...and start being a productive member responsible for valuable contributions to our magic community.
We’ve all seen the posts before on this forum, or any other forum on the internet. You know the kind of posts I’m talking about. The posts that cut down, belittle, inflame, infuriate, insult, or make fun of someone else for something they either said or done.
It’s not just an issue related to magic. It’s an issue that affects any social community that exists long enough and builds for itself enough of a following. Be the subject religion, fiction, kid shows, or even magic. It doesn’t matter what the genre or subject is there will always be someone out there that thinks their way is the best way, and the only way to do things proper, and they won’t be too ashamed to share their ill-begotten opinion with the entire community. Normally in physical social circles the major confrontations are usually avoidable. Most civilized adults try to not create or inflame social situations with each other. Not that it doesn’t happen, it’s just not standard social protocol in modern polite society. However there is another media outlet for our social skills to expose itself, and that outlet is the internet. It would appear that most of the social inhibitors that help prevent us from creating or inflaming interactions with each other don’t exist in cyberspace. This I think is largely due to the ambiguity of the internet has created for us a safety blanket to hide under, allowing our darker sides to show with out fear of serious repercussions.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and no one understands that better than Elitists, purists, devotes, and true-believers. These people are a double edged sword. Often their experience and knowledge in their subject matter is vast, however their fatal flaw is that they are convinced that their way is the right way, the only way, and they’ll have no issue telling you that. I’m not saying that being an elitist is a bad thing. After all the amount of skill and practice that goes into achieving that status is admirable, but there is a proper way to express your thoughts, and that sometimes get overlooked online.
The problem that I see is why do we have to be so rude to each other with respect to our posts, opinions, experience, videos, or otherwise? What is so difficult about giving constructive criticism vs. doling out the nasty, sarcastic, abusive, or rude comments?
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s often far too tempting to lash out and cut into some poor fool who posts some egotistical or negative comment on the forums, but in doing so am I really doing all that I can to help them grow as a community member? No. Not really. I’m no better than they are by stooping to that level and attacking them. Despite how cathartic it is, it doesn’t make it right.
If you see something done by someone live that you don’t like you probably wouldn’t be jumping at the chance to jump into a verbal assault against them, possibly provoking a physical one shortly there after. Especially if you don’t know this person. Yet on the internet a video gets posted of a less than stellar performance or someone posts some self inflated comment out of pride or ego, and you’re itching to be the first to hit the reply button and shred the very fiber of their moral being. I think there’s a great imbalance here, and some moderation should be in store.
“We are either moving ahead or slipping back.” Bo Schembechler head coach Michigan. That is a remarkable quote, but what does it mean for us? We’re magicians. Our short term goal is to perform, with a long term aspiration to entertain. Please note that I drew a clear line between the two. Performing is the easy part. You buy a trick, you learn it, practice it, and then execute the patter with the moves in a synchronized manor that does not undermine the effort spent to “fool” your audience. Entertaining people can take a lifetime to perfect. Entertainment goes well beyond the constraints of patter, and moves. It involves tone of voice, pitch of voice, character, body language, visual subtleties, timing, and so much more. If you want a real definition between an amateur magician and a professional one, it’s in weather or not they perform or entertain.
But knowing where we are personally in the magic industry is only half of the battle. It’s getting along with everyone else that’s the other half. Amateur, Pro, or Weekend Warrior, everyone I’ve ever met that has a serious love for the art wants to see it progress in a positive and worth while manor. Rightfully it should. Magic is one of the worlds oldest professions, and it’s on our shoulders to keep inspiring new generations to wonderment, so that they pick up the torch to carry the art onto the next generation, so forth and so on.
So if you spend any amount of time on this forum, you’re going to run into a re-accuring theme of “Progressing the Art”. Just how do we do that? How can we do our part to progress the art of magic? Well a lot of it has to do with how we treat each other, and how much respect we afford our peers coupled with a proper amount of coaching reinforcement.
The first and biggest step forward in this process must come from you, my reader. You’ve got to ask yourself one question. Are you Complacent or are you Committed? That’s a pretty serious question. If you’re complacent then you’re satisfied with where you are in the world of magic. You’re not moving forward in any speedy fashion. You’ve learned everything you think you’re going to, and you’re not really open to entertaining any new ideas. You’ve found a routine, a rut, or a pattern and you’re happy to stick to it. Basically you just do enough to get by, without stepping out of your comfort zone or disrupting your daily pattern. However if you’re committed, you’re outlook on the industry is a little different isn’t it? You’re dedicated to the betterment of yourself, you’re never done learning, you’re always willing to listen to new theories, advice, or takes on older subjects, you’re willing to adventure boldly into new horizons, explore new areas, try new routines, make changes to your character, patter, or program, and generally push yourself to be better than you were yesterday. If you’re the complacent type, you may as well exit out of this thread now. You’ve got all your answers and nothing I’ve got to say is going to make one bit of sense to you. I wish you well. There’s an old saying: “You can’t push a rope.“ and I’m in no mood to try and challenge it. However, if you’re committed then read on! I think between you and me, we can change our world.
The thing about participating in an online magic community is things are going to change. Change is growth when you think about it. It can be positive, or negative, and the results is directly reflective of those who participate in it to make it happen. If we all work together to establish better online community habits, then we can help encourage more positive growth not only for ourselves but everyone else around us.
Attitude is the first thing we must look at. The biggest reason why we’re all here on this forum is covered in this section. It’s called “What’s in it for me?”. That is the most important question to everyone individually here. What do I get out of participating in this forum? Hopefully, it’s help with your skills, career, character, networking, a place to be heard, to exchange ideas with like minds, among a list of many other good things. If it’s because you like to pick fights, then you’re in the wrong place.
The problem is most people don’t really know the difference between giving good constructive advice and giving negative criticism. Really when you think about it there is a huge difference between coaching and criticizing. As magicians engaging each other in online communities it is our responsibility to coach each other if we want to succeed in magic, further ourselves and our art.
When you coach someone you’re not trying to tear them apart, insult them, or hurt their feelings. You are making observations about both the good and bad things that they are doing, and attempting to make them aware of those things. On top of pointing out the good and the bad, you also offer some insight on how you think the undesired qualities can be improved upon. That way in the future, they can work on eliminating the unwanted qualities in their work and improve on the good qualities. When you criticize someone you very rarely highlight the positive aspects of their work, post, video, etc. You only focus on the negative and almost never do you offer any suggestions on ways to improve.
So I guess what I’m trying to say here is that there is a whole lot of things we can do to help each other grow, evolve, change, without being so negative all of the time. It’s easy to change the world if you start with changing yourself.
We’ve all seen the posts before on this forum, or any other forum on the internet. You know the kind of posts I’m talking about. The posts that cut down, belittle, inflame, infuriate, insult, or make fun of someone else for something they either said or done.
It’s not just an issue related to magic. It’s an issue that affects any social community that exists long enough and builds for itself enough of a following. Be the subject religion, fiction, kid shows, or even magic. It doesn’t matter what the genre or subject is there will always be someone out there that thinks their way is the best way, and the only way to do things proper, and they won’t be too ashamed to share their ill-begotten opinion with the entire community. Normally in physical social circles the major confrontations are usually avoidable. Most civilized adults try to not create or inflame social situations with each other. Not that it doesn’t happen, it’s just not standard social protocol in modern polite society. However there is another media outlet for our social skills to expose itself, and that outlet is the internet. It would appear that most of the social inhibitors that help prevent us from creating or inflaming interactions with each other don’t exist in cyberspace. This I think is largely due to the ambiguity of the internet has created for us a safety blanket to hide under, allowing our darker sides to show with out fear of serious repercussions.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and no one understands that better than Elitists, purists, devotes, and true-believers. These people are a double edged sword. Often their experience and knowledge in their subject matter is vast, however their fatal flaw is that they are convinced that their way is the right way, the only way, and they’ll have no issue telling you that. I’m not saying that being an elitist is a bad thing. After all the amount of skill and practice that goes into achieving that status is admirable, but there is a proper way to express your thoughts, and that sometimes get overlooked online.
The problem that I see is why do we have to be so rude to each other with respect to our posts, opinions, experience, videos, or otherwise? What is so difficult about giving constructive criticism vs. doling out the nasty, sarcastic, abusive, or rude comments?
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s often far too tempting to lash out and cut into some poor fool who posts some egotistical or negative comment on the forums, but in doing so am I really doing all that I can to help them grow as a community member? No. Not really. I’m no better than they are by stooping to that level and attacking them. Despite how cathartic it is, it doesn’t make it right.
If you see something done by someone live that you don’t like you probably wouldn’t be jumping at the chance to jump into a verbal assault against them, possibly provoking a physical one shortly there after. Especially if you don’t know this person. Yet on the internet a video gets posted of a less than stellar performance or someone posts some self inflated comment out of pride or ego, and you’re itching to be the first to hit the reply button and shred the very fiber of their moral being. I think there’s a great imbalance here, and some moderation should be in store.
“We are either moving ahead or slipping back.” Bo Schembechler head coach Michigan. That is a remarkable quote, but what does it mean for us? We’re magicians. Our short term goal is to perform, with a long term aspiration to entertain. Please note that I drew a clear line between the two. Performing is the easy part. You buy a trick, you learn it, practice it, and then execute the patter with the moves in a synchronized manor that does not undermine the effort spent to “fool” your audience. Entertaining people can take a lifetime to perfect. Entertainment goes well beyond the constraints of patter, and moves. It involves tone of voice, pitch of voice, character, body language, visual subtleties, timing, and so much more. If you want a real definition between an amateur magician and a professional one, it’s in weather or not they perform or entertain.
But knowing where we are personally in the magic industry is only half of the battle. It’s getting along with everyone else that’s the other half. Amateur, Pro, or Weekend Warrior, everyone I’ve ever met that has a serious love for the art wants to see it progress in a positive and worth while manor. Rightfully it should. Magic is one of the worlds oldest professions, and it’s on our shoulders to keep inspiring new generations to wonderment, so that they pick up the torch to carry the art onto the next generation, so forth and so on.
So if you spend any amount of time on this forum, you’re going to run into a re-accuring theme of “Progressing the Art”. Just how do we do that? How can we do our part to progress the art of magic? Well a lot of it has to do with how we treat each other, and how much respect we afford our peers coupled with a proper amount of coaching reinforcement.
The first and biggest step forward in this process must come from you, my reader. You’ve got to ask yourself one question. Are you Complacent or are you Committed? That’s a pretty serious question. If you’re complacent then you’re satisfied with where you are in the world of magic. You’re not moving forward in any speedy fashion. You’ve learned everything you think you’re going to, and you’re not really open to entertaining any new ideas. You’ve found a routine, a rut, or a pattern and you’re happy to stick to it. Basically you just do enough to get by, without stepping out of your comfort zone or disrupting your daily pattern. However if you’re committed, you’re outlook on the industry is a little different isn’t it? You’re dedicated to the betterment of yourself, you’re never done learning, you’re always willing to listen to new theories, advice, or takes on older subjects, you’re willing to adventure boldly into new horizons, explore new areas, try new routines, make changes to your character, patter, or program, and generally push yourself to be better than you were yesterday. If you’re the complacent type, you may as well exit out of this thread now. You’ve got all your answers and nothing I’ve got to say is going to make one bit of sense to you. I wish you well. There’s an old saying: “You can’t push a rope.“ and I’m in no mood to try and challenge it. However, if you’re committed then read on! I think between you and me, we can change our world.
The thing about participating in an online magic community is things are going to change. Change is growth when you think about it. It can be positive, or negative, and the results is directly reflective of those who participate in it to make it happen. If we all work together to establish better online community habits, then we can help encourage more positive growth not only for ourselves but everyone else around us.
Attitude is the first thing we must look at. The biggest reason why we’re all here on this forum is covered in this section. It’s called “What’s in it for me?”. That is the most important question to everyone individually here. What do I get out of participating in this forum? Hopefully, it’s help with your skills, career, character, networking, a place to be heard, to exchange ideas with like minds, among a list of many other good things. If it’s because you like to pick fights, then you’re in the wrong place.
The problem is most people don’t really know the difference between giving good constructive advice and giving negative criticism. Really when you think about it there is a huge difference between coaching and criticizing. As magicians engaging each other in online communities it is our responsibility to coach each other if we want to succeed in magic, further ourselves and our art.
When you coach someone you’re not trying to tear them apart, insult them, or hurt their feelings. You are making observations about both the good and bad things that they are doing, and attempting to make them aware of those things. On top of pointing out the good and the bad, you also offer some insight on how you think the undesired qualities can be improved upon. That way in the future, they can work on eliminating the unwanted qualities in their work and improve on the good qualities. When you criticize someone you very rarely highlight the positive aspects of their work, post, video, etc. You only focus on the negative and almost never do you offer any suggestions on ways to improve.
So I guess what I’m trying to say here is that there is a whole lot of things we can do to help each other grow, evolve, change, without being so negative all of the time. It’s easy to change the world if you start with changing yourself.
