(soft music)
- First of all, this is not click bait.
I know what you're thinking,
a lot of you are thinking,
"Ah, Chris Ramsay, you got us again."
This is not click bait,
I repeat, this is not click bait.
(clears throat)
I've been meaning to do this video for a little while,
I've held back because I wanted to gather my thoughts
about this whole subject that I'm going to tackle right now
and if you're willing to sit down and listen,
I would love to explain it to you.
So first and foremost,
I will no longer be teaching any
magic tutorials on this channel.
And there are many reasons for that
and we'll get into that in a second,
I wanna make this very clear,
I will still welcome creators who want to teach
their own original content on this channel
and I will still be in favor of teaching cardistry,
just magic I will no longer personally
be teaching any magic.
We're still gonna talk about theory,
presentation, tips and tricks, and that type of thing,
just no more slight of hand, in-depth tutorials
or routine tutorials on this channel by me.
Now I understand some of you are going to be upset
because that's the reason you got interested in magic
or that's the reason you found me
was through the magic tutorials
but the reality of the situation first of all
is that there are thousands of tutorials on YouTube
and at first, when I started doing this,
not all of them were of good quality
and not all of them really pointed you
in the right direction.
A lot of them were just garbage
kind of thrown out there
and not really caring about anything.
But now we have people like Xavier Spade,
Alex Pandrea, Asaad teaching some really
interesting things and I'm really glad.
That's one of the reasons I wanted
these guys to come up into the community
so that we can collaborate together
and they can offer something that I couldn't.
One of the problems with creating not just content
but specifically magic tutorial related content on YouTube,
one of the biggest problems is that people always want more.
People are like, "Well, when's the next tutorial?"
As soon as they get one, they're like next week
we want another one, another one, another one, another one.
And although there is a lot to learn,
I mean there's an infinite amount of knowledge to learn,
eventually you get to the point
where you come up with tutorials just for content,
just because people want it,
and it's not necessarily something that I want to do
but people are like,
"We need tutorials, we need tutorials."
So you know, I rack my brain,
I look around and I find a tutorial
but the problem with that
and one of the major, major problems,
the problem that I'm facing currently,
is that eventually it's a numbers game
and eventually you're going to end up
sort of teaching something that you had no business teaching
and it's not intentional,
it's just kind of something that happens over time.
It's bound to happen with magicians no matter what.
You can teach like the fourth finger, pinky pull down
and somebody's gonna be like,
"Oh, I had a variation on that in 1976
"in the Ohio chapter of Jinx, chapter three, volume two
"on the second paragraph."
It's like ugh.
There's always gonna be bickering me
and pardon my French but bitching on magicians' behalf.
Which I'm fine about,
you wanna complain about it, it's cool.
So that's one of the things that has happened recently.
R. Paul Wilson called me out on Facebook with a big rant
saying how disappointed he was that I taught
something of his and that I used it to sell my deck
and to be quite frank, I researched the table double
that I taught and I asked some of my closest friends,
including Xavier Spade, a few people,
and nobody could really find out exactly where it came from
and everybody kept telling me it's like really old.
So I was like oh, it's old and teach it
and it turns out it was his so my bad.
I didn't intentionally teach his effect to sell my cards
and that's I guess what he's upset about
which he has every right to be.
So I retracted that video,
it was the card ending number video
and it turns out that that principle
with the double on the table, add card any number
actually belongs to Bernard Bilis
so I apologize to Bernard Bilis as well for teaching that
and that's just what I wanted to get to.
This is one of the reasons, not the only reason,
but one of the reasons I want to transition
sort of out of the magic tutorial on this channel
because I preach a lot about ethics,
I preach a lot about morality,
and I preach a lot about history and research
and it sucks for me to have to admit
that yeah, okay, that was his, damn it,
and now I have to take it down and retract it
and make an apology and he's already ranting
on my Twitter and on my Facebook
and I don't wanna be part of the drama
and I don't wanna cause,
I don't wanna be the cause for drama.
I wanna completely detach myself from it
so if people wanna bicker and fight,
they can do that on their own time
and I don't wanna be any part of it.
It's tough to make, like I said,
tutorial after tutorial without stepping on any toes
and so that's just one of the things
that you can't do on this platform,
you can't just freely teach things every single week
because eventually it will be someone's creation,
it will be someone's pocket you're dipping into.
Whether that's intentional or unintentional,
it's bound to happen.
I started this whole journey for magic tutorials on YouTube
and I know a lot of the people don't understand the platform
and don't watch my videos,
they're quick to say,
"Oh, you're giving away magic for subscribers,
"for likes and that type of stuff."
And I'll have you know a lot of the tutorials I put up
are like the worst videos on my channel.
They underperform every time
but I do it to try to ameliorate the situation
of magic currently and people teaching it
and I'm trying to steer it in the right direction
pointing people towards books,
pointing people towards genuine creators and their creations
and where they can buy them and purchase them
and that's been a constant thing on this channel.
So I just find it hard when the only thing people have to do
is criticize or react sort of negatively
towards a situation like this and lash out
and boycott and talk down to
and I just think it's a shame,
especially with a lot of the older generation, their crowd.
I get it, they don't understand the platform,
they don't understand what's happening
and how fast this movement is going forward.
So there's always gonna be a bit of backlash
but I always find it a shame
that instead of stepping forward into the light
and trying to get on the platform
or work with people such as myself who are on a platform
and have a following to young,
impressionable viewers and young magicians.
Instead of approaching me and working it out together
and being like listen, let's do this right
and here's what I can help you with.
No, instead, they wait, pardon me,
but they wait 'til I (beep) up
and then they criticize and then they get in
and then they get their digs in and everybody's.
If you're not gonna do anything to make it right
then stop complaining about what's wrong.
So I just wanted to give in my two cents
and let you guys know why I'm personally
deciding not to teach anything magic related on my channel.
Again, like I said, I will have guests on
that will teach their own creation
and I will still look at cardistry,
maybe some time every now and then a bar event
and that type of thing
but as far as slight of hand goes and that type of thing,
there's too much bickering
and there's too much heat around it
and too much drama is created
for such a small, insignificant thing.
It's not worth it.
It's not worth my time to get a headache over.
And I don't want fighting,
I don't want the community on YouTube to be fighting
with the community that's not on YouTube,
and that was the whole goal
was try to like bring some awareness
and bring some sensibility to the fact that
YouTube is a growing platform being used
for magic tutorials and how can we help
steer it in the right direction?
And for whatever reason,
and I've said this in the beginning
when I started doing tutorials,
I said I'm just trying to steer
the train away from the cliff
and I don't know if there's another cliff that way
and it seems like there may not be another cliff
but there's definitely a fork in the road here,
a bump in the road that I have to deal with.
I'm just kind of getting tired of it
and like I said, at the same time,
creating content for the sake of creating content
also not a cool thing.
Not when you have to do this for a living
day in, day out to force yourself to create something
just for other people and not for yourself,
it's a hard thing to do.
Alright, I'm complaining a little bit
but it does take its toll day after day
when you're thinking about doing something
that you don't necessarily feel like doing.
I still wanna give my thoughts on magic
and I still wanna have that conversation
of what magic is and what it can be
and where is it going and how do we improve it
and all of this I'm still really, super interested in
and I really want to still bring you guys to conventions
and magic is still the main part of this channel,
however, like I said, the slight of hand teaching bit
is not gonna be left to me anymore
but there are people, like I said Xavier Spade,
Alex Pandrea, these guys you can go follow
and they'll teach some exceptional slight of hand
in the highest quality just like you'd expect here.
So on a final note, if you see a problem,
try and rectify it.
Try and find a positive or proactive way
of rectifying it rather than jumping to social media
right quick and doing that type of thing
'cause although it gets your voice out there
and your opinion out there,
you're just kinda getting everybody up in arms
and you're not really taking anything into your own hands.
I hope you guys are gonna stick around for the journey,
I hope you guys are gonna be here for the rest of it
because still be performances and all of that.
There will be plenty of knowledge for you guys to pick up
and I'm a firm believer that most of the knowledge
that is dropped on this channel by me or my peers
does not revolve around slight of hand.
And for those of you who follow this channel,
you already know that.
Thank you for listening.
I apologize for some of you it's some bad news I guess
but this is just an opportunity for me to grow
and the channel to grow
and the community to grow
and to step over all of this nonsense
and keep moving forward.
So I appreciate your support as I always do,
sorry for the long rant,
and thank you again for listening,
and we'll see you on the next video.
Peace.
(soft music)