- Alright you wanna talk about YouTube exposure
and magic exposure on YouTube, let's do this.
First of all, thanks for tuning in.
Today, I'm gonna talk to you a little bit
about something, should magic be taught on YouTube?
It's a serious question.
Now I know a lot of you are gonna say yes
because you're learning magic and that's where you started,
that's where you learnt all your magic.
Probably even most of you watching this learned most
of your magic from YouTube or places like YouTube.
Now, don't get me wrong, most of the comments that I get
on my channel are very positive, I mean, literally 99%
of them are positive, so I appreciate you
and I thank you for understanding what this channel's about.
But there are some comments and not only from YouTube
people but from magicians, actually, that fuck me up
because in their minds, they're like,
"Well magic should be preserved as an art form
"and the secret is the art form."
Well I got news for you, here's a fucking news flash,
and I'm sorry that I'm getting so emotional but I'm just
kinda sick of hearing all of these things about what
they think other people should be doing with their lives.
I'm gonna tell you this right now.
Yes, magic is or can be an art form, and yes,
part of magic is the secret, but let me put it into context.
When you were interested in magic and the internet
wasn't around, where would you go, where would you go
to learn magic, the magic shop or the library.
Well here's another news flash for you.
Magic shops are closing down everywhere
and nobody fucking goes to the library anymore.
Now, is that a problem?
Perhaps, maybe people should start reading again,
but is it my job to literally force people out
of their homes, out into the winter cold, to go read a book
somewhere, nobody's got time for that nowadays.
Everything's moving so fast and the internet is right here.
Right in front of you.
As a creator, I make part of my living selling my creations,
selling what I came up with on the market to magicians.
Well, I say to magicians, but literally,
to whoever wants to fucking buy them.
I mean, think about it, the only difference between,
if you're performing out in the streets
and you show someone a trick, what's the first thing
they say, what is the first thing that comes to their mind,
they say, "How did you do that?
"That's amazing, how did you do it?"
Even as a magician, that's something that I ask people,
like, "Oh, how'd you do that?"
So the only thing separating the whole transaction
is for the magician to be like,
"Oh give me 10 bucks and I'll show you."
That's the only thing, that's the only difference.
So selling it for 10 bucks is okay, but giving a creation
away on platform that's much larger is not.
Now, I know you're probably thinking,
well people can search YouTube and find everything.
That's what it's fucking made for, dude.
That's what YouTube is made for, YouTube is like the number
one search engine for how-to's in the world.
So if I'm not gonna do it, yeah, someone else is gonna do it
and I know that's not the greatest mentality to have
in the world, that's why the internet exists.
People wanna know how shit works,
they wanna know how to do things.
Maybe so they can learn it themselves.
And a very small percentage of those people
are just like, "Well I just wanna know how we did it
"so I can throw it in his face," I don't know.
Why would a layperson go and seek a method,
and even if they do, who cares?
Here's the whole situation in a nutshell.
For example, I'm a hobbyist or I just like magic
and I think I created something, I don't have an outlet,
I don't know about sites like Illusionist or Theory 11
or Dan and Dave or all these sites because nobody's actually
actively pushing it towards laypeople, so instead,
I hop on YouTube and I'm seeing all these channels
teaching stuff and I'm like,
"Damn, I want a piece of this pie."
I don't know the magician's code, I don't know all that.
What do I got to lose?
I only have stuff to gain, so I sit myself
in front of my iPhone and I teach something.
Well, to no one's surprise, this was not his to teach,
it actually did exist in some manuscript
or was just put out recently as a download, whatever.
But he doesn't know this, so he puts up a tutorial,
what do magicians do?
Well, we let it slide, what do you wanna do?
Hit him up and be like, "Hey man, that's not yours
"to teach," what's he gonna say, he doesn't care,
he's not a magician, he's gonna say, "Fuck you."
Block, delete.
Times that by 20,000.
What do you get?
You get magic on YouTube.
That's what you get in a nutshell.
Why not have somebody with some wealth of knowledge
to step in there and be like,
"You know what, I'm gonna show you guys how it's done,
"I'm gonna show you how it's done right,
"I'm gonna lecture you on theory, lecture you on ethics,
"and I'm gonna teach you the proper handling
"and the proper way to learn this thing and the proper way
"to perform and the psychology behind it and all of that."
Why isn't there anybody doing that?
Why can't we who love the art form, who love this craft,
step in and take control of this situation right now.
Because complaining and bitching about it
is not gonna change a damn thing to these people,
it won't change anything.
So you can lift the covers up over your head
and hope the shit blows over by the time you come up
from under it, but it's not gonna happen,
it's still gonna be there, in fact, it's gonna progress
and it's gonna escalate and snowball into something
that you'll never have control of.
Why not, now, be like, "You know what?
"I'm gonna get behind the wheel and I'm gonna try
"and steer this train wreck into the right direction
"and hopefully help preserve what I love."
Or I can do nothing, be negligent, flag people's videos,
getting me nowhere, and just let them continue
to teach double lifts, not doing anything about it.
Food for thought.
Only magicians try to convince people
that fucking magic is real.
Let me rephrase that.
Magicians try to convince people
that they have fucking superpowers.
And that's the problem, that's the problem.
Magic is, yes, it's a performance art,
it's an art form, it can be.
The art lies in the performance.
Not in the secret.
Telling someone how it's done doesn't take away
from the experience you gave them while performing.
And if you really want to call it a performance art,
let's be honest, the difference between a performance art
and theater is in performance art, the knife is real,
in theater, it's a fake knife, so we're doing theater, even,
we're not even doing performance art,
unless you're David Blaine, suspended for 30 days
without food, you're not doing performance art,
you're just entertaining people theatrically.
Now, is that an art form, is it not?
Not for me to decide, it can be.
Now there is a very gray line, there is a very, very, very
gray line, it's not black and white.
There is a gray line, and that gray line is sort of,
okay, what can I teach, is it mime,
is it public domain, do I have the right to teach it?
If so, do I have to pay the creator or not?
All these things are important.
But if you take a look at YouTube and you take a look
at the internet and you type in magic trick tutorial,
I guarantee you there's probably 400 million search results,
not making it right, no, it's not right to share
people's creations, but let's say you did come up
with something and you tried your best to credit it,
if this art form is something that I truly love,
which it is, if this passion that I have,
this craft that I've grown to love, is something that I'm
truly passionate about, I wanna share it with people.
Now, I don't just wanna share methods,
but I may wanna share one or two methods,
especially if they're interested, and especially
if they're yearning and they want to learn something.
But I also think it's my job to teach them not just methods
but teach them connecting with people,
using magic to break out of your shell and to possibly meet
new people that are going to affect your life for the rest
of it, performing for people who could use a smile,
those type of things, why wouldn't I wanna share
what I love with that person who's so eager
to share it as well with people he loves?
If I tell you it's a trick before I perform for you,
that doesn't take away from what you feel, right?
I can tell you this whole movie's made of CGI,
you can still be captivated, you can still cry,
you can still laugh, you can still watch it a second time.
Nothing takes away from that.
The only difference is I'm not lying to people.
If you watch Jurassic Park and they somehow convinced
everybody in the world that those dinosaurs were real,
first of all, I don't think half the people
would believe it, I don't think 95% of the people
would believe it, so why are you trying
to make people think that magic is real?
You're making them dumber.
If you perform for somebody, if somebody comes
to see me perform, I want 'em to either leave the same
as when they came in, or leave smarter, not dumber.
I don't want them coming up, being critical,
and leaving saying, "Well, magic is real."
How ridiculous does that sound?
I see a lot of people learn magic for the wrong reasons
and those reasons being, well, I want to impress people
and I started magic that way, and a lot of people did.
But somewhere along the way, you get sick of lying
to people, somewhere along the way, you come to a crossroad
where you either say, "Am I doing this for me,"
or "Am I doing this for something greater"?
And eventually, if you do it for long enough,
you lean towards the latter.
I've come to that crossroads a few years ago
and it just made me love the art form so much more
to appreciate it from a back end, but also to appreciate it
through a spectator's point of view.
And it begged so many existential questions
and conversations I've had with friends,
but at the end of the day, the magic you do
does not define you as a person.
The cardistry you do, how good you are at cardistry,
how good you are at magic, doesn't define you as a person,
if you're an asshole, you're an asshole,
and if you're a good person, you're a good person.
We all waver, but at the end of the day, you either have
a good heart and good intentions, or you don't.
I could very well put out tutorials every single day
on my channel, every single day, all the fucking time,
and I guarantee you my subs and like count would go
because literally 20% of the comments are,
"We're waiting on another tutorial,"
but I know that there is a gray line,
I know that that's not, first of all, what magic is about,
and that's not, second of all, what my channel's about.
I don't only wanna show you magic,
but I wanna show you where magic can take you.
I suggest the books to get, the tricks to buy,
the people who you should learn from,
and every now and then, I'll throw you a bone.
I can't decide why you wanna learn magic,
I can't decide why you wanna sub to my channel,
I can't decide that, I can decide the content
that I put out, that's the only thing I can decide.
How you take it is up to you, that's fine.
There is a massive platform out there,
it's the biggest one in the world, let's be honest.
Isn't it about time that someone tried to make
a conscious effort into bettering, into transitioning
into this PC-culture era that we now live in,
whether you like it or not?
Piracy will always exist and I will always try to fight it
but you can only fight it so much
before you kinda have to use it.
Otherwise, you're fighting a losing battle.
I'm not gonna be the Blockbuster Video
who says that we're not accepting Blu-Rays right now,
we're sticking with DVDs, or we're not accepting DVDs,
we got all these VHSs, I'm not getting rid of these.
Now, I'm looking to transition into the now,
and magic is so far behind with the mentality,
mostly because most of the people who run magic
and who work within magic don't have a YouTube account.
They're not online, they don't know social media,
they don't know how many actual people are out there
and are passionate about the craft.
So maybe it's time we look at magic, not as a tool
to fool people or to impress people,
but maybe a tool to connect with people.
Why wouldn't I want to teach you a little bit of that?
Why wouldn't I wanna satiate your thirst just a little bit,
just enough for you to get your feet wet?
And then give you the right direction or the right path
to follow along to pursue it, why wouldn't I wanna do that?
Why would I wanna completely deny you of it?
And just show you all the things I'm capable of?
While you ask me how it's learnt and I deny you.
I'm not better than you, I'm not better than any one of you,
I practice a lot, that's it, but I'm not a better person.
If I wanna share what I love with you,
and walk that gray line, that's up to me, it's not up to you
and if I wanna throw up a vlog nine times a week
without magic tutorials, that's up to me too,
you don't have to watch.
I love doing this, I love YouTube, I love magic,
I love editing, I love videography, photography,
things I love, I put 'em together and I throw them
out there because they come from my heart.
I'm gonna continue doing what I love to make me happy.
Being conscious of what makes other people unhappy.
And hopefully navigate the two so that I don't offend
too many people, so that I don't step
on too many people's toes, I'm trying to do it right,
I'm trying to do it ethically right.
You're not going to decide exactly what that line is
when you have no idea what's happening in the world,
when your narrow view of this art form,
the only reason you're looking at it like this
is because you're afraid that it won't make you special
anymore if 1000 people know it.
You're afraid that if I'm the only one doing this trick
and 1000 other people discover it and buy it and do it,
that it won't be special for you,
that you won't be the center of attention,
that you won't be the life of the party,
that you won't be the person with superpowers,
which is a wake-up call, you're just human,
like everyone else.
I'm sorry I'm getting so emotional on this video,
it wasn't my intent, I just had a build-up in my chest
that I wanted to get out there,
and I'm not even sure if I said it right,
I'm not even sure if I said the right words
or if I triggered some of you, myself in the process,
but I wanted to just give you some thoughts
that were running through my head right now in my life
and these thoughts might change, and they have changed,
but that's what my channel is, it's my place.
If you don't like it.
You wanna learn a trick every day, new tutorial every day?
Plenty out there on YouTube, nothing I say
or anyone else says is gonna stop that,
no matter how hard they yell, no matter how many fists
they throw up in the air, but I can decide
what goes on my channel, I am the god of my social media,
I control everything, so.
I hope you guys are there to follow the ride,
I mean, I really do, I hope my videos make you happy
or make you feel something in some way.
As long as there's an audience to watch,
I'll keep posting videos.
And if I lost you, if this is the last video
you're ever gonna see from me, I wish you a happy journey,
but if you're one of those who stick around
and wanna see me shed light on something
that's so shrouded, stick around.
As always, thank you for watching my videos,
thank you for subscribing, thank you for commenting,
giving me your thoughts and feedback,
I read almost every comment, by the way, it's an obsession.
If I don't respond, I just don't have time,
but I read literally 80& of them, so thank you again
and hopefully the next video will be a little more chipper
and I can't wait to actually create more content
for you guys, so we'll see you on the next video, guys.
Have a good day, peace.