Hey gang,
Oddly enough I have always rather enjoyed seeing all those goofy late night commercials.
Starting around midnight you get to see all kinds of choppers, make money online from home, non stick cookware, all types of stupid crap you buy one get one so that you end up with two things you won’t use.
As people we are always looking for that great deal to supposedly save us big bucks and get a quality product.
I fall for it all the time and so do you. Admit it, we all do it. One item is $1.50 and we may or may not buy it, but if that same item is priced 3 for $5.00 we will snatch it up.
Why? Cause it’s a great deal right? Umm No.. You paid full price for all 3 plus 50¢.
It’s our way of looking for quality and a great deal. I understand and you do as well and we fall for it because money doesn’t grow on trees and because the company selling said products think we are stupid, not to mention greed drives the train at most companies.
All and all if you’re like me you do the best you can.
What does this have to do with magic? I mean we are all magicians here of one type or another correct?
Unfortunately this has a huge effect in the magic community and I wasn’t aware of it till recently. Once I realized that this was going on I had to say something.
Let me explain what I’m talking about and then get your opinions on this, because maybe I’m just crazy..
You ever get an email saying blah blah blah 1000 bucks a day is yours all you have to do is pay us 2000 bucks and follow this simple pyramid scheme and tada blah blah?
So out of morbid curiosity because maybe it’s not a scheme and my kids need new shoes or what have you, you click on the link.
It opens up a web page that has lots of color and an eye catching logo and probably a video.
As you scroll down the page there are testimonials and bar graphs.
Lots of pictures of successful people who got rich using this product or program.
As you keep scrolling down the page seems to go on forever… Down and down giving you a list of things that are worth thousands of dollars but wait..
Here is another list of items worth even more money… But wait there is more.
So now it says the stupid prices for all this stuff and it’s usually enough money to buy a new car but for the next hour they will give you all this and more for 97 bucks.
Then at the very bottom of the page they have decided that if you order right now it is all yours for 47 bucks.
If you have ever been online you have seen one of these pages. They are actually called a splash page or landing page because once you “land” on it and see all the “splash” of colors they are hoping you like a fish will swallow that big ole hook of bull shit and buy this high priced junk.
It’s a sad fact but people fall for this all the time.
It makes me sick to see it but makes me even more sick to see magicians getting in on this scheme.
I get emails daily from several of them and they all promise the same damn thing..
“If you buy my program today then in just a couple of minutes you will be amazing your friends.”
What?
“Yes you will be doing tricks just like David Blaine and Criss Angel in mere moments.”
Let’s take this a step further though..
Even mainstream magic websites use the phrases “easy to do”, “no practice needed”, and my favorite “5 minutes after watching this dvd you will be doing this perfectly”.
Now you may be saying to yourself but as a magician those statements could be true depending on your skills and understanding of magic principles and what not.
Ok your right to an extent however I have been doing magic for over 25 years and I have never opened a trick or dvd and not practiced my ass off to make sure I have it perfect before I ever even think about performing it.
Let’s face the facts here, if you were interested in magic, completely new to it would you consider the trick TNR to be easy to do? Self working?
I have seen a website using those two phrases for that trick.
Or my favorite things to see is a magic website offering items at 80% off then marking the original price up 100% or more so that if you buy it from them you can be paying more than it costs on the magicians website who created the item.
Here is my primary problem with these kind of actions by the websites.. Anyone who is trying to get into magic spends a huge amount of money and ends up getting very little for it. Not only that if you want to get into magic you are going to have to put in the effort or your going to suck.
Practice is a very important factor in learning the art of magic. Presentation is very important as well. So from the very beginning this way of thinking, that it is easy, that practice is optional, this sets the person up to fail.
Once they fail the person no longer cares about magic so we lose what could have been a great magician and on top of that we end up with one more person showing secrets on YouTube, and doing it poorly to boot.
Why is this happening?
Simple.
The quick buck. Make as much money as possible right away instead of making a comeback customer who loves magic.
It is a sad statement of what some people are turning the magic community into..
What do you think?
Is it quantity instead of quality?
What has happened to this craft we are apart of, that we love?
Are we failing the next generation because of a quick buck or is it because street magic is all the rage now? Oddly enough I have never seen street magic except when someone is making a dvd..
Just saying..
Doctor Out
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