Exposure

[William Karlsson]

Exposure, what is it? Basically what exposure is, is something that is being revealed. That something can be many things, but since this is concerning magic, that's what ill stick to. Exposure is, as we all know, something bad. That we have known since kindergarden. But there are different kinds of exposure.

If I would search around on youtube, trying to find out the mechanics behind a trick, I would be likely to find many sources of information. And when I see that ten year old kid revealing a trick I think to myself ''Oh no, this is not good''. I get a little bit sad. And so does probably most people here on the forums, and that's why there is a sticky thread concerning this. Which is good.

But then this happend. I was looking on youtube of some guys who performed flourishes, it was very good and the editing was fine. I went onto this specific guys channel, ''Punchwater'' I believe was his name, and started looking for more edits. And among his uploads I saw the title ''PRO Card twirl tutorial'' or something. I clicked on the video with the wierd expectation that nothing was going to be revealed. This is not that part of youtube I thought. It was a 20 minute video teaching multiple card ''twirls'', some of them already released for free (Zach Muellers flicker variation...) and also some which were not, specifically ''Bullet'' by Andrei Jikh. To learn Bullet you have to buy the Genesis DVD, and that's how it is. Yet this guy, without any complaints in the comments, thaught it. Among the comments were other great cardists. So, are there different kinds of exposure? I can't see how one can be okay only because the guy teaching it has more ''respect'' on youtube.

Please give me your thoughts, I would love to here them. Also, sorry for any grammatical errors.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

First off, my thoughts are that exposure is not nearly the Armageddon-causing issue that magicians make it out to be. It has had no effect on any performance of mine, ever, and I use tricks which are exposed online. A lot. The only people who have to worry about a trick being exposed are the people who are relying on the trick to be the entire performance. Anyone who engages their audience and entertains them rather than simply puts a puzzle in front of them will never have to worry about exposure because the audience doesn't care about figuring out how it was done. They just want to enjoy the performance.

I think when it comes to flourishes there's less of a stigma to exposing them as they are not secrets. I disagree with the idea of teaching someone else's move without their permission, but a large portion of flourishing is already taught for free anyway. It's a physical skill, not a secret one. Like juggling.