Mailbag #90
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Do you have a theory as to why more guys are into magic than women? Most artistic pursuits are evenly split if not women dominant. Why not magic? —WL
I don’t know. Maybe magic isn’t an art.
Why are there more men than women in magic? Probably the same reason there are more men than women in juggling. In ventriloquism. In trick shots exhibitionists.
Because these things are stupid. And men, on average, have a greater interest in these types of stupid activities than women do (again, on average).
Yes, magic is stupid. It isn’t intrinsically wonderful and awe-inspiring. It can be made to be more powerful and engrossing than any other form of entertainment, in my opinion. But it rarely is. The idea that people will just automatically be charmed by you doing something they don’t know how to do is the fundamentally retarded misunderstanding most magicians have about magic. What most people think after seeing most magic tricks isn’t “Oh, how incredible! What a sight to behold!” What most people think after seeing most magic tricks is, “Huh. I wonder how he did that? I guess there’s some way to do that. Well… whatever.”
If people were overwhelmed by the wonder of everything they don’t understand, they’d never get anything done. They’d just spend eternity weeping at the automatic door at the grocery store.
For most people, faking the impossible—in and of itself—is sort of meaningless. Like repeatedly tossing 8 balls into the air or making it look like a doll is talking or shooting a basketball into the hoop from the second level of the stadium. And pursuing these types of meaningless goals is something that seems to intrigue men more than women.
I’m not suggesting women are some evolved species that isn’t into dumb shit. They’re just into different types of dumb shit.
[Regarding the post No Questions]
Great post & insights today!
Probably because this has been my mindset for years!
My first performance test of a trick/effect/routine is to my wife. I would say that she has the average lay person brain thought process but because she's been my wife for almost 40 years, she also "knows stuff", like some magic concepts. So with her, I get the best testing of both worlds.
If she figures out the trick, I don't use it. Even if she's wrong but reasonably 'close', I might not use it. She has to have no idea as to which path to go down.
If she doesn't figure out the trick, then it gets tested on my mother or someone at work.
Bottom line: If ONE person figures it out, it's off of my performance list because most people aren't that stupid (although I'm around A LOT of stupid people.) —MP
A lot of people think their wives are really hard to fool when in actuality, their wives are just one of the only people giving them an honest reaction. If you have such a partner, consider yourself lucky. It’s great to have someone who will give you straight feedback. (Either because they know you can handle it if a trick didn’t fool them, or because they are just—more generally—sick of your shit.)
If you don’t have a partner, or yours is too kind really give you honest feedback, you need to cultivate some other relationships with people who will. Magicians are mostly useless in this regard. They’re delusional about what a normal person suspects or understands. Just seek out your smartest friends and use them as your trick gatekeepers. You don’t even always have to perform for them. You can just show them a demo of a trick online. “This has me stumped, do you have any idea how it could be done?”
If they say something like, “There’s probably something funny about the coins he’s using.” And you know for a fact there is and the routine doesn’t allow for the coins to be examined. You know not to pursue the trick. It’s the benefits of the Wife Test without the wife or the test (of your own performance).
I’ve been trying to think of a more interesting thing to tell people I’m into other than “magic.” Do you have any ideas of a better way to state that? What about telling people that I enjoy “manipulating perception”? —WO
If you tell people you like “manipulating perception” that may generate some interest. But if you then follow that up by doing something that feels like a magic trick to them, they’re going to say, “What the fuck? ‘Manipulating perception’? He’s just doing magic tricks.” It will look like you were trying to hide or disguise your interest in magic (which, let’s face it, you were).
Embrace the word “magic.” It may sound corny to some. People may have a negative association with it. That’s fine. Now it’s up to you to do something that defies their expectations. It’s up to you to do something where they say, “Wait… what was that. I’ve seen magic tricks before, but that was crazy.”
I get that saying, “I’m into magic!” can make you feel a bit like a dork. But trying to run from that will make you look even dorkier.
If I ever want to blunt the impact of just saying I’m into magic, then I’ll add some “sub-interests” afterward. So I might tell people I have an interest in magic “and some other related things, like psychology, gambling, old rituals, weird phenomena.” The nice thing about this is that you’ve given people a little grocery list of things. And they can pick one of those things to latch onto, if they’re so inclined. This can give you an entry point to an area of magic that might interest them without having to disguise your own interest in magic.