Youtube : Angel or Demon
Just a few days ago I read a post from Jason Soll in the General Forum, which has had partial inspiration behind this month's topic and something that we all have an opinion of… YouTube
YouTube offers anybody with a camera, a computer and an idea, a platform for broadcasting to a worldwide audience free of charge. For magicians, YouTube offers a wonderful resource centre for watching those magic effects that we’ve heard about, but never seen, and watching a video of the performance could ultimately help us decide whether or not we want to invest in the product. It’s also a good place to see the magic shows, or clips of them, that we missed on TV or discover new magicians that we would have never heard of otherwise. YouTube allows us to share our performances with each other so that we can learn from the feedback of our community as well as show how we’ve developed as performers.
Although I could keep listing positive things that I can think of about YouTube, I know you’re all just waiting for the negatives, one negative in particular that applies to magicians and the industry we work from, and that negative is exposure.
Exposure is a wide-open subject for us as magicians. The power of a magic trick lies in one place; the method, so when the method is exposed, the magic dies, as does the spectators belief in magic and the magician.
There are two forms of exposure I’d like to hear your thoughts on… Exposure to the audience and exposure to the learning magician, I’d like to hear how YouTube has affected or helped you in your magic and what you think the future holds for magic on YouTube. What ARE the positives? How can we try to reduce the negatives? And finally, in summation of your points - is Youtube a net positive or net negative factor in magic?
d+M
Just a few days ago I read a post from Jason Soll in the General Forum, which has had partial inspiration behind this month's topic and something that we all have an opinion of… YouTube
YouTube offers anybody with a camera, a computer and an idea, a platform for broadcasting to a worldwide audience free of charge. For magicians, YouTube offers a wonderful resource centre for watching those magic effects that we’ve heard about, but never seen, and watching a video of the performance could ultimately help us decide whether or not we want to invest in the product. It’s also a good place to see the magic shows, or clips of them, that we missed on TV or discover new magicians that we would have never heard of otherwise. YouTube allows us to share our performances with each other so that we can learn from the feedback of our community as well as show how we’ve developed as performers.
Although I could keep listing positive things that I can think of about YouTube, I know you’re all just waiting for the negatives, one negative in particular that applies to magicians and the industry we work from, and that negative is exposure.
Exposure is a wide-open subject for us as magicians. The power of a magic trick lies in one place; the method, so when the method is exposed, the magic dies, as does the spectators belief in magic and the magician.
There are two forms of exposure I’d like to hear your thoughts on… Exposure to the audience and exposure to the learning magician, I’d like to hear how YouTube has affected or helped you in your magic and what you think the future holds for magic on YouTube. What ARE the positives? How can we try to reduce the negatives? And finally, in summation of your points - is Youtube a net positive or net negative factor in magic?
d+M