It's Monday and you know what that means... Monday Mail Call!

Each Monday (give or take), I use this feature to highlight a few of the things that have made their way in over the past week or so. Packages, purchases, and emails -- oh my!

First up, a book I've been waiting on for years: Confident Deceptions by Jason Ladanye. This book came out in 2013 but that was well before I had gotten back into the magic scene. Ladanye was unknown to me. Darwin Ortiz was a familiar name, though I didn't know much of his work so Confident Deceptions didn't hit my radar until July 2019.

I was watching an IG Live with Jeremy Griffith (@lost_angelus) and he brought on this guy who I've never heard of... Jason Ladanye.

So, here's this Ladanye guy and he's showing off some pretty wicked table work. It's the first time I had ever seen Riffle Stacking and I don't want to stretch it but that threw me into a good 2-month rabbit hole of practice. Ah yeah, but back to the IG Live. So, I went and looked at this Ladanye's account and he had a website, so I went to check it out. A few books, a three-way mirror -- nice! Confident Deceptions was there but sold out. The book looked neat so I told myself "no worries, I'll just find it somewhere else." Except, it wasn't available anywhere else. No third-party sites, no used-book sites, not even eBay.

I found plenty of reviews online of the book and the only negative vibe I picked up was that it had a lot of Ortiz in it. The "negative" was that Ladanye was like Ortiz and not his own personality. Now, as I mentioned, to me Ortiz was a familiar name, but I didn't really know his work so this wasn't a negative for me. In fact, stripping away that one note left only positive things about the book. I also really wanted to get more into table work, and I was still new so didn't know the kind of books available so -- Confident Deceptions hit the top of my list!

I reached out to Ladanye, he didn't have any extra copies unfortunately -- and wasn't sure if it would be reprinted. I setup alerts on different sites, including eBay, to notify me when the book was listed. In 2 years, I only received a single hit from eBay but I lost that bid due to a sniper in the last 3 seconds. Sold for $80-something!

When I saw that Ladanye had this book reprinted and available at Blackpool I reached out asap and got the details. I'm pretty sure I was the first online purchase when he made it available on his site, that's how much I wanted this book. fanboi much?

The day I received it, Vanishing Inc. put up a new copy of it too except theirs comes with a ~20 minute long video that has performances of all of the routines! I reached out to Ladanye to see if this is available to share and sure enough, he got me the video. It's a great reference, and the book -- so far -- has been worth the wait!

On the same day Confident Deceptions arrived, another package showed up that contained a pretty sweet deck: AVTones 2049 Carbon Black. I distinctly remember buying this one, but I can't for the life of me remember where I first saw it or why I went to get it. It was most likely a promo on Instagram, but either way I shelled out the cash to Cardvolution and a few weeks later, this deck hit my doorstep.

AVTones 2049 was originally a Kickstarter campaign that launched in April 2021 and was fully funded in 3 days which is huge considering it's goal was $30k! By the end of the month-long campaign, it was more than 280% funded so that's pretty sweet. Unfortunately for me, I completely missed this campaign - I would've been all over it because this deck looks amazing. I haven't opened the actual deck yet because I think it deserves a nice photoshoot, but very soon!

Last, but definitely not least, the Cernunnos Forest playing cards -- The Cube Collector Box:

This was also a Kickstarter campaign and the decks are absolutely beautiful. The collector box comes with two decks, "Day Fairy" and "Starry Night" (both decks of the campaign), a Coin of Cernunnos, and some other fun things.

The Cernunnos Forest campaign was over 4600% funded! Yes, four thousand -- that's just crazy! It also ran pretty on-time in terms of everything, and the community updates were pretty well done.

I've opened the box itself and took everything out, except the coin. That thing is stuck in there and I'm not ready to rip the box yet =P. I also haven't opened the decks but, similar to the AVTones deck it's because I want to do a photo shoot with them prior to breaking the seals. Soon though!

I don't know about you but I'm always a fan of receiving Kickstarter rewards. Seeing these projects come to life, I feel great because I helped someone accomplish their goal -- and even better (and more selfish) because I got something out of it too. Mixed priorities, right? =P

The decks I got this past week are just amazing, I can't wait to break the seals. But first, I'm heads-down in Confident Deceptions and am still stoked to have received it!

Stay tuned for the next iteration of Monday Mail Call, there's a lot more to come!

Oh also, if you'd like to offer suggestions for books, tricks, decks or if you have questions about magic (performing, routines, sleights, etc.), just reach out here.

Penn & Teller: Fool Us is a TV talent show that is filmed in front of a live audience (or, virtual audience during the pandemic). Oh, and we can't forget to mention that Penn and Teller are there too -- they're the judges!

During each episode, four magicians perform a magic act for Penn & Teller which, at the end of each act the magician-comedian duo try to deduce how the trick was done. In very articulate speech, Penn -- as Teller remains characteristically silent -- commends the magician on a job well done. If the magic act fooled Penn & Teller, they win a sweet Fool Us trophy and a trip to Vegas to be the opening act for Penn & Teller's show!

I want my opinions below to reflect those of a spectator who just saw a performance live. To achieve this, I've only watched this episode once. In real time - no pausing. No slow motion. Once through, with commercials and with my kids enjoying it with me too. Did I remember everything I saw? Did I see everything that happened? Do I remember the exact words that were said? Maybe, but likely not -- which means if I over-portray an effect below then it was just that great of a trick. If I under-portray it, well, yeah. So let's see what this episode's got in store for us!

Episode Recap

Card magic, magic with money, and quick change acts! What's not to love?! This episode of Fool Us brought routines from all of these categories and ended with some clean fire eating - what a great way to spend a Friday night.

David Corsaro

The fooler of the night's episode was David Corsaro. His promo reel touted psychology and hinted at using mentalism techniques to be able to fool Penn & Teller. He did a fun subliminal training skit with a bellhop's bell and then showed a dry-erase board with a few words written on it. Penn, Teller, and Alyson each chose a word from the board which, when the letters of each word were counted, pointed to a specific card in a deck.

This was, in completeness, an A Card At Any Number (ACAAN) routine. Everything else was just bells and whistles... pun not intended. Unfortunately, it was also one of those routines which gave off the vibe that Corsaro added in these extra bells and whistles to explicitly throw off Penn & Teller. He stated in his promo that he was going to use psychology to trick them. And yet, there was no psychology in the trick itself. It was a standard deck flip. The psychology was that it was too obvious that it was a card switch so it "must have been" the extra stuff he added in. The only possible extra would've been the word-lengths, which they went with. And, as we now know, led to him being the fooler of the night. Ugh. Maybe it was different being there in-person, but when he didn't ring the bell the one time he said "fool", at least on the TV, his hand flipping was pretty clear. I guess that was the psychology part -- misdirection via conditioning.

Don't get me wrong, it's an okay trick. It's something I would do with friends -- not with my name written on a card, but who knows. This thing is published in dozens of books, if not more, and there are just as many videos with it too. I'm actually upset that this won. At first, I felt this way almost out of anger that such an easy routine that had "extras" added in just to trick P&T won, but thinking about it more it's because it wasn't an original trick. It's a common type of trick that most magicians learn right when they're starting. I thought that Fool Us was supposed to be for magicians to show what they're made of, to show off their skills and creativity. Not to read Card College Vol. 1 and get a trophy...

John Fitzsimmons

Moving on though, the first performer of the night was John Fitzsimmons. This routine fooled me, I'm not gonna lie. He had all three -- Penn, Teller, and Alyson -- select a card from a freshly opened deck. Then he slipped on a whacky looking helmet with lights and antennas and a knob. Wouldn't you believe it, he was able to discern all three selected cards!

You can watch John's super whacky helmet trick on YouTube here!

It couldn't have been marked or forced cards, the spectators had the deck in their hands when selecting a card and they hid the card from view the whole time. Even though I work in tech and, more ironically, have done my fair share of research and testing on this exact technology, I actually ruled out RFID immediately due to thickness and stiffness concerns too. However, the act did not fool Penn & Teller. Whether they know the exact method or not, they guessed that there's some special way that the helmet itself tells Fitzsimmons what the cards were, and they were right. The only way this could happen is if there's a scanner that's able to read the cards...

Now, this leaves us with the idea that either the selected cards were scanned across the table or the remaining cards in the box were scanned. With RFID scanning, all of the above can be done pretty quickly. However, my concern is that the thickness of the cards would be discernable to Penn & Teller, magicians who handle cards daily... for years. This is one of those routines where I'd love to be able to hear what they discussed, I feel like there's a lot I could learn here!

Bentley Burns

First up there was a whacky helmet. Now with Bentley Burns, there's a friggin robot! A pretty neat idea though, a robot that shreds things and the spectator gets to choose what's shredded.

The routine was straightforward enough. A bill is signed by Penn and stuffed into an envelope. Then, it's mixed it with other envelopes and Alyson chooses them one at a time to be shredded. The remaining envelope -- you guessed it. It has the signed bill in it!

I have no doubt that this could be a really great trick, and I don't want to demerit Burns here but I feel like he could have practiced it more. His handling was very rough and felt off during the performance. If he's a performer, it shouldn't be stage fright... though, performing in a competition in front of Penn & Teller would definitely warrant it I guess.

He never drew direct attention to the "tool" being used, but because of the unnatural handling of everything, it was pretty clear that it was in use. The final bill load too was just rigid.

Diego & Elena

One of the best performances that's been on Fool Us was on last night, the act of Diego & Elena. I don't really know how to describe it too much. It was an acrobatic quick change act that featured lightning fast changes right in front of our eyes. Quick dashes behind a curtain, hanging from a rope, twirling on stage. Wow!

I loved the appearance out of thin air of Elena too, it was just so clean! To this day, I don't know how these appearances are done. I'd love to guess "mirrors" but let's be real, I've seen them done on stages like this and even in public parks. My mind's blown every time and I kind of hope I don't ever figure out the secret -- it's one of those pieces of magic that is just so magical.

I wish I could write more to really encapsulate the beauty of this routine, but it was just beautiful art. One where you sit and watch with awe and clap at the end. I'd love to see it in person because I feel like it would bring it up to the next level being that close!

Penn & Teller

Penn & Teller ended the show with the closer to their live show in Vegas. It's not quite a magic performance, but it's great nonetheless. Fire eating!

Penn speaks for a solid three minutes at least about the art of fire eating, and then performs a demonstration of it. My youngest kid, who's attention span ignored the entire speech, watched the performance itself and said "now that is real magic!" and he was transfixed! So perhaps my statement of it not quite being magic is wrong because, as a magician, that is the reaction that we all dream of.

Takeaways

This episode felt like it flew by for me, time-wise, and that means that it's entertaining. The producers definitely had to have purposefully combined the whacky helmet and robot into the same episode because, why not right? I also love how they pick-and-choose what commentary to keep in because when Alyson was speaking to Corsaro, the fooling act, she definitely tipped off that she knew what he did. "The easier routines tend to be harder for them" -- she definitely saw the move!

I'm still waiting for the day when we see multiple foolers in a single episode, but seeing acts that are beautiful and acts that fool me are amazing too. I am rather disappointed with the act that fooled them, and shocked at one that didn't -- but hey, it's all magic right?

Either way, I'm excited for the next round of magic!

When I started back into magic a few years ago, I still remembered a lot of the basics that I picked up when I was a kid. Double lifts and top changes. Double undercuts and the fantastic 21 card trick! Jeez I was a pro, and I was just a beginner!

But why stop there, right? I bought a book or two, which then became ten. A pack of DVDs arrived on my doorstep, and I had instant downloads in my inbox. I don't even need to mention YouTube, but since I did let's just say that there are a few freebies available there too -- and honestly, they're pretty good quality*.

So much information, so many sleights and routines. How on earth can anyone become great at a routine when tomorrow we start learning the next one?!

Today I'm going to talk about information overload and the negative effect is has had on my journey into the magic world. I do think there's light at the end of the tunnel though, and from where I'm sitting it's quite bright. Stick with me here for a few minutes here and see if anything stands out to you too!

Information Overload

If you've seen my library, specifically the  books and videos lists, I have enough content to keep any person busy for quite a long time. Unfortunately, I haven't even entered in a quarter of my collection yet and based on the recent shipping notifications I've received, it's still growing.

I've read in Genii about some of the pro's not having access to magic books or videos when they started their magic hobby and that they had to figure everything out on their own. I very much respect that and think that we could all learn a lot from them. If they wrote a book, I'd buy it! This isn't about those folks though. This is about the rest of us. Those of us who have access to a magic shop, or an online store.

If I was just starting out and I searched for "card magic for beginners", guess what I see first:

Besides Google's self-promotion of YouTube results, books on Amazon show up as ads -- nice! Funnily enough, I don't have any of those three so maybe I'll check them out. Scrolling down the page though, there are many, many more sources from blog posts to books and much more. You can see by the screenshot above, there are 16 million results for this. Wow!

That's kind of where I started too, except I knew the book I wanted: Royal Road to Card Magic. I went directly to Amazon and bought it. Why Amazon and not a magic shop? Well, there aren't any magic shops near where I live (I think?), and I didn't know any of the magic shops like Vanishing Inc. or Ellusionist at the time.

My first year in magic I would learn a few sleights from Royal Road and Card College each week and practice for a few days. Then learn a few more and then a few more after that. By a year-and-a-half into magic, I had maybe 20 books and a dozen videos and was consuming at least one per week. My time spent practicing individual sleights went from a few days to a few hours. If I could do the sleight and it looked good, I moved on to the routines and I would practice one or two, maybe show it to someone, and then move to the next.

Each book I read and every video I watched would reference another work that I haven't heard of and after brief research I would add it to my queue. It didn't take long until my library outgrew my capacity to consume. Even today, though I've slowed buying books, my backlog of "to read" material is enormous. On one hand, this might seem cool. I have all the reference material I could ever need! On the other hand, I'm spending so much time context switching between new and different sleights and routines that I don't devote much time to any of them.

How can I become a good magician if I can't become a good magician?

My Current Lack of a Practice Regimen

I feel like it's important to describe my environment a little, before I get into the nitty-gritty. So, I work from home and have a dedicated office in my house. My computer desk, a solid 6'x3' hunk of wood is large enough for my monitors and close-up pad. I have meetings throughout the day, every day. So even though I work 9-to-5 I can still practice sleights and routines during that time. I've got it pretty good =]

Before work each day I have time to practice too, though I typically reserve that time to work on this website. After the kids are asleep at night, more practice time! I work with cards more during the week than the weekend too, which might sound counter-intuitive but hey, it fits my schedule.

On a given day I would say I have cards in my hands for an average of maybe 4 hours. Conversely, on a given day, I practice specific routines or sleights only for a few minutes.

A lot of my time, during the day, is spent fidgeting with cards. Maybe I'll work on a cardistry flourish during a meeting without looking at my hands. Or maybe I'll be practicing false shuffles and cuts, or second deals. Maybe I'm just fidgeting with the cards. The Classic Pass is one of my go-to fidget moves and I swear I do about 100 of them a day, if not more. But routines? Rarely. And it bugs the hell out of me.

The exceptions to this are when I'm practicing a specific routine to show someone or to post online. If I’m unable to perform the routine itself, then it'll be the sole thing I practice for a day or two, if not longer. I'll keep at it even after I think it looks good just to make sure I'm actually good at it. That way, I justify to myself that it's "just to get it once and move on." However, after I've shown the routine to someone, there's a great chance I move on to the next thing.

I've read and seen instructions for easily over a thousand routines, and I've practiced hundreds of them. I've performed far, far fewer. The ones that I would say I'm really good at are around 20. These are ones that for the past 4 years I've practiced many times and have performed for folks. I like to think that I'm good others too, but there's a difference between being good and really good**.

When I sit down with a book nowadays and am flipping through, I always have a deck with me and practice as I read. If a routine or sleight is hard, I'll give it an extra few minutes before reading further but often, that's it. I write down the things from that book that I'm interested in or that I think will come in handy later and move on.

My practice regimen? Non-existent.

Practice Ideas

It really, really bothers me that I don't practice regularly. I know that this is an opinionated internal struggle that may or may not apply to anyone else, but for me the struggle is real. I want to be better at magic not so I can go on some game show like AGT or Fool Us, but so I can be a better mentor for others.

To me, there is an ideal state for getting better at card magic and that is to identify a sleight or routine of interest and practice until it's perfected (i.e., until I'm really good at it). That, however, is inefficient. It doesn't scale with the amount of information I have available to me so there has to be an alternative.

One idea I've been pondering for a while now but haven't put into practice yet, pun not intended, is the idea of reading like I do now (which only really happens at night or in the mornings) and during work, practice the routines that I've flagged as "of interest". Not just from the book I'm currently reading, but from everything. I have a list of everything I'm interested in, so maybe I could create a round-robin style list (or even randomize it) to pick one or two or six routines to practice on a given day and practice just those. The next day, a new list. My thought process here is that it will get me to practice a lot of different routines, regularly, and enough times that I would become good with them. It will also break up the monotony of just fidgeting and might help prevent lulls in magic.

I've put thought into it for a while and really haven't come up with an alternative that would allow me to practice all that I'm looking to practice, so I think I'm going to start this idea in March. That will give me a baseline to track from (opposed to saying, "I started on February 24th" and then doing math... nah, I can just say I started in March =P. I'll see how it goes and will post a status update every now and then!

I'm very, very curious to hear about your practice regimen too. If you have any ideas, or if you've found yourself struggling with figuring out what or how to practice, definitely let me know!

* The free "magic tutorials" on YouTube, some are great. And then some are blatant rip-offs of others' hard work. I'm not going to lie, but I've watched my fair share of them and have learned a good amount. I have a lot to say on this topic though so I just wanted to add in a quick note here that YouTube tutorials should really be referenced with a giant grain of salt.

** To me, you can't be perfect at a routine since there's always a chance for a mistake. However, being really good means that the routine is natural to you. You're comfortable performing it and you're not constantly worried whether the double you're holding's going to split. You know all the outs in case something does go wrong or you're able to think of them on the fly. Being good at a trick means that you can perform it. Maybe you've only practiced it but never performed. Or maybe it's your first time performing it, maybe your 10th. You might be comfortable with cards, but you still have that lingering thought that something could possibly go wrong because you haven't performed it enough yet. I say that 100% knowing that as a hobby magician, I don't perform a lot so technically by this statement my skill level would always be under the "good" category but like with anything, there are exceptions. At least, it makes sense in my head =P

... and a third p.s., the header image is just two stacks of books on my floor right now =P. I just got a new area rug for my office and they're helping flatten it. No disrespect to the authors! I stacked them quite carefully <3

It's Monday and you know what that means... Monday Mail Call!

Each Monday (give or take), I use this feature to highlight a few of the things that have made their way in over the past week or so. Packages, purchases, and emails -- oh my!

To kick things off right away, first up is Lorem Ipsum by Nathan Colwell. I picked up Theseus, also by Colwell, a while back and have been really pleased with it. When I saw he was coming out with another book -- and it was affordable -- I kind of jumped the gun and snatched it before it sold out.

If ever there was a time when I should be more thoughtful when making a purchase, this would be it. Yes, I know that prior works being good don't mean that new ones would be too. Maybe it was the Latin in the name and text block on the cover that suckered me into it. After all, Lorem Ipsum (the "placeholder text" used on almost every website ever when it's being developed) is something that I've had in my day-to-day for years. Ugh.

I've skimmed through the booklet and... Okay let me pause. So, first off, I thought it was going to be a book. When I opened the tiny envelope and out comes this blank-white paper stapled together I almost lost it. I spent $25 plus shipping for 11 sheets of paper that, as far as I can tell, don't offer any new or original routines but just modifications to some pretty commonly known ones? I'm actually mad just writing about it which I think is safe to say biasing my opinion of the work.

That said though, the Oyster Production in it does look pretty cool. My hands must not be flexible enough though because I can't hold them in the way that he describes, but if I pull it off it'll be eye-candy for IG. And, the illustrations are very well designed. I give credit where credit is due. However, this is one of those "should've been a PDF" purchases, if not a "should've read the description better" ones. I'll still go through the whole thing to form a real opinion though, but first impression is rage.

The next package that I popped open was one I was really excited to get. This one was almost an impulse-purchase, but also one that I knew I just wanted. Concerning the Palming of Cards by John Galsworthy made its way onto my library shelf and it took only one look at the cover to know I wanted it. The cover isn't anything special, it's just the name -- but ever since seeing his Experts at the Card Table lecture I've been excited to see more from him.

It came in just a few days ago and I've only flipped through it so I don't have an opinion yet, but given that it comes with video tutorials too I'm sure it'll be worth it. Also, just saying but this book has some of the best palming-related pictures I've seen. It definitely captures all of the angles... though, we'll see how accurate that statement is after I've read it =P

Last but not least, but maybe least who am I to judge: Meta Playing Cards. Give me a second, I just laughed out loud a little and I need to recuperate.

Yes, you read right folks. Meta playing cards. Like, from the company Facebook Meta.

They sent these bad boys out as a swag gift to employees after rebranding the company from Facebook to Meta. I don't know if only certain areas (like North America) received them or if offices across the globe did, but whatever percentage of employees received these had to be a high number so this might be one of the largest print runs of custom playing cards I've had the pleasure (lol) of holding.

Printed by Playing Cards on Demand, they are "casino quality" and feature a custom tuck and back design. That's about where the niceties stop. The finish on the cards makes them smooth like plastic, except clumpy. Fanning powder, highly recommended. The back design, which is carried from the tuck design, also doesn't make any sense. It's a pool noodle? With the Meta logo...

But hey, they came in a pretty nice tote bag.

Not a terrible week overall. Any time I get books, good or bad, it's a good time. And free cards? Heck yeah! As long as I can use them, they're good to me.

Stay tuned for the next iteration of Monday Mail Call, there's a lot more to come!

Oh also, if you'd like to offer suggestions for books, tricks, decks or if you have questions about magic (performing, routines, sleights, etc.), just reach out here.

I've been reflecting lately on the whole purpose of magic on Instagram. Not just for my personal posting purposes, but in general. It's people at home, often in pajamas or gym shorts, sitting in poorly lit rooms showing a trick they spent a whole of 1 hour practicing. The audience? Other magicians. The feedback? Either ridiculously supportive, or ignorantly negative. So, what's the point? Why do we keep putting magic videos up on social media?

To really think about this, I took a trip through my history on Instagram and went back to the beginning.

A long, long time ago, on this very same laptop...

I joined Instagram (@gbabbits) almost 3 years ago*. What was my reason for joining? To get feedback on my progression in the world of magic.

Progression in the world of magic. Yeah, you heard me.

I'd say I picked up a deck of cards and a book or two about a year prior to joining. Off-and-on practice and a few YouTube videos in, I finally decided it was time to show off what I'd been practicing. Except, I had no interest in going out on the streets to perform for strangers. Also, I've worked from home for years (even before Covid) so all of my coworkers are on the other side of a screen. My family can only stand so much, so what's a guy to do?

This is around when Shin Lim was getting pretty famous, and I found out that he had an Instagram account. I had never used the app before this, so I went on the website (yeah, the website and not the app... don't hate =P) and found his account and it was so much fun. I remember clicking a hashtag on one of the posts, I really think it was #cardmagic and holy crap, there were a lot of magicians on Instagram! I think I found it -- the place to share what I've been practicing and to get feedback from the magic community.

My first video was a simple trick. A selected card is placed into the deck, a magical snap of the fingers and whoah -- the whole deck's reversed and the selection is the only face down card in the deck. Neat! And it started getting likes and comments right away! Though, the comments were a little less friendly and far less helpful than I had expected.

"you flashed"

"you need more practice"

"even a robot's fingers are less stiff"

Ouch. Thanks, I guess? I did get one helpful one though which was "be aware of the angles when doing a HP. try tilting the deck forward". Ironically, my first thought was "hah, I'm not doing a Half Pass, I totally fooled him!" and then a month or two later I realized that a Half Pass wasn't only done with half of the deck. Not the brightest =P. That video, I remember it taking me close to an hour to film. I really didn't flash at all, but you did see my left hand's fingers move under my right's poor attempt at cover. That's not really a flash in my opinion, it's more telegraphing that a move's being done. Slight difference, albeit still spoils the trick.

I've removed a lot of my original videos since they were all, well, crappy. And the comments on them were all the same. Occasionally, I'd receive actual helpful feedback which made it feel worth it but overall, just a negative vibe from the "community" and it sucked.

Building Community

And then, I connected with folks. Meaning, I joined groups and started direct messaging people (and some messaged me first too).

It turns out, there are a lot of people just like me on IG who are just trying to have fun and share the magic they're learning, hoping to also get constructive feedback to become better. Do we want to be professional magicians? No, it's a hobby. Sure, there are some who want to, but most of us are just having fun before and after work. We have Discord servers for hanging out too, Ellusionist's is by far the biggest, but I'm in 2 others that are pretty good.

In my 3 years on Instagram, I've watched accounts that have had only 1000 followers (like Harapan Ong, Jeremy Griffith, Jason Ladanye, Ash Marlow, Chris Ramsay, and others), shoot up to 10k, 20k, 50k, and all the way up to almost 500k! I've talked to all of them in DMs, one or two via email, and even jammed with Griffith on Discord. These guys are there because they love magic, and you want to know something fun? They love sharing magic! They're extremely helpful and open, and even honest! Yes, folks like Ladanye charge for lessons now and that's okay. That's his job. And Ramsay's unlikely to hang out with anyone nowadays given how many followers he has, but he's an exception to the community rule. The point is it just takes reaching out to be able to talk to someone.

Putting these "large" accounts aside, I've found that the regular magic community is amazing too. You know, the folks that are posting pics of decks left and right, showing off new sleights they've learned and giving cameo shots to their flannel pajamas -- a lot of them are there for the same reasons and most like to talk! Being able to share trick ideas, hang out and do demos of routines live, and just general magic-chat. It's fun!

Collaborations and Competitions

When the pandemic hit, magic collaborations really sprung up all over. I've been trying to recall collabs before then, but none are coming to mind. I'm sure they happened, but IG has been filled with them for the past 2 years. They're fun to do too if you're able to get into one, it really only takes making a video with another person.

A collaboration, to be clear, is when two or more magicians appear in the same video. Due to the pandemic, we've all been remote so "two magicians in the same video" is "one magician does a routine and passes an object off screen which immediately cuts to the next magician pulling in the same (or similar) object from off screen and does another routine." And they can keep passing to multiple people, etc. etc.

I've been in a few so far and they've been fun. Sometimes it's chaotic trying to organize it between several people and then you realize that there's a 60s max to the video, but overall, just a jolly good time. Why do we do them though? Mostly fun... but also for extra engagement on our accounts. Let's pretend, for example, there are two of us who want to make a collab video. We'll both record our parts and one of us will make the end product and then that person will post it. Before, we'd tag (and @mention) the other person in the video and users that follow me but not the other would now be exposed to the other too and they'd see them perform in a fun collab -- more of a chance to send folks to that other account. Now, Instagram has a neat feature where the video will post to both accounts. It's like they knew collabs were a thing!

And then there are competitions. Tournaments. Magic fight clubs. People making magic videos and other people voting on which is better. Define "better"! you say? Well, "better" is 100% biased towards the person doing the voting. And at least 50% of the votes are from friends who are judging based on if they know you or not so take "better" with a very large grain of salt. But why do I bring these up?

The community building around magic competitions is super strong! On Instagram alone, I've been in 3 and I'm in one right now (I just made it through to round #2 which will be posting quite soon). We all join a chat group behind the scenes and talk about, well, everything. In this event alone, I've met 21 other magicians that I didn't know before it! Would it be cool to win? Yeah probably. Do I care if I win? Nope, not at all. I'm having fun trying to inspire other magicians and am trying to gain inspiration from them as well. I can post videos of doing strike seconds and double lifts any day, but a competition challenges me to make something more. And the fact that I'm doing it with friends takes all the stress away!

So... magic in social media?

My original intent for using Instagram to get feedback on my progress hasn't really paid off in the way I expected it to. Posting videos got me interaction, but not really anything too useful. Instead, I've been using the platform to build actual relationships with others who share a similar interest and not only do they help me out, but I them!

Magic videos provide great entertainment in social media, whether on Instagram, TikTok, Myspace, wherever. While I am at fault for this too, I would love to see most (or all) of them be a little higher quality in terms of lighting and, well, maybe put in an extra hour of practice before filming but hey -- if you're happy with it, that's what it's for right?

There are some negative people out there that make their presence known as best as they can, but I kind of think that that's a good thing. Not because it makes us try harder to please them - nah, screw them - but it lets us know that we can do better because people are watching.

* Speaking of my 3-year account birthday, I've been trying to think of something neat to do for it. I always see folks post a fun "birthday" type of thing, but I've been drawing a blank. The clock's ticking given it's this-coming Saturday but honestly, I've got nothing. It needs to be magical, but also "for me" and not just a promo for a deck of cards or a sleight I've been working on. Hmm...

Oh oh, also, unrelated but related -- I was thinking of doing a "Magical March Madness" event. I ran a month-long event this past September called "Decked Out September" that I provided post prompts for every day of the month. A decent number of folks in the community participated, a few managed to pull it off every single day too. It's a ton of work on my side because every day of the month I end up doing account promotion for dozens of accounts and it ends up taking at least an hour or two a day, every day. It was a lot of fun and I had a lot of requests to bring it back so I think I just might (^_^)