt. Dig out the Royal Road and perform something in there, or create your own. It’s much easier to change what you’re performing than try to tackle the impossible (for example, removing magic exposure from the internet).
Now do understand that I'm not condoning exposure or turning my head to it. It's just that people are making exposure into a much bigger deal that it actually is and talking about it like it's going to be the downfall of magic.
Hope that gives you something to think about, and if you have anything to say in response, I would really love to hear it
Ryan
PS. Thanks to The Dark Angel for pushing me to post this, as this was originally in a PM conversation and posting it didn't even cross my mind
Want me to elaborate? I'd love to, but first I'd like you to think about something. Not one of these let-me-keep-reading-so-I-can-see-where-he's-going-with-this things. I'm actually posing this question to you:
When has exposure interfered with a performance of yours, or of your audience's enjoyment of your magic?
Has it? If so, I’d really like to hear about it, because exposure has never affected me or my performances in any way, shape or form. At all. Not even a little bit. Exposure is a problem that really only magicians worry about, and we worry about it only because we know it’s there. And therein lies the difference; most laymen don’t know that magic exposure is on the internet, and even a smaller percentage of people actually care.
As a magician, it may be hard to put yourself into laymen’s shoes, but please humor me for a minute and try. Is your definition of ‘fun’ really going home and watching videos of how magic tricks are done? Why the hell would you even care how magic tricks are done? Laymen don’t search for magic tutorials as much as we think they do. Maybe once in a while if they have nothing to do after watching David Blaine re-run or something, but not every day.
Now I’m aware of the loss of profit for the production companies (not the artists, as they are always paid up front for magic projects. The producers distributors are the ones losing money), are magicians really bombarded by people who say they learned such-and-such on YouTube to the point where they can’t get a double lift or a palm past anyone?
The fact remains that I am a performer; an entertainer. I really don’t care if some pre-teen is out there exposing Indecent so all of his 12 year old subscribers can perform it for their mirrors (one thing you must also acknowledge is that the people learning these effects and exposing them simply view magic as a fad and it will pass straight over them and they will, more likely than not, never perform for anyone outside of their mom or their webcam). I don’t ‘do’ magic, I entertain people with it. Magic is much more about entertainment and presentation than the secret, a point that all too many of us have forgotten as we rush to buy the newest and latest and greatest. Entertainment is not something you can expose, my friend, and entertainment, not the secret, is what magic is all about. If a professional gets hired for a gig, he’s getting hired for himself. Sure, the magic he does plays a part in it, but not the main part - a magician performing simple tricks with amazing presentation and showmanship will always do better than a magician performing the most mind-numbingly awesome trick with the presentational depth of a computer manual.
Now I'm willing to bet some of you are just about ready to jump out of your seat and yell, “Ryan, you’re wrong!! What if one of my spectators sees something on YouTube and then calls me out on it when I perform it??”. Well that may be true, but you must ask yourself how much this actually happens. And the honest-to-god truth is that it does not happen very often. You also need to accept that this is going to happen if you’re performing big-ticket effects at school, so adjust and adapt. Dig out the Royal Road and perform something in there, or create your own. It’s much easier to change what you’re performing than try to tackle the impossible (for example, removing magic exposure from the internet).
Now do understand that I'm not condoning exposure or turning my head to it. It's just that people are making exposure into a much bigger deal that it actually is and talking about it like it's going to be the downfall of magic.
Hope that gives you something to think about, and if you have anything to say in response, I would really love to hear it
Ryan
PS. Thanks to The Dark Angel for pushing me to post this, as this was originally in a PM conversation and posting it didn't even cross my mind
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