Is the room clear? okay good. Now I would like to vent out on how I have been dealing with little know it all punks who feel like because they saw a youtube video tutorial on how to do a magic trick they KNOW IT ALL! Have you ever had that happen? I've talked about it before in some magic groups and let me be clear on a few things. For some magicians who are right up there with the kids and seem and seem to be a "KNOW IT ALL" I've had some say "Well you must not be a good magician or else they wouldn't be treating you like that" For some of you that have said that or think that, perhaps you are a late blossom of youtube.
I am good at what I do. I have worked at a restaurant for 21 years and "YES" some kids can be ASS HOLES. They watch a few youtube videos on TT, palming, Svengali deck and as I'm performing magic at their table they call out what I'm doing or should I say WHAT THEY THINK I"M DOING! For the most part it's really not the kids fault it's their up-bringing. Usually they have asshole parents, asshole brothers or sisters, asshole friends or maybe they just picked up on the art of being a asshole somewhere else.
They don't have the proper support and encouragement, nor are they even taught about how to behave. Especially in public.
I'm overall a pretty laid back nice guy and don't like ranting and using such workds, but sometimes in life things just need to be told as is.I could here some reading this blog now saying "Oh my! he's saying these things on a blog? what about your image what if people who want to hire you see this" Oh well! all the better. Maybe that will help filter the ass holes that might want to hire me.
I don't know about you, but I want to do shows for good people. People who enjoy and respect what I do and if someone is going to judge me for being truthful then I don't want any part of it.
So why is "youtube the killer of magic?" for some people that post the "How To" youtube videos, it's for views. It's all about the numbers. If you have a lot of viewers and subscribers it can be quite lucrative on youtube aa well as other social nedia websites. You can get sponsors and actually get money to make videos. For some magicians they teach magic on youtube because they genuinely want to help. They have a passion for it. Others just want to take a cheap shot and get the views, subscribers and money.
So what happens is you get these kids that go on youtube, look up a trick and now WOW! they are a friggin magician. Alright! congratulations. Now they go on youtube after less then 3 minutes or practice if you're lucky and they are ripping the trick apart on how stupid and easy of a trick it is. Yep! that's right little runt. If it's so easy why didn't you think of it? appearenly if you watch a youtube video that teaches a trick it makes you a instant pro and so knowledgeable of magic.
I guess youtube is the modern day book of "Easy to DO!, REQUIRES no PRACTICE! Be a MAGICIAN INSTANTLY....
I'm seeing more and more of these kids coming into the restaurant as well as in shows. I had several magicians express their experiences as well. As I'm actually performing a magic effect, they will start to point out things I'm doing, or like I said think I'm doing. What they don't know is that when you are a good magician you can actually fool them on a trick that they are so positively confident they know. In one case I was at a table of kids. For the most part they were well behaved, but as you know it only takes one to ruin the party. This kids was one of those "KNOW it All's" he even said "Oh! you have one of the TT" as he said that I dislodged the "TT' and it went ino a FP at the same time bringing both of my thumbs up in a Fonz style position for the little shit to examine. His eyes got big like WTF! I just love those moments.
Another moment was when I was, again at a table full of kids. This one kid wouldn't stop and even after I politely asked to keep it down, he persisted on narrating everything I do. I couldn't even do my card effect because "MR KNOW IT ALL" said that I was using a "FARO DECK" LOL! It was a regular deck of cards. I finally snapped and said "Okay! since you seem to know more about this trick then I do, you do it"
THE KID: "Oh, no...um I can't do it"
Me: "NO! you just said you can do it"
THE KID: "Well I can't remember"
Me: "Aw! you can remember! you just told me how it was done"
The KID: "I don't remember"
Me: I motion a clap to all his friends at the table "Come on! you can do it! everyone give him a round of applause!"
The whole table of kids clap. The kid quickly changes his tune, I do a few more effects, and then thank them for their time and then I'm on m way to the next table.
After that the boy was quite. I can just hear some of the fumes firing up from magicians reading this.
"How could you!" Well my friends sometimes you just have to call things out on people, put them in their place and teach them that they they don't always know the answers and that maybe they should not be so quick to try to explain how a trick is done.
The old approach of "Well we shall not do that! That is wrong! We shall not do that to the children! and treat them like that" doesn't seem to fit in today.
Maybe 30, 50 years ago that would work. the old respect thing, but respect is gone. We are on their turf now and in order to get respect we sometimes have to go a little further in the "BALLS ZONE" So it seems.
Heck! I'll have kids that are on their cell phones, handheld video games and ipods while I'm doing magic at the table. I can't compete with that! how in the world am I going to compete with a electronic device?
I'll be performing magic at their table and they won't even look up or acknowledge me.
That is until I changed my game myself. I started to change the way I approach them. The way I handle myself. I don't feel good about the art of magic when I get these feelings of kids just not caring anymore about magic.One of the things I did was if I saw a table of kids who had their cellphones, ipod, pads out. I would get my "TT D Light " (SPECIAL CODE - WINK! WINK!) I would have the TT D Light on my - - - - and I would reach at their screen and pull a "BLUE LIGHT" from their screen. I would then say "Hi I'm Mark Presley, I'm the magician here this evening and I'm sorry, but I just powered down your electronics.
Me: "Oh yes! I forgot. The magic trick was for me to get you off your ipods while I was doing some magic for you. As you can see it worked." I take out my "TT D light" and reach toward the screen with the blue light. The kids see the blue light hit the screen and I say "It's all powered back up again. Have a magical day."
The parents usually get a big laugh and they are also impressed at how you got them off the videos games, due to the fact that even they can't do that.
Now I would like to wrap it up by saying that for the most part kids are pretty attentive to the magic. Not all of them have the rudeness attitude as I was describing earlier. In fact I'll even have some parents ask their kids to put away the electronic devices when I approach them. Some parents will even correct their attitude if they start going into the UN-polite zone.
I would love to hear form you in the comments some of your stories on the "KNOW IT ALL'S" how did you handle it? Do you have any suggestions on how to handle some of the challenging situations?Please share your story. It would be nice to know that this is a REAL thing that the HARD WORKING magician has to face. Sure I could hype myself up and talk about how great I am and that all my audiences are GREAT and AWESOME so that I can appear well seasoned and that I'm so good that these things never happen.
Truth be told. They do happen and I feel that when we can bring these challenges up front, it embraces us and supports us a s magicians and helps us understand that we are not alone. Maybe you have gone through these challenges. What can we do as magicians to turn things around and not only perform good magic, but make us better performers when dealing with these up-rising situations of the "KNOW IT ALL'S" Please tell your story or make a comment.
Thanks again for reading my blog.
IMAGINATOR
No comments:
Post a Comment