The Selfish Magician
If you’re a magician, and have ever been to youtube, you will see countless magicians performing for their webcam or video camera. Now, webcams I don’t mind, seeing as how they might not be able to afford a video camera, or just plainly don’t have one. But on the other hand, there are people performing for their moms with a video camera. Now, I’m not against performing for family. They are great! But if you have a video camera…why not perform live? These people are what I call a ‘Selfish Magician’ or, in more hateful terms a ‘Youn00b’
A Selfish Magician (Yes, it’s a proper noun now) is someone who performs magic for themselves or the camera to get comments instead of performing out for people. Magic is not a tool to entertain your self, maybe flourishing but not magic, but it is a tool used to entertain other people, be it at a restaurant, on the street, at school, or even a stage in front of thousands. But it is not for sitting in front of your camera a performing a magic trick twenty times until you don’t flash and put it on youtube, or Veoh, or what have you. Now, I am perfectly fine with posting video on youtube, if you don’t own a video camera, it’s not your fault. But if it’s with a camera for, your dad for example, you are just being selfish, or too lazy to go out and find at least a friend or better yet, a stranger.
Selfish ‘Professionals’
If you go to sites like pub-tricks, you will see people releasing ‘original’ effects for about five dollars, and the demo video is done on webcam, or video camera for, you guessed it, their mom. In most instances these people have probably only been working on the effect for about a month or two and are looking for a quick buck with an effect which is already released somewhere. Not only that, these ‘creators’ are aged from 14 or 15 up to people in, what looks like, their fifties or sixties. Now, I’m going to stop myself before this essay becomes a rant and just get to the conclusion
In conclusion, Magicians are seen as one of three things: kids who have nothing else to do so that they just do magic for the camera, Criss Angel wannabe’s, and individuals who go out and entertain. I don’t know about you, but I want to be seen as the individual who goes out and entertains. The amount of Selfish Magicians today is growing with the ready access to the internet and cheap webcams. And with that it makes a performer who actually goes out entertains have a harder time doing just that: entertaining people because they have to break the barrier that magic is a little kids hobby that they all grow out of.
If you’re a magician, and have ever been to youtube, you will see countless magicians performing for their webcam or video camera. Now, webcams I don’t mind, seeing as how they might not be able to afford a video camera, or just plainly don’t have one. But on the other hand, there are people performing for their moms with a video camera. Now, I’m not against performing for family. They are great! But if you have a video camera…why not perform live? These people are what I call a ‘Selfish Magician’ or, in more hateful terms a ‘Youn00b’
A Selfish Magician (Yes, it’s a proper noun now) is someone who performs magic for themselves or the camera to get comments instead of performing out for people. Magic is not a tool to entertain your self, maybe flourishing but not magic, but it is a tool used to entertain other people, be it at a restaurant, on the street, at school, or even a stage in front of thousands. But it is not for sitting in front of your camera a performing a magic trick twenty times until you don’t flash and put it on youtube, or Veoh, or what have you. Now, I am perfectly fine with posting video on youtube, if you don’t own a video camera, it’s not your fault. But if it’s with a camera for, your dad for example, you are just being selfish, or too lazy to go out and find at least a friend or better yet, a stranger.
Selfish ‘Professionals’
If you go to sites like pub-tricks, you will see people releasing ‘original’ effects for about five dollars, and the demo video is done on webcam, or video camera for, you guessed it, their mom. In most instances these people have probably only been working on the effect for about a month or two and are looking for a quick buck with an effect which is already released somewhere. Not only that, these ‘creators’ are aged from 14 or 15 up to people in, what looks like, their fifties or sixties. Now, I’m going to stop myself before this essay becomes a rant and just get to the conclusion
In conclusion, Magicians are seen as one of three things: kids who have nothing else to do so that they just do magic for the camera, Criss Angel wannabe’s, and individuals who go out and entertain. I don’t know about you, but I want to be seen as the individual who goes out and entertains. The amount of Selfish Magicians today is growing with the ready access to the internet and cheap webcams. And with that it makes a performer who actually goes out entertains have a harder time doing just that: entertaining people because they have to break the barrier that magic is a little kids hobby that they all grow out of.