Magic hot takes because I need a void to scream in

not the gathering | all my opinions are dumb and niche | they/them bc we need at least one trans in this industry

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jfc the way magicians talk about AI and ChatGPT you'd think that up until a few months ago they were tiny babies incapable of doing anything themselves.

Y'all need to grow the fuck up and start putting in effort yourself.

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The amount of magicians blatantly using AI imagery in their marketing/promo materials is putting the battle for legitimacy back significantly, ngl

If you want people to think that magic is Art, and that you as a magician are an Artist of any sort, then having fundamentally no solidarity for your fellow Artists is only going to turn them against you

And we need the endorsement of Artists if we're going to be seen as legitimate, as anything but light entertainment

I get it's easy to use AI. That doesn't mean you should use it.

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Recently I've been talking with a bunch of layfolks about the magic theory/philosophy side of things (just because it's a thing I'm interested in) and have honestly been incredibly encouraged at the results. Without having to use the allure of a trick to get them to my side, I'm finding folks who have barely ever thought about this artform getting really, genuinely interested in hearing about what's behind the curtain in ways that we generally don't consider interesting, even as magicians. Getting to hear peoples' experiences of magic, their perceptions and ideas, allowing them to engage with it as the respect-worthy thing we all believe it is, but rarely portray it to be. It highlights two key things to me, that are incredibly motivating for my work:

1) People are interested in magic. Deeply, genuinely interested. I sometimes quote magic as something that "no one thinks is cool until it happens in front of them" but this experience has proved me wrong in the best way, showing they don't need to see it to engage. We don't need to make people care about magic. They already do.

2) People are ready to meet our aims. If our goal is to get magic to be a respected and moving artform, we don't need to shape the public consciousness as much as we think. There are plenty of people ready to catch our passes and treat our magic with the dignity and care we do. We just need to start throwing the ball.

Admittedly, this post is based on a small sample size. I've really only had a couple conversations with a couple people about this. More experience might prove me wrong on this. But, if this trend continues, if more and more people are wanting to discuss magic without tricks, then that bodes incredibly well for all of us. Here's to more magic, better magic, and better art.

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tfw you're excited to learn a magic effect involving IDs and you realize right as you finish the tutorial that you can't perform it because your ID still has your deadname on it ;-;

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If every secret to every magic trick, every single one that's ever existed, were available for free for anyone who wanted to search it, magic would not only survive, but get much, much better.

People who argue about "exposure killing magic" have no actual understanding of audiences, of people, of technology, or of what they're actually trying to do with their magic. All you're doing by keeping all of this shit secret is cutting off the next generation of magicians (/ensuring that there will be no diversity in the artform) and/or dooming that thing you made and love so much to die of neglect.

Make magic free

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I understand why so much magic is presented as a challenge/puzzle to the audience to solve. I understand why it's easy to do, how it comes out of the history that shapes the entire magic world as it currently exists. It is also holding us back.

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Can we just... stop making Harry Potter references, please? Even aside from tacitly supporting JK Rowling's transphobic and fascist rhetoric by keeping her work in the zeitgeist, the ways magicians reference her work are unnecessary at best and rude at worst (I swear if I hear one more person call non-magicians "muggles" I'm gonna scream)

People don't need an HP reference to understand what magic is. HP isn't even the only prominent piece of media with a magic system. You don't need to bring that shit up.

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Bringing this post back up on the occasion of the newest hottest product in the magic community being named after an HP spell, with much of the marketing being suitably tied to the franchise.

JK Rowling is a bigot and a fascist who wants a minority dead. Who wants me dead. Our art does not need her, and the more we tie it to her work the worse we look to everyone else.

Cut. This. Shit. Out.

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Really wish we could just fucking stop naming effects after a slur. It's bad enough that we can't bother to just call it torn-and-restored thread, but it's even worse when new effects keep coming out with that name.

I don't care how amazing that one Asi trick is, I know I'm never ever buying it if only because I can't tell people about the new thing I got honestly.

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Imagine how many professional magicians would be completely out of work if their clients were aware of what their politics are

Kinda hope they do so that we can have better people to talk about

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Definitely says something about the gender demographics of magicians that there's a fuckton of rubber band magic and almost no hair tie magic (as far as I'm aware). Who carries around rubber bands other than magicians? Fucking no one. But y'know who carries hair ties with them? Almost every woman. And yet we don't have anything magical to do with them? Some bullshit right there.

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Can we just... stop making Harry Potter references, please? Even aside from tacitly supporting JK Rowling's transphobic and fascist rhetoric by keeping her work in the zeitgeist, the ways magicians reference her work are unnecessary at best and rude at worst (I swear if I hear one more person call non-magicians "muggles" I'm gonna scream)

People don't need an HP reference to understand what magic is. HP isn't even the only prominent piece of media with a magic system. You don't need to bring that shit up.

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idc how you try to swing it, "Money doesn't make you a good magician, practice does" and "We need price tags on every effect to show that people are serious" are NOT takes you can hold simultaneously. They are antithetical to one another, and the fact you're so beholden to the shitty marketplace system we have is what's ACTUALLY killing magic

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y'all be like "why aren't more women/minorities getting involved in magic???" and then when asked about a legit nazi be like "oh yeah i love his work I've jammed with him a couple times really nice guy he does great things for the fraternity"

The reason no one takes magic seriously is because we don't have anyone actually progressive leading the charge. It's the most conservative performance art and it shows.

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Most of y'all magicians have never read a theory book that isn't specifically for you and it really fuckin shows