I'm curious as to ascertain as to whether or not teaching magic on youtube would be acceptable for CAM members?

This is a spin-off form a thread in the IBM sub-forum, largely between myself and one of your board members, Shawn Farquhar here: http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......orum=196

Thanks in advance for clearing up any confusion

Youtube exposure is frowned upon.

I guess my newbie opinion doesn't have much weight, and frankly I don't really care.

Regarding magic, there are two types of way people will browse/search Youtube for videos: there's the looking around for maybe-good tricks (à la Jay Sankey's quite click-baitey "weird unknown AMAZING trick REVEALED!!!!") and then there are the people searching for "52 shades shin lim revealed". One is akin to reading whatever one's found on the 793.8 shelf at the library while the other well...

The latter is obviously wrong, even to this non-member of any neat magician's society, but I can't see how the former is bad as far as *secrets* are concerned (intellectual property is another matter altogether).

So if he is just teaching magic. What is the difference if he teaches via downloadable videos? Anybody can access those also. Except they then are usually paying money.
I can see the argument that paying money makes it okay, because only somebody with a real interest would do that. Rather than internet surfers just wanting to learn a secret about an illusion.

Just asking, is this what it all hinges on?

I think the best analogy with this would be........ women and sex.

If a women gives sex away for free.......she is a ________
If she charges a little money, then she's a hooker.
If she charges lots, she is a High Class Call Girl.
If she want everything you own and most your money...she's your lovely wife.

Excuse the rather abrupt explanation but as wierd as it sounds I think it puts the whole giving aeay secrets vs charging into perspective.

.

Folks can get misled by thinking about this in terms of a Rule, "Never tell them how it's done" and trying to reconcile different ways of teaching magic with that rule. Perhaps a better way would be to start with the question "Is this good for magic?"

Fairly obviously, standing up in the middle of a show and shouting, "The table is thicker than it looks, it's beveled and painted flat black!" isn't good for magic.

Writing a book of basic tricks that a girl of 11 can learn and construct with cardboard and a glue gun is good for magic, because that's how most magicians get attracted to the art. But putting a chapter in the back of the book that explains everything Blaine did on his last special isn't good for magic... The nine year old can't build that stuff, it's just exposure for the curious.

I once asked a magician to show me how to do the coin that falls up. He asked what coin magic I already did. I muttered, "Not much", and he decided I wasn't ready. He looked at my basic palm and gave me some pointers, showed me a Bobo switch, but wouldn't show me something I couldn't do, just so I could know.

Too much of YouTube seems to be showing just to show, the viewer isn't ever going to do it.

Boy, that is the worst and most ignorant analogy I've seen. Your last sentence, that 'a wife wants everything you own and most of your money'!?
Absolutely ridiculous! Unless your wife does act that way, in which case, shes no lovely wife!
Come on man!
No wonder women complain about some of the men in magic. that's just derogatory and presumptuous.
Not to mention a wee bit puerile.
Anyway, just my opinion.