The Ramsay Effect
He's redefining the way laypeople find magic online. We examine Chris Ramsay's impact on the next generation of magicians.
I found myself on the train some weeks ago with cards in hand. Yep, I'm one of those magicians. Guilty as charged.
The boy sitting opposite me, perhaps 17 or 18 years old, pulled his headphones out and sheepishly asked if I could do the Tenkai control.
I gave him the cards, and he showed me a steal from a fan. We ended up talking about various sleights and deck designs that he liked.
Like the old guy at the back of the magic shop, I found myself asking him the ancient question – how he got into magic. His answer, not too surprisingly, was through the Chris Ramsay YouTube channel.
He is not the first young magician I know to say this. Alfie, a great magician from Sheffield, was the same, as was Ella, a young performer from Ireland. I asked her about YouTube, and indeed, the bright thumbnails of Alex Pandrea and Eric Leclerc, as well as the videos of our main man, Chris Ramsay, were a big reason she got started in magic.
While it's easy to see how titles that scream "LEARN AMAZING COLOR CHANGE" can appeal to a younger generation, what Chris is doing now is far beyond that. Although his channel has changed tact over the years, becoming more puzzle-focused, his videos on magic continue to draw in thousands of views—and for good reason.
A few years ago, the consensus (especially among the older generation) seemed to be that YouTube was a bad thing for magic. "Exposure channels" were popular, and many proclaimed that it was the beginning of the end for magic. While a myriad of these channels still exist, Ramsay's videos show how the internet can progress magic, not hinder it.
Many of his latest videos adopt a documentary-style approach, in particular, his travels to Mario Lopez's Troba'm festival in Spain. Scenic vistas are interspersed with insightful interviews from some of today's top performers, all stylishly edited together and contained within a cohesive narrative.
Magic has never looked so DAMN good.
But these videos act as something else, too – a showcase for some of the best performers today.
The average hobbyist first becomes aware of a new trick when confronted with a heavily fudged, ad-copy-riddled trailer advertising its imminent release.
But Ramsay is creating a platform to show magic as it should be seen – stripped of the hype-train filter that has descended on our industry like a fine mold.
Take, for example, Tobias Dostal's Liquify. I remember seeing this trick for the first time on Ramsay's channel 2 to 3 years ago, way before it became commercially available a few months ago. I can remember the feverish messages sent between me and my friend Jack Paton when we saw it:
"U see that bit with the ring?"
'Yeah, it was mad. And the liquid on the table, too??"
"Insane."
While live performance will always be the best way to experience magic, his video really made me feel like I was there in Spain, sharing ideas with other magicians. I'd experienced this feeling many times in person but never over the internet.
Ramsay's approach is reminiscent of that taken in cardistry, the artistic sibling of magic. Their community relies heavily on videos, collections of moves, and ideas released at watch parties.
While there is a small market for cardistry tutorials and custom decks, the focus is on appreciating and building on innovative and creative new approaches. Cardistry is an art form that thrives on shared participation.
But the very fact magic has "secrets" means this approach is rare in our industry. Videos like those by Ramsay are seldom seen because of a fear that demonstrating new material will lead to knowledgeable performers "backtracking" tricks, which in turn could lead to work being plagiarised. As we are all painfully aware, trailers are purposefully obfuscated for this exact reason. Why buy it when you can work it out?
