On Mar 1, 2019, Terrible Wizard wrote:
I think there's a miscommunication here.

The typical hobbyist, as I'm using the term, doesn't do shows, nor wins FISM, nor has the budget, skill, time, crew, audience and editing of Dynamo.

I'm thinking of folk like me, of the kids you see on YouTube, of the card trick uncle etc. Probably of the vast majority of people who buy many tricks and ask questions in the top sections of this forum (how many people posting in the beginner forum are likely to turn out to be the new Ascanio?)

For the majority of hobbyists, who are realistically never going to win FISM or perform shows better than what's on TV or even be close to what Angel, Blaine, Dynamo or Brown can do with a TV budget behind them, this new golden age is like a death knell.

Whereas thirty or twenty years ago one could simply do a decent trick well and expect a fair reaction, that is now much harder. Twenty years ago if someone had showed me Spin Doctor, good sw*mi work, B'wave or a chop cup routine I would have been amazed. Now, not so much. Twenty years ago you could bemuse and befuddle with a a simple card trick, now you might well be asked if you can do what so and so did on the TV, or met with someone telling you how you did it because it's on YouTube.

An averagely skilled, averagely talented, average hobbyist can still raise a smile or fool someone with a standard bought packet trick, but it seems to me that there is now less bang for their buck - they have to work much harder, be more creative, present better, practice more, just to maintain the reaction from a decade or two ago or avoid the mass exposure effect.

In short, hobbyists have had to raise their game so much so as to get a reasonable response that it has now become almost out of reach, and thus simply easier for some to get their 'magic kick' from 'performing' on YouTube, buying (or stealing) secrets, and exposing stuff online.

I suspect that the unintended side effects of all the great TV magic will be less hobbyists performing in real life, an explosion of exposure online, the loss of magic mystique, and in time a more jaded and difficult to please public who's demand for novelty and wonder will ever more outstrip the ability of casual, maybe even some professional, magicians.

I've been to live shows with non-magician friends and found they and I were mentally comparing the onstage performers to what we'd got used to on TV - and the tricks on TV won. It's hard for professionals to compete, I don't think the majority of hobbyists stand a chance.

On Mar 1, 2019, HeronsHorse wrote:

I have no idea why you think otherwise.

Who cares what dynamo et al are doing?!

Magic is STILL about the presentation, not the effects!

I absolutely love seeing the wonder on faces after I've made them feel it.

I'm perhaps a hobbyist in your parlance.

Yet I do not have your outlook or your depressing negative attitude.

Magic is alive more than ever and there are many really poor magicians out there.

I see it as mine and others like me's, task to rectify this,

only know how to stand there doing tricks they bought.

That is where the extra work is! That is what makes us have to work harder!

magic has never been easy.I'm glad it is so difficult. At least it keeps sone from pursuing it.

The key point is that the effect is only a vehicle for entertainment, it isn't the end game.

I can entertain someone with a very simple trick and so cpuld you.

Bought packet trick? Who needs one of those?

I think you should go back to basics and shake that jaded outlook

Apologies for the apparent rant.

An averagely skilled, averagely talented, average hobbyist can still raise a smile or fool someone with a standard bought packet trick, but it seems to me that there is now less bang for their buck - they have to work much harder, be more creative, present better, practice more, just to maintain the reaction from a decade or two ago or avoid the mass exposure effect.

And you can't fool with a bad trick, or a when people know the trick/secret

And you see this as a bad thing.

My point this whole time has been that the bar has been raised and that's a good thing.

Maybe it's not as easy as it once was to elicit genuinely solid reactions from the audience

but the reason for that is that the audience now has something to compare a performance of magic to, and if the live performing isn't living up to their expectations that's the fault of the performer failing to do their job.

Now if someone wants a good reaction, maybe they have to actually put in some work into being worth that reaction.

I never get people comparing my performances to TV shows.

At least, not out loud where I or my people can hear it.

Perhaps the problem isn't that magic audiences are too informed and/or jaded, but that too many people are trying to copy other performers?

Yes you can, if you put the work into making it fooling.

I think you're just dead set on finding reasons why it's something else's fault that you're not getting the reactions you want.

Like, imagine the bar got so high that no matter how hard you tried you simply couldn't amaze, fool or entertain with magic, anymore, because what had become the 'norm' required skill, money, technology, and secrets you simply couldn't acquire. Or imagine that half your audience knew how you did most of your effects.

True. But it might be that the amount of work is beyond the hobbyist with a full-time job; the amount of skill is beyond the ordinary guy; the amount of money is beyond non-TV magicians etc. No doubt other professions have become harder too - look at TV cookery, for example. Hard for a Sunday cook to compete with Ramsey. Or beauty standards, hard for your average Joe and Jane to compete with photoshopped, plastic surgery, genetically gifted super stars.

If I know the actual trick methodology, not just the move or prop, I say you can't.

On Mar 1, 2019, WitchDocChris wrote:
I'm just glad folks like Mahdi Gilbert didn't listen to cynical attitudes like this.

Or it's just a way to justify not having the self discipline to improve.

No skin off my back, I'll keep perfecting my craft while those who lack the discipline can moan about the bar being raised above their heads.