Dear Jerxy Week - Day 5: Exposure vs. Art
/In [Monday’s] post you suggested that trying to get a large following by doing magic on YouTube wasn’t compatible with a love of the art. As an aspiring YouTube content creator, I’m wondering why you think that is. I realize exposure/teaching tricks is part of the gig when you’re making magic YouTube videos, but I think that only serves to bring more people into the tent and make magic more popular. Who loves magic more than magicians? And they’re the ones who know the most secrets. —SC
Yeah, I’m not someone who is completely against teaching tricks. I teach people tricks. And I recommended some channels that teach tricks as well.
Magic can be appreciated in many different ways. The two primary ways are:
As a way to generate mystery and astonishment.
As a demonstration of skill and cleverness.
These are both valid ways to enjoy magic. But they don’t work well together.
The real world is where magic thrives as a means to generate mystery and astonishment. Vanishing a silk one-on-one for a person in real life affects them much more intensely than watching a video of someone vanishing a silk on TikTok (everything else being equal). Simply because watching a trick online presents all sorts of other options for how the trick was done. Maybe it was video editing, maybe the silk dropped out of the frame, etc. In addition, you frequently have people writing right under the video about how the trick was done (or how they think it was done). There are probably some exceptions, but the vast majority of the time, a trick done in person should be more impossible/mysterious than the same trick done for the masses online.
Because it’s so easy to dismiss the “mystery” element online, the focus is often centered on the cleverness or skill or]f the performer—which frequently involves talking about secrets. If you want to gain a large following, you’re likely going to have to expose magic on some level to feed into that.
Do I think it’s good for magic? Well, it’s good for the aspect of magic that is about cleverness and skill. But no, it’s not great for the part of magic that is about mystery and astonishment.
I used to make the same argument the letter-writer makes: “Hey, magicians are the ones who like magic the most, and they know the most secrets. So clearly just knowing the secrets doesn’t harm magic.” As I became a better performer, I found this to be not true. Magicians are just more willing to sit through shitty magic than others. But laypeople get much more excited and wrapped up in the experience with a good performer.
Imagine a future where everyone knew the secret to every trick. You would have to admit that couldn’t possibly be good for magic as a delivery mechanism for mystery and astonishment.
Once you understand that, then you’ll understand why I’m not a proponent of unfettered access to magic secrets. I think there’s some level of teaching and exposure that is good and healthy for the art. And there’s some level where I think it has a deleterious effect on magic. I think everyone would agree with that—we just may have different opinions on where that line is.
The problem with this discussion is that there are people on both sides of the issue that are losers. There are losers who don’t want any secrets exposed because they want to horde them for themselves. This allows them to get the ego boost of knowing things other people don’t. And then there are losers who are desperate for attention so they expose tricks as a way of getting acknowledgment and validation because this is the only way people will notice them. So whichever side you’re on, you’re going to be aligning yourself with some dumb dildos.
I once had a debate with a guy online—this happened pre-blog. He had a YouTube channel where he just showed the secrets to tricks. I told him he was corny and his channel sucked and he said something like, “What? It’s just magic secrets. Secrets are just tools. They’re like carpenter’s nails. In and of themselves they’re not important. It’s what you do with them that’s important.”
That’s something a lot of people say: “The secrets aren’t important.” Okay, You can make that argument. But if you tell me nails aren’t important, and then you have a channel devoted to just looking at nails over and over, that doesn’t really go with the point you’re trying to make. Plus, nails might not be important on their own but we need them to build the house. So if you’re just sitting in the corner bending them like some dipshit, that’s going to bother the people who are trying to do something with the nails.
Again, I’m not totally anti-teaching/anti-exposure. I just think there’s more of an art to it than people think.
Ultimately, secrets are as valuable as we treat them. As I wrote in the recent newsletter:
“Magic secrets are like nudity. Women don’t need to wear high-necked dresses that go down to their ankles to maintain their modesty—only showing their bare skin to their husbands when they desire a child. But they also don’t need to have an OnlyFans account where you can see hi-def pictures of their spread labia for $4.99 a month. Nudity isn’t inherently important or valuable, but we can make it so by being a little coy with it. Magic secrets feel the same to me.”
Striving for YouTube success while valuing the art of magic is similar to wanting to be the most popular webcam model while placing a high value on romantic sensuality. In real life, you can completely captivate someone with a slow, seductive striptease. Online you’ll get more views by fucking a Rottweiler.