Inter­net Kills Magic?

Read an inter­est­ing art­icle about the inter­net (and smart­phones) killing magic. The top­ic is, of course, a real­ity we magi­cians in these times have to face. But not only we magi­cians, also the theat­er, music and all the places where there are live per­form­ances of artists. It is a change that occurred, con­cern­ing the atti­tude of today’s audiences.

To sum the art­icle up, there are a couple of ways pre­vent­ing the spec­tat­ors from ‘google­ing’ for the secret of the trick they have just seen (many do this right in the performance).

1. Do not name the trick by a name that can be found on the inter­net. Give the tricks dif­fer­ent names. If you show a Cop Cup, then do not name it Chop Cup, but call it by anoth­er name, for example call it the Hindu vase. Fool the spec­tat­ors in their Google search …
2. Per­form the ‘single trick’ effects early, and fol­low with the more elab­or­at­ing mul­tiple cli­max routines. That way, the spec­tat­ors will simply have no time start­ing a Google search.
3. Use tricks that involve many dif­fer­ent prin­ciples and meth­ods. Good are tricks that rely on subtle things and non appar­at­us tricks. Nev­er call mis­dir­ec­tion by name (it can be found on Google) but nev­er­the­less use it.
4. Stay away from tricks with the smart­phones. People know smart­phones and what they can do. Even if they don’t get the right meth­od, there are more than enough ‘tech­nic­al’ solu­tions on their minds. Use smart­phones only for the selfies with (or without) the spectators.
5. I would add a anoth­er point: Don’t do tricks which are chal­lenges to the audi­ence (or where the present­a­tion might sug­gest a chal­lenge). OK, any good trick is a chal­lenge intel­lec­tu­ally, but then people don’t like being challenged.

There is quite some­thing true in this art­icle, even if I per­son­ally don’t agree with all of it. It’s a shame we have to deal with these kind of spec­tat­ors, but then this is the world today. Most people go out there to enjoy them­selves and party, see­ing the theat­er room or the per­form­ance place merely as an exten­sion of their liv­ing room. They have the ‘power’ of the smart­phone with them and can record and com­mu­nic­ate whilst watch­ing a show. And they go there with the con­vic­tion that they are the real stars of the evening.

Years ago one went to a nice place to see the sur­round­ings, build­ings or whatever. One stood there and watched these things. In fact one even trav­elled far just to see these things. Today, most of them go to these places, turn their back to them and make a selfie (with the object in the back­ground). It is not import­ant any­more to just see that thing, but to doc­u­ment and later to show to the oth­er media mon­keys that one has been there. Self-sta­ging, no more.

So, when see­ing a magi­cian, it is not only import­ant to get a selfie with him (to later show one is import­ant ans was there), but also to find out how the tricks were done (to show the oth­er mon­keys how clev­er one is). Being fooled and con­fess­ing that in front of oth­ers is not accept­able for these individuals.

Is all this killing magic? I don’t think so. But it very often kills the atmo­sphere and feel­ing of a show. It depends on how cap­able the per­former is in con­quer­ing the situ­ation and fas­cin­at­ing the spec­tat­ors. Giv­ing them simply no time and motive for a search in Google for the trick­’s secret might be the way to go.

And to keep in mind that the atti­tude of the spec­tat­ors these days has massively changed. The major­ity of them are social-media-blurred people con­stantly cel­eb­rat­ing and re-enact­ing them­selves. Sure we can­not change that trend, but we can be aware of it and adapt our present­a­tions accordingly.