Spectator Belief and Dicebot 5000

After Monday’s post, I got a handful of emails expressing a concern that I seem to get in one form or another after most tricks I post. The concern is that the spectator is going to believe the idea of these dice being controlled by this app. Or that you’re going to be in an awkward situation where the spectator doesn’t really believe this app exists, but they might think you want them to believe this is a real thing.

This seems to be a common concern. Especially with people who are new to this site, or new to the style of tricks I write up.

Here is my thinking regarding this particular trick. And some thoughts on putting this issue to bed for all tricks.

Spectator Belief and DB5k

In Phase 1, the trick is on the verge of believability. It’s too close to believable, in my opinion.

But then phase 2 takes it past the point of believability. At least for most people. It would be one thing if an app could control the roll of five dice. But how would it know which three they were going to select and in which order they’d stack them?

I trust that people who have seen me perform before will know we’ve crossed over into fiction at some point. They won’t know it immediately at the start of the trick, but that’s fine.

By the end, when I’m telling them they have $2500 worth of electronic dice, they’ll get that it’s a bit.

If I picked the wrong sort of person to perform this for, maybe they’d challenge me thinking that I wanted them to believe it. But I rarely have that sort of issue. If someone did try to challenge me, I would just dig deeper and make it even goofier that they were taking it seriously.

If they said, “No, those aren’t programmable dice. That was just a trick.”

Me: “A trick? Ha. I wish. I wish there was some sort of trick where you could predict how real random dice would roll and how someone would stack them.”

Them: “Okay, then how does it work then? How did it know how I’d stack them?”

Me: “Beats me. I don’t know electronics very well.”

Them: “What’s the name of the app?”

Me: “The app that allows you to control the dice? DiceBot 5000.”

[Don’t actually tell them DiceBot 5000. That will lead them here.]

Them: [After searching for it.] “I didn’t find any DiceBot 5000 in the app store.”

Me: “Wait…, really? Let me look.” [I look at their phone.] “Oh, what are you doing? No, of course it’s not in the regular app store. These dice are totally illegal. You need to be in the Dark Web App Store.”

I hardly ever have to play with people in this way anymore. They get what’s going on at some point when things become just a little too unbelievable.

If you’re doing this type of trick with someone who needs to be reassured at the end that it’s “just a trick,” then they’re not a good audience for this style of performing. They’re still thinking that you’re genuinely trying to convince them that this stuff is real. They should be out of that mode of thinking.

If you’re worried someone is going to believe (or think you want them to believe) that something you’re showing them is real, then you haven’t done a good enough job in previous tricks making it clear that obviously these things aren’t supposed to be taken seriously.

You don’t need to tell them not to take things seriously. They should know you’re interested in magic (we’re not trying to keep that secret—we’re doing tricks, not practical jokes). So everything you do should be seen in that context.

If you’re concerned, use sillier premises at first, but still with a storytelling angle. “When I was a child, I fell through the ice while skating alone on a pond. I was trapped under the ice and couldn’t find the hole to get out. The water could have killed me. Instead, I blacked out and woke up laying on the ice and ever since then I’ve had the power to control sponges. (Sponges being waters natural enemy.) Whether this was a gift or a curse, I may never know. But check out these red sponge balls and witness my awesome power.”

That sets a precedent. In the future, when you then go into more immersive stories, or less outrageous stories, they’ll get that it’s fiction and not intended to be believed.

Almost everyone gets it quickly. People aren’t dumb. Once you’re going a little deeper with people presentationally, they should have such a clear understanding what type of stuff you do that they don’t need you to disclaim it. For the same reason they shouldn’t need someone to come on screen at the end of a film and say, “Hey, just so you know, we tried really hard to make everything look real in this movie. But it was just a movie. This stuff didn’t really happen. I’m Chris Evans. I'm an actor. I don’t teach at a school in the inner city.”