The Insideout Fur

Being bom­barded by new things and the mar­ket­ing strategies of the internet(eers) more and more, a ques­tion arrises. Speak­ing about magic, of course.

Per­fectly made video clips, all in a cer­tain level of pro­duc­tion is the stand­ard these days. We all got used to that. The design, the light­ing, the audi­ence reac­tions and the movie-like looks of the prot­ag­on­ists. We accept it (almost) for our real­ity and many times see ourselves stand­ing in the prot­ag­on­ist’s place. In our minds.

But are we self-aware of what is mar­ket­ing and what is essen­tial information/​props/​tricks for our per­son­al magic­al development?

This reminds me of someone who insists on wear­ing a fur coat, because “that’s what keeps me warm”. But then – if it is about the warmth, then the fur should be worn inside out, should­n’t it? I know, a clas­sic example, but then – have you ever seen fur coat mod­els run­ning the cat­walk with the fur inside out? No. They all show it has to be worn on the out­side, for whatever reas­ons. Even in the movies and doc­u­ment­ar­ies they (most of the times) show the cave­men, Vik­ings and Bar­bar­i­ans wear­ing it on the out­side. Almost nobody ques­tions it and it becomes the “real­ity”. You simply have to wear it that way, because it was shown that way. And the people accept it!

We accept what we see and what is mar­keted at us, most of the time not ques­tion­ing it. We know, that “new gim­mick” is not going to make us the magi­cian we want to be, but still we buy it. We want to believe this will be a hit when we per­form it. We want to believe that when we buy that new book, we have more know­ledge (even when it is mostly not read from front to back cov­er). This believe is strong. So strong, that some­times ration­al think­ing is blocked out.

The magic industry has developed. They got really clev­er and good at mar­ket­ing. They now make the advert­ising like the pros, selling us “placebos”. I call it “placebo magic”. But they not only sell the tricks and meth­ods, they also mar­ket the pic­ture of a cer­tain type of per­former. A cer­tain ste­reo­type. You must be young, cool, hav­ing that look, etc. Almost like in the fash­ion industry. Some people decide on the mar­ket­ing and the new fash­ion line, and the oth­ers fol­low. Wheth­er it fits them or not.

The more self-aware we become, the easi­er it is for us to see through that magic mar­ket­ing and real­ize what we believe, what we are as per­formers and why it is that way.

Only then, when we real­ize that it is a sort of mar­ket­ing, we can start ask­ing the right ques­tions for us. For our per­son­al pro­gress, the moves and tricks that are right for us, and not for the industry.