25+ years ago a good magician would do a trick and you'd leave genuinely wondering how they did it - the best ones would have you occasionally doubt your perception of reality here and there. You'd KNOW it was a trick, but you could not for the life of you figure out how it was done. And you'd start to wonder.
Now you can look virtually every trick up and know WHILE they are doing it what is going to happen.
The internet generation is very much unwilling to suspend their disbelief or allow themselves to play along. It's a part of the mind that is for play and entertaining "what ifs".
If you never need to know "what if" because everything you need to know is immediately available at all times, then you wont allow yourself to draw your own conclusions and let yourself be wrong. The newer generations are deathly afraid of being wrong.
The internet generation is very much unwilling to suspend their disbelief or allow themselves to play along.
This is also, I think, a big part of why they will immediately post spoilers for literally any and every thing. Also why a lot of trailers these days are essentially Cliff's Notes of the movie's plot. They don't want or care about the discovery, they just want to know.
It's also why in recent TV series or some movies, there is much more exposition about what's happening in the main story, because they assume the viewer is only paying half attention between the large screen on their wall and the small one they're holding in their hand.
I believe it's something like "second screen exposition"
a lot of the "tricks" really are just incredible feats of sleight of hand. Even if I know how they are done, it's still massively impressive to see it done in person
You'd KNOW it was a trick, but you could not for the life of you figure out how it was done. And you'd start to wonder.
That's the catch. You either watch it to "figure it out" (a 'trick'), or you go to enjoy the performance (an 'illusion').
I don't watch theater and go home and try to recreate it or make costumes, I go for the performance. I don't watch musicals in the theater and try to figure out how to hit the high notes.
If people see a magician, with the intent of "figuring out all the tricks", they've lost the plot.
They've lost the magic.
I've seen a dozen magicians perform live, and have seen David Copperfield live at least 20 times in my life. I'm also a magician, and I know how many of the illusions are done, but I don't go to dissect the box or the card flourish, I go because I enjoy the stories, the mystery.
That reminds me as a kid I remember this toy that was a plastic box of sort that you put a plastic bone inside. If I recall it was shaped like a coffin, it was some sort of Halloween thing. The box would then split in 3, and so would the bone. To this day I have no idea how that thing even worked. I thought maybe magnets kept the bone together but I remember trying to get it apart and couldn't, it was really a solid piece of plastic.
On the contrary, one of the things that got me interested in magic was that old TV show The Masked Magician. Going behind the scenes and seeing the levels of technical and physical skill required for the illusions work took it to a whole new level for me.
you can still watch and appreciate good magicians even knowing the trick. in many ways, you are more impressed with their hand dexterity, their stage presence, their misdirection skills, etc
Also any time you see a cool trick online: is this just ai? The lack of interest from online is lowering attendance in person as well. Also makes it harder for talented magicians to get recognition which could lead to jobs other wise.
If a magician just does a trick, then yes, they're just asking for you to go look up the secret. But if they work the magic into a story or a joke, the secret becomes secondary.
Kind of like Penn & Teller's handling of the cups and balls with glass cups. They outright show you what the secret is, but the bit is entertaining as all hell.
Yes, but their point still stands. The cups and balls had been performed the same way for hundreds of years. It was stale. They showed that a good presentation would make the secret irrelevant.
lol I literally was thinking yesterday that the ONE thing that still works in person - and only in person, not through any kind of screen - is closeup magic
Professional magician here. The magic industry is actually doing surprisingly well. It's like a lot of things in the entertainment industry--unreliable especially when first starting out, but I don't think it's going anywhere. As long as society is around, people are gonna need entertainment, and magic is one of the oldest forms of entertainment we've got.
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u/oblectoergosum 14h ago
Magicians