SliK wrote:EminemBase wrote:@Slik, I cba to write a book response to that initial post like I was going to, think what you want fam and you're right, I can't convince you that you like him. However, you said you're not a moron... well, first of all, you're trying so hard to prove to me you're not stupid... but you are a moron IF you don't understand that no, you don't know the magnitude of Derren's skill and his techniques as a magician. I DO, as I've been doing it most my life and actually, yes, with some things I would need to tell you what he's doing - I'm not talking about the 'psychological manipulation' or things he dresses up as that, I mean routines he's built around really ingenious subtle uses of classical magic technique which eliminates choice but looks perfectly like a choice... not brainwashing or 'control', just really clever lateral ideas which give an illusion of choice but which are in fact heavily planned and acted around and talked around to make seem natural... no, you don't know those things, and I could show you tricks of his where you have no fucking clue at all what he's doing...
Woah wait a minute... Do you genuinely believe that is unique to magic? Like, seriously, are you going to claim that in the same paragraph you call me a moron?
lollllllllll
Well you have... special effects which are intended to make things which aren't real look real, and of course fiction of all kind... but in terms of... I mean, movies period do that...
But in terms of... techniques and very thought-out exploitation's of everyday assumptions to create the illusion of something happening, which can't, masked by normalcy... do I believe that is unique to magic... ? Pretty much yeah, that's why it's got a title... magic, lmfao, as that's what that is, that's what giving a title to a 'thing' which is only that thing is...
If you mean, ingenuity or impressive skill... obviously skill is not unique to magic lmao, but OBVIOUSLY I'm not saying magicians are the only people who are talented, and of course you know I'm not. So I don't understand your point there.
I mean, comedy exploits every day assumptions and works on surprise... a little bit like magic, but in terms of thinking of really lateral ways of making something look identical to something it's not, to look like you achieve something impossible... yeah, I would call that magic.
SliK wrote:EminemBase wrote:I'm not saying you have to like him, but some of the things you've said such as him just praying on susceptible people... lol, no, and that is moronic. He came-up as a close-up magician. Close-up magicians do things that will work on 90% of people, they have to work on everybody because you never know who you may be doing a trick on... Derren is an incredibly skilled magician, creator of new technique and routines and one of the best showmen in the history of it... and for you to know NOTHING about it and dismiss it all as nonsense or compare it to porn is incredibly arrogant and also shows your youth. You're so up your own ass that you think your perspective is more realistic than the reality. I would never call an entire hobby or art talentless unless I had a basic understanding of the fundamentals of it... to make that call. You don't have even a basic understanding of basic magic or know what goes in to it. So it's a really stupid thing to dismiss one of the beat at it, when all you're doing is selectively judging some moments of him that annoy you.
@ The bolded part: I don't deny he's the best magician. I also don't deny that he's certainly created a new lane in the field which alone (in any field) is impressive. I don't deny he is good at what he does, or his talent, or his ingenuity. I haven't said anything of the sort in fact. I just don't fucking like him, because the shit he claims to do is BS. I don't like watching something and have him claim it is more than it really is. despite what you may think (or want to believe) he does this. He thinks he is a big deal, because people like you perpetuate that. To me it isn't impressive in the slightest and I have seen literally hours and hours of his footage.
You have said those things though... you've said all he does it find really suggestible people and basically anybody could do it. Which is not true and a really, really stupid thing to say. SO how have you not said those things when there's evidence all over this board of you saying them. Lol.
Again, forget hypnosis or little things like that you've seen, as that's not the Derren I'm claiming is brilliant. Have you seen a live show of his? I doubt it. His TV shows aren't very accurate portrayals of what he does, his live shows are spot on and you haven't even seen them and... most of the things he does will work on anybody, do not rely on him picking dopey or suggestive people.... hence often choosing some of the most difficult thinkers to do things on such as Stephen Fry who is an incredibly intellectual comedian... and psychologists, who he's fooled... and, the thousands of people he does routines on up and down the country for the past decade.
There's so many layers of hidden magic techniques within his shit and ways he's reinvented the wheel and, what do you mean claiming to do something he isn't... he TELLS you that he's a magician and that he's doing tricks, that nothing he does is physic, and even states right at the beginning of the show that achieves every result you'll see through a varied mixture of misdirection, showmanship, magic etc. - so how is that claiming to do things that he doesn't...
ALL magic has the claim of something impossible, obviously... but that's the point of it, it's like a game, to see if you can achieve what looks like the thing you're claiming to do, not be figured out and yet never claim it to actually be real. It's just a conundrum to be analyzed; and ALL fiction claims to be things it's not, so do you dislike all fiction? lmao!
Derren Brown does not claim to be anything other than a magician; he says what he's doing and as he says "I am dishonest, but honest about my dishonesty"... if he literally made no claims... there would be no tricks, it's called a performance. But at the end of it he's just as happy to invite you to figure out how it was done, play on that etc. so no, that's an honest and skilled performer, not a guy claiming to do something and being BS such as a TV physic or 'medium', who is an actual fraud claiming that what they're doing is real when in fact they're just using really, really lame linguistic tricks and gullble people... you seem to compare magic to that, when it couldn't be furhter from that.
No good magician or magicians ever really... ACTUALLY claim what they're doing is real, it's skill and entertainment and all 'buying in to the moment' temporarily to see something which looks like something impossible, but which we all know isn't. Just like we all buy in to the concept of a movie when we go to watch it, even though we KNOW Christian Bale is not fucking Batman. Do you get annoyed as you watch Bale? like FFS, WHAT A BULLSHITTER, YOU'RE NOT A SUPER HERO, LIES!
SliK wrote:@The underlined part: Who are you to say I have no understanding of magic? I will be the first to admit I don't have the BEST understanding, cos I didn't dedicate my entire youth to it lmao, but I understand enough to know that in general I don't enjoy it. Like, I understand the amount of work and dedication they put into it. I understand the utter devotion you would need to put into it to get to his level and I'm not denying any of it. I just think magicians in general are so fucking overrated and he is the most acclaimed one of all so obviously I think he is the MOST overrated. Aside from talent, I hate what I have seen of HIM. Whether it's just a character for the stage or not, I hate him. I just don't like the cunt one bit. I'm not being selective about it at all, I've seen a shitload of his work and nothing at all made me go "OMFG I want to do this myself, it's awesome, this guy is amazing" etc etc and it's not because I don't understand it you dickhead, it's because my personal taste is different to yours. I also think aspiring to be a great magician is fucking stupid and as fucking dumb a career choice as porn. At least if you look good, there's money to be made in porn. I don't think it's that unusual an analogy. Neither art is respected by society in general, no matter what you think. I mean, sure, men like hot chicks who fuck on camera and people in general might like watching a magic show... but nobody wants to hear their kid say they want to do either of those things.
You can have any level of OBSERVATION to say you dislike something. At no point was I getting annoyed at you disliking magic... that IS taste and who gives a fuck, but claiming DB is talentless or it's easy etc. is things you can only claim if you know how things are done, and no, you know fuck-ALL, believe me on that one, you know nothing what so ever other than having a vague idea that there's work involved. How is that comparable to porn... do you really think porn directors spend hours on end perfecting a single fuck motion or camera angle? No, basically any one can record porn with a video camera, where as nobody can just pick up a deck of cards and 'be amazing' with them. You will look ridiculous as it's an art form and a skill set, porn isn't, porn is fucking, and recording.
Also... magic in general... yeah basically shit commercial magicians and kid's magicians have over the times made it seem tacky or shit, but the public does not have a very accurate portrayal of how somebody really invested in magic sees magic... all the magic you're probably thinking of which you find shit, I probably find shit too... it's nothing like that and anybody who sees a real magician, usually are respected and people are wow'd...
And, Derren Brown is very respected by society and all the walks of people who go and see him live, by journalists, writers; because he's an incredible narrator, comedian, storyteller, and all-around performer... I don't believe that you've seen much of him at all. Not his live stuff.
But yes he is respected and he's won a very respected stage show award for two of his past shows which is kind of like the Oscars of the theater... he is respected as a performer; people like Chris Angel and Blaine are just tossers, but DB is fuck all like them. They are NOT majorly talented, they make me feel... how you sound you feel about DB, which is why I keep saying I don't think you've watched that much of him or his live stuff... because on stage... he's endlessly light and funny and analytical and just, like a normal person doing very interesting things... not at all like this dicky 'self serious oooh look at my mystery' kind of cunt that you seem to be describing, like an Angel. Who isn't even a magician, he's just a cunt who wants to look and feel impressive, there's so little actual skill to stage magicians and their fucking lame elaborate nonsense.
SliK wrote:EminemBase wrote:And again, this 'taking himself so seriously' concept shows you can't have watched... or weren't paying attention or didn't judge his character very accurately. As I've said, interviewers have fawned over what he's done to him and he responds by downplaying what he does as 'smug guesswork', I don't see how somebody who constantly takes the piss out of himself and his flaws and downplays his entire art which he's taken decades to master... I don't see how somebody who does that takes himself too seriously. Where I live, on planet Earth, with humans... that's the exact opposite.
Anyone who gets on stage to sold out arenas take themselves seriously. Obviously (as we both know) the dude isn't a moron. he's not going to go "Yeah, I am fucking amazing. i'm smarter than you and all the idiots who watch me and have no idea what I'm doing. Those guys, which is 99% of you by the way, are a joke to me. I pray on you people and I have become a millionaire because of it".
Is that what you'd expect if he took himself seriously? Lmao? And because he downplays it he doesn't take himself seriously? Do you think when Kendrick Lamar says "don't call my album a classic, it's not a classic" do you think he doesn't take himself/his album/the art seriously?
Do you also believe everything you read?
lol
Not necessarily. Louis CK doesn't take himself seriously yet gets on a sold out stage to perform in front of people... what about... enjoying it? What about trying to create something which people find entertaining or intriguing in some way... you don't HAVE to take yourself seriously to do that, you can just be good at it but see the whole thing as an interesting experiment or 'just something you do', without being falsely modest or pretending you don't take yourself seriously.
Also, it's blindingly obvious you don't have much observation of his personality at all... I'm not talking just about things he's said in interviews @ 'everything I read', I'm talking about the hours upon hours of him on stage AS WELL AS real interviews and footage of him, and his book which I've read, all of which point to the same personality type / person - which is: an obsessive, ambitious, analytical, self-deprecating guy with actually quite low self-esteem but a... hunger for truth and figuring things out.
Derren enjoys the challenge of getting better at it, and he's also the most selfless magician I've seen in terms of... he goes out of his way to remove himself from the process as much as he can now so that the people involved look like are achieving what he is actually achieving during the performance... that's not a magician that takes himself seriously...
Derren is a huge fan of theatre and his live shows have that sense about them. He's just trying to create thrilling entertainment and reinvent the wheel, there's nothing wrong with that, there's nobility in ambition and striving for better truth and understanding, and that's all he does, which is the same as anybody doing anything they love deeply does... he has a love of magic, of watching it, of being fooled and therefore or trying to do it himself and do it really well...
He's one of the most level-headed and genuinely nice guys I've come across, his stage and TV personas... you do realizing he's PERFORMING, he has to have a certain level of being overbearing and controlling lmao, but what you're describing is not him or how people think of him at all.
SliK wrote:EminemBase wrote:Blaine takes himself too seriously, as do complete cocks like Angel. DB is a very normal, sarcastic, smart but jokey, self-depreciating British guy, who happens to be brilliant at what he does.
So go ahead and dislike Derren, who cares. But you don't know magic and don't know nearly enough to say it doesn't involve skill or an incredible amount of hard-work and thought-out ideas and real psychological analysis, the scope of which you have no fucking clue of. So try being less ignorant and realizing that you don't know it all, and in this instance, know almost nothing.
DB is the initials of both Derren Brown and David Blaine , please understand that when you abbreviate names in future, particularly if you've just referred to the other in the paragraph before lol.
Like I said, I haven't called him talentless, I've called his claims fraudulent ("I can predict lotto numbers") but I never said that he has no talent.
He doesn't make a 'fraudulent' fucking claim because he SAYS that he is a magician using trickery, he's not REALLY fucking saying that he can REALLY predict the lottery any more than Matt Greoning is saying yellow people who say silly things and live in Springfield really exist and are going through these tribulations as we watch an episode of the fucking Simpsons.
We KNOW he's a magician, and he knows that we know, so how the fuck is that fraudulent. Again, the analogy of an actor makes perfect sense here... do you consider De Niro to be making a fraudulent claim in Taxi Driver, for pretending to be a sociopath to create the illusion of that movie?
Derren is pretending he can really do that for a performance, which we all know he's going to just 'make look like he's just done that', but which we know is trickery, he knows is trickery, and he knows we know it's trickery and at no point denies that... after the trick... just like an actor wouldn't deny they weren't really a character they played. They talk about the performance, but imagine if mid movie Norton looked at the camera and said "just so you know, these are lines I'm saying, I'm not really this guy you know!"... what you're talking about is defining fiction... WITHIN ficiton...
Seems pretty moronically self-defeating.
We all know Derren is a magician, and he talks openly about that and the ways that he tricks people, and the tricks that he's done, after he's done them. So where's the fraud in that...
It actually just shows how good he is to get your back up for doing what i said he's brilliant at, which is make people analyze very regular tricks as REAL, because he talks like a normal person and puts tricks in real life context and so people get annoyed... thinking he's making a scientific claim, which he's doing intentionally to heighten the effect of the realism and its modern context...
It's a performance, of trickery and fiction, which we're all in on... just like a book is, just like a movie is... so what you're saying, makes no fucking sense. He's not claiming any of it is real lmao.
At no point after it does he say "yeah, that's real, I really did that" THAT would be a fraudulent claim. But the unspoken bond of people watching magic and us ALL knowing we're watching a piece of trickery for entertainment purposes is pretty ingrained, so it would be pretty fucking stupid if the magician kept emphasizing this was only a trick during the trick. Seriously, that point is fucking stupid.
PS. if you shoot down my 'actor / movie' analogy - go ahead and prove me wrong, prove how that's not a perfect analogy for what he does and why it's NOT fucking as stupid to say he's a fraud as it would be to call an actor a fraud
, we all know movies are entertainment and nobody involved is claiming these movies are real events... similarly...we all know magic is entertainment and nobody involved, including the magician/actor is claiming these events are real'; however - they do whilst IN the ficiton/acting/movie/trick... otherwise where would the illusion / fiction take place?
Show me how movies and magic are NOT the same in that regard.- They both make usually impossible scenarios (or attempt to) look real.
- They both acknowledge themselves as mediums by which to create fictional illusions.
- We all buy in to the fiction, and the creators do too, to enable them to try and create as realistic a potrayl of a story, effect, moment or moods as possible. For the performance/idea.
- Everybody involved - watching and creating, knows, and agrees this is fiction.
Where is the fraud...
I don't care if you don't like him, but this thing you keep doing of comparing him to a fraud or saying he's claiming this or that is really bizarre and stupid, and makes no sense.