The New Normal?

Do you feel like this is the new normal? I feel like we should start optimizing all our magic for webcams/social media. I don’t see us going back to regular performing, even once this is all over. —SK

No, this isn’t the new normal.

At least not for the social magician. (I can’t speak for cruise ship magicians, restaurant magicians, trade show magicians, etc.)

For the amateur magician, there will be opportunities to perform in person in the not too distant future. There will be travel and parties and dates and gatherings and holidays and trips to coffee shops and bars. If anything, this situation is reminding people how much they appreciate interacting with people in the real world.

Performing over skype/facetime or whatever should go back to being a novelty. If it was just as strong as performing in person, I’d be all for it. But it’s nowhere near as strong.

My estimates of the mathematics of the impact of a trick are something like this:

Let’s say someone’s reaction to a trick you post on instagram is x.

Doing that same trick over a webcam “live” and one-on-one for someone will easily get a reaction of 5x or so.

Doing that same trick in person will usually get at least a reaction of 10x. But it could be much more than that. It could be 100x or 1000x, because some tricks that would be almost impact-less if presented generically on video, can be very powerful in person.

So… is this the new normal? Let’s hope not. Or else we’ll be confined to a much less impactful means of sharing magic.