Jonathan Kamm (kammagic) Exposed

[Richard]

For the past month, our inboxes and messengers have been seriously flooding over on this subject. A lot of you apparently wondered about our opinions on Jonathan Kamm and so we started doing research on this magician. To complete this, Jonathan himself sent us a PM about a week ago out of the blue. What a coincidence! Mark passed this message on to me because apparently he had been having some issues with him in the past and so I was able to make up my mind about Jonathan Kamm, his magic and his personality. I think I succeeded in the fairest way possible. To keep it clean, this article will only go over the facts as for all negativity.


MAGIC
Let's start off with his magic. He is a great magician and especially a brilliant performer. He has a great audience control and presentation which must have to do with the fact that he has been performing the art for over twenty years.

On the sidenote, his video comments would make you believe that he truly is one of the very best sleight of hand artists in the world and that he has mastered every single sleight he does. True, he is good and certainly handles cards well enough to fool laymen, but when comparing his sleight of hand to people who truly mastered the sleights he uses, there still is a big gap. Usually we would not make a deal out of that because he sure is talented and it all works fine in real life, but this seems to be an important thing regarding the subject.


ATTITUDE
Now this is where all trouble starts. Those who love Jonathan, love him for his magic. Those who hate Jonathan, hate him for his attitude.

Discussions and false assumptions
Jonathan always wants to have the final words in a discussion. This makes it impossible to discuss anything with him because he thinks he stands correct on everything he says including false assumptions he tends to make. This is something I noticed in the messages he and I sent back and forth because every reply I needed to correct him one way or the other. As soon as I corrected him, he would choose something different to discuss and to make false assumptions on.

An example:
Jonathan:
"..The Signed Force Impossible' and 'Your Turn & Force Impossible' are not live performances. They are simply Mark performing a trick for one person and that person looks and reacts like a friend or co worker. True live performances are done for strangers. Nothing is prepared or staged. The reactions are different. They are real, honest.
I: "..In your reply, you confused me by saying that our 'Your Turn & Force Impossible' and 'Signed Force Impossible' videos were not performed live. The fact that these spectators are no real strangers does not make their reactions less honest. A good example would be the videos by Magic Geek. You can clearly see whether their spectators react in an honest or staged way, or whether they are not impressed at all or know how the trick works. This also counts for every other live performance out there. You can tell both the reactions you and Mark got were honest.."Criticism
Jonathan does not seem to take criticism very well. This is what I have heard from at least five of you and it also explains why his video comments usually are very positive. Apparently when he does not like a comment, any comment including criticism for that matter, he will ignore and remove it. We do that with comments that include magic exposure but that is morally wrong. Criticism is not quite like that because it allows you to improve and become better at what you do. There is always room for improvement, so by ignoring and removing those comments you block yourself from any improvements.

This does not just count for his magic, but also for his videos. For instance, he recently switched to a 20-second introduction and whoever would tell him that twenty seconds is too long for a two minute video would get a reply along the lines of "I doubt you don't have enough time" or even a full explanation on how professional his introduction is.

Feedback from magicians & quoting statistics
Someone else showed me a conversation in which the following sentences said by Jonathan grabbed my attention:
Jonathan:
"I NEVER care what magicians think about my magic. Their view is tainted by their knowledge of magic. I only listen to my lay audiences. That is one of the secrets to being a great magician"I can see what he is coming from by saying lay audiences should be the ones to listen to because I personally agree on that, but to ignore things other magicians say does not seem to be the correct thing to do at all. Magicians know how it works so they can also say what exactly is wrong with it, if there indeed is something wrong. Laymen would or should never be able to tell that.

Then again, does he really never care about what magicians think about his magic? Testimonials beg to differ. Also, on his poster he quoted "Most Viewed", "Highest Rated" and "5 stars". Those are statistic-related things which should rely on facts rather than on quotes, and he obviously is not quoting anyone. It are lies instead.

Marketing
In the end, it is all marketing. Unlike DarkSleightZ, Jonathan obviously took the commercial highway. He mentions the tutorials he is selling in every video he makes and he puts it in annotations whenever he does the sleights he teaches in those tutorials as well. I would consider this to be ruining the magic or even being actual exposure, but he probably realizes that most people watching his tutorials are magicians who know these basics already anyways.


CONCLUSION
So to answer the question "What do you think of Jonathan Kamm?" I will have to go with the facts: Jonathan Kamm is a very talented magic performer who makes himself look better than he actually is by removing all criticism and bad comments.


This article is in no way meant to hate on Jonathan Kamm. It is just to expose the truth and should function as a good lesson for every single one of us because there are a lot of people like this. But the most respected ones are those who allow both positive and negative feedback, and who are completely honest to themselves and to the rest of the world.

A special thanks goes out to everyone contacting us about Jonathan, and especially the people who helped making this article possible.

[Mark]

Whoa man! This must be the very best first post someone ever made on any forum on the world wide web!!

Awesome job! And thank you for not having him bother me.^_^

[Tapio]

I really enjoyed reading this and I agree with you that Kammagic doesn't take criticism very well. There was a lot of things I didn't know about him before this post. Thank you for posting this!

[TheMisdirectingHand]

In reality, there are many people in this world who do not take criticism very well. The only reason Jonathan tries to make himself look far better than he actually does, is because it is all marketing, as Richard has stated. Jonathan himself has daily performances in his restaurant, with complete strangers. This may be the reason that he is bias towards the "Co-worker&Friend" performances. Also, in previous video comments that Jonathan himself has posted, he relies heavily on restaurant tips. If that is what he relies on, his selling of tutorials would still in your opinion, have bad morals in terms of magical philosophy, but what about his own morals in life? People need money to live.

[Richard]

The "friend or co worker" example was just one of the things I had to correct him on. As for this specific subject, Jonathan indeed seemed to be biased. But after over twenty years of experience, I personally think he should have known better and not make false assumptions making himself look like 'the good guy' and us like 'the bad ones'. After performing magic for many years I think he should be able to tell the difference between real and fake audience reactions.

As for the marketing, Jonathan his YouTube public consists of other magicians. Therefore, I do not think it is a bad thing that he sells and promotes those magic tutorials, but then there also is no reason for hiding all the bad and constructive commentary, and certainly not to behave like a know-all in private messages. Truly no person in the world can be correct on everything or should even think they could.

I just hope this thread could function as a good lesson. Youngsters may actually look up to Jonathan and copy his behavior because they think it is part of the business while it is not. Taking criticism and respecting feedback really is though.

[TheMisdirectingHand]

There are people that do not like to be wrong, which are the debaters. Jonathan may prefer to try to be right publicly, and privately, mainly because of reputation. Even though he removes criticism and has "attitude," for what reason is he to be placed in the Magic Alert? He expresses his ego to others discreetly by removing comments and real criticism. Jonathan tries to prove himself right, even on false assumptions, because he is a debater, and does not want his points to be rebutted against him. Even after all this, he still IS a magician. Many magicians do in fact express attitude; he is just one of them. Before I end this post, please note that I am NOT attempting to start a pointless argument, but I am merely expressing myself, and my opinions.

**Edit**
How can youngsters attempt to follow his method of gaining fame if they do not know that he even does it? Removing comments, placing advertisements, so what? Youngsters like me for example, would only view his YouTube videos, as he displays his skill there; that is all we look for.

[Mark]

I fully agree with Richard. Whether it'd be Jonathan or anyone else, particularly authorities or self-appointed ones, such threads should be made to make clear what's right and wrong and why.

[Richard]

I personally believe there is a big difference between people who do not like to be wrong, and people who think they are always correct and who would never admit to be wrong because they truly believe that they are right. In the end, I do not know a single person who actually likes to be wrong.

Jonathan could be seen as just an example in this case. You are very correct saying that there are many magicians like that, although attitude is not necessarily something bad. But if it would be considered to be bad like in this case, we would make threads on those people too as soon as anyone asks or tells us about them and we finished doing our research on the persons in question. It just happened to be Jonathan this time.

As for the youngsters who try to get in Jonathan his footsteps, they will actually see what he is up to because a lot of it happens or at least starts off in public. They just will not think of it as anything bad, but they will be able to copy the tone of voice, the attitude towards the public, the mass advertising to amateurish tutorials they might make because they cannot keep up with Jonathan's skills, and in the end they are most likely to not end up anywhere even though they would be very potential magicians at first.

Of course the more potential magicians are like you, just watching for the skills instead of copycatting. Unfortunately, many kids do not know any better. But I would prefer having those youngsters behave properly rather than them being extremely ignorant and unintentionally ruining all of their chances.

[TheMisdirectingHand]

You are correct; there is a world of differences between being right, and being ignorant. Though he is on the Magic Alert list, Jonathan will continue to post, and advertise, mainly because that is how he works. It is up to the individual to make their own choice of being original, or following the method of someone else to gain fame. There is one thing that is true about magicians through the world: there are the ones that do it because it is their passion, and do not wish to gain fame, or reputation, and those who are very flashy, and use mass advertising with misconceiving titles. In the end, the only way to stop the spread is to speak our minds, and hope our words are heard.

[M4sterV]

great post. great i could help

in his latest video he slips a lift many times so i ask him why and he said: The blue deck was brand new the red deck was well used. The differences in the cards were a factor. Concentrating on proper technique is why I finally hit it the third time.

is that superduperlame or what

[kammagic]

Hello this is Jonathan Kamm. If any of you would like to ask me any question feel free.

To address how I filter my comments on YouTube I use the following steps.


1. I listen to everyone (I don't ignore anyone)
2. I judge the advice first by itself. Is it good or bad advice? Using my 25 years experience usually this is quite clear.
3. If I'm on the fence or don't understand the advice I start looking at criteria.
4. Where did they get the info? Why do they think this is good advice? What do they know about the topic? I will ask a battery of questions if I don't understand the advice.
5. If the advice is something they really know about they will have no
problem answering my questions. If it's something they read or heard somewhere. They will have trouble answering my questions.
6. It may only take one answer to a question for me to realize this guy knows what he is talking about or one answer to know he doesn't.
7. I will ask questions until I have enough information to make an intelligent decision regarding the advice.

Most criticism is hater nonsense and does not make it past step 2.

Other things I take into consideration:

1. If they are professional and honestly want to give me helpful criticism they will contact me privately. But if their motivation is to hurt me or publicly humiliate me then they will post hurtful criticism in my public comments. These I do not tolerate and the comments are deleted.

2. I also look at the tone in which the comment is made.
" Your double lift is terrible!" - DELETED
" Why do you use that DL?" - APPROVED

3. Any comments with exposure in them are - DELETED

4. Any comments with boasting in them are - DELETED
"I figured that out"
"I saw what you did"
"first post"
"I know how that works."

5. Posting anonymously. If you are not man enough to stand up and take responsibility for your comments - DELETED
--------------------------------------

Also there is a rule all of us should live by. There are only 2 situations in which criticism is appropriate.

1. If someone asks you for advice
2. If you are an authority figure to that person. Doctor, parent, teacher, coach, supervisor, older brother ...etc

any other time criticism comes off as insulting and is very disrespectful. Even if you didn't mean it to be insulting it doesn't matter. You don't decide wether it is insulting the person receiving the comment does and you have to respect their feelings.
Your safest bet is to follow the 2 rules above and only give advice when asked or if you are an authority figure to that person. If you don't follow those 2 rules then you are the guy who goes around telling people what to do all the time. We all love that guy don't we.

I hope this answered some questions for you.

Thank You, Jonathan Kamm

[Richard]

Hey Jonathan,

Thank you for joining and for posting.

However, the post seems to be both valid and invalid to me so please allow me to analyze it using a comment Vincent (M4sterV) recentely sent to us with your reply to it. It has to do with the video which Vincent linked to in his post in this thread.

Also, I do not know if this was manipulated by Vincent in any way but I will trust him that it was not, and that it was copied and pasted directly from the YouTube PMs.

Vincent:
"great compilation and awesome reactions! thumbs up

i dont know if you do allow feedback or not but this is 2 things i saw:

you get in to the crazy mans handcuffs in your hands almost to smooth to not think you do fast finger stuff at the effect. when she hold the band it was much better convincing. i would move to the left-right-up-down to convince instead of straight out but thats personal.

you did three lifts and you missed three times. is it worth 12.50$"Jonathan:
"I disagree with your Handcuffs feedback. I missed the lift twice I hit it the third time. The blue deck was brand new the red deck was well used. The differences in the cards were a factor. Concentrating on proper technique is why I finally hit it the third time.

The tutorial is a steal at $12.50

Anything else I can help you with?

I don't allow exposure in my comments section so your comment was deleted. In the future feel free to private message me."
The main steps
1. Granted, because you sent him a PM and so you did not ignore him;

2. Although there is not much advice in the comment because he said it was something personal, the post seems to be good and valid to me. I would have approved this if it was posted to one of our videos;

3. By your reaction I guess that the comment was understood;

4. It is not clear where Vincent got the information from although that does not seem to matter in this case;

5. Talking to Vincent quite regularly, I am pretty sure that he does have good sources for everything he says so I guess this would not have been any problem;

6. He knows what he is talking about;

7. Other than "Anything else I can help you with?", no question was asked.


Other things you take into consideration
1. I do not see any intention to humiliate you in public;

2. The tone of voice seems to be fine;

3. There is no exposure and I do not know whether it was intentional or not, but Vincent's use of "lift" rather than fully naming the sleight seems to be a big part of that. I must point out that at the previous step you said that "Why would you use that DL?" would be approved. "DL" seems to be extremely close to exposure to me though. But I do not know if this point (3) would still have it removed or not;

4. No boasting. Instead, compliments were given.
I personally tend to approve the boasting kind of comments because in the end others will reply that do not care about it. In some cases it are actual laymen posting such comments which then turns it into something very valuable. Of course, this does not count for the "first post" kind of comments;

5. No anonymous posting.


The two situations in which you find criticism appropriate
1. Vincent asked for advice;

2. I doubt that he is an authority to you.


Conclusion
Although you said that you removed the comment due to magic exposure, I do not see that. This is a random message from the many messages we received, certainly not all of them coming from Vincent and not all of them being related to magic. In some cases it is rather obvious why you removed the comments, yet in other cases there is very valid feedback given which according to your post should actually have been approved.

I stand my conclusion, especially because you started marketing your release by saying that the tutorial is a steal at $12.50. Nothing wrong with that but flat out saying it does seem to be a little cheap to me, as well as that you apparently had to concentrate on the lift before it worked. Honestly, that does not sound like a good one to me.

Then in reply to the latest part of your post, I have to agree that you may look at things differently and that that is not up to us to judge. But it seems to upset quite a lot of people. If that many people do not get why their comments were not approved, I wonder if it is really their fault. In the most extreme example it would be the same as starting a war because you believe that that would make the world a better place and yourself a more respected person.

[Mark]

Hey Jon,
I got so many things to ask now.:thinking:

The first three I thought of:

1) Why wouldn't you have others decide if a comment is valuable or not? If it's a bad comment or bad advice your regulars will be telling that to the person who left it or they will not give it thumbs up.

That way you get a much more realistic representation of the video ratings in case that is enabled and you make it yourself a lot easier because you only have to filter the comments including exposure.:)

We live in the era of 'Web 2.0' but you use it as 'Web 1.0' in which interactivity was almost non-existing. Back then it was normal to not be able to give opinions in public but now this leads to a legit damage of the image of businesses and persons in question.

2) I completely miss spectators' opinions in your huge list of steps and situations. If a layman gives criticism, it doesn't seem like you would approve that.

Keep in mind that there is a big difference between live performances and video performances. Effects that work great in real life are much more obvious in video performances to both magicians and laymen.

3) What exactly did you disagree on about Vincent's 'Crazy Man's Handcuffs' feedback?

Thanks.^_^

[kammagic]

Hey Jonathan,

Thank you for joining and for posting.

However, the post seems to be both valid and invalid to me so please allow me to analyze it using a comment Vincent (M4sterV) recentely sent to us with your reply to it. It has to do with the video which Vincent linked to in his post in this thread.

Also, I do not know if this was manipulated by Vincent in any way but I will trust him that it was not, and that it was copied and pasted directly from the YouTube PMs.



The main steps
1. Granted, because you sent him a PM and so you did not ignore him;

2. Although there is not much advice in the comment because he said it was something personal, the post seems to be good and valid to me. I would have approved this if it was posted to one of our videos;

3. By your reaction I guess that the comment was understood;

4. It is not clear where Vincent got the information from although that does not seem to matter in this case;

5. Talking to Vincent quite regularly, I am pretty sure that he does have good sources for everything he says so I guess this would not have been any problem;

6. He knows what he is talking about;

7. Other than "Anything else I can help you with?", no question was asked.


Other things you take into consideration
1. I do not see any intention to humiliate you in public;

2. The tone of voice seems to be fine;

3. There is no exposure and I do not know whether it was intentional or not, but Vincent's use of "lift" rather than fully naming the sleight seems to be a big part of that. I must point out that at the previous step you said that "Why would you use that DL?" would be approved. "DL" seems to be extremely close to exposure to me though. But I do not know if this point (3) would still have it removed or not;

4. No boasting. Instead, compliments were given.
I personally tend to approve the boasting kind of comments because in the end others will reply that do not care about it. In some cases it are actual laymen posting such comments which then turns it into something very valuable. Of course, this does not count for the "first post" kind of comments;

5. No anonymous posting.


The two situations in which you find criticism appropriate
1. Vincent asked for advice;

2. I doubt that he is an authority to you.


Conclusion
Although you said that you removed the comment due to magic exposure, I do not see that. This is a random message from the many messages I received, certainly not all of them coming from Vincent and not all of them being related to magic. In some cases it is rather obvious why you removed the comments, yet in other cases there is very valid feedback given which according to your post should actually have been approved.

I stand my conclusion, especially because you started marketing your release by saying that the tutorial is a steal at $12.50. Nothing wrong with that but flat out saying it does seem to be a little cheap to me, as well as that you apparently had to concentrate on the lift before it worked. Honestly, that does not sound like a good one to me.

Then in reply to the latest part of your post, I have to agree that you may look at things differently and that that is not up to us to judge. But it seems to upset quite a lot of people. If that many people do not get why their comments were not approved, I wonder if it is really their fault. In the most extreme example it would be the same as starting a war because you believe that that would make the world a better place and yourself a more respected person.

Well I thought it was insulting saying that my tutorial was not worth $12.50. I consider his mention of lifts exposure and he is also insulting my DL saying it isn't very good because I didnt hit it the first time. There isn't a DL in the world that you don't miss now and then because of this or that. I missed it twice then hit it the 3rd time, I don't see any problem with that. The audience didn't either. I also answered all his questions so I still see no problem here.

I have had nobody complain about any of my tutorials who have bought them. If any did feel they were inferior I would gladly refund their money.

Basically what it comes down to is I post my videos for free, they are gifts and nobody has any right to complain about them. If you do you are being petty and disrespectful.

---------- Post added at 04:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:18 AM ----------

Hey Jon,
I got so many things to ask now.:thinking:

The first three I thought of:

1) Why wouldn't you have others decide if a comment is valuable or not? If it's a bad comment or bad advice your regulars will be telling that to the person who left it or they will not give it thumbs up.

That way you get a much more realistic representation of the video ratings in case that is enabled and you make it yourself a lot easier because you only have to filter the comments including exposure.:)

We live in the era of 'Web 2.0' but you use it as 'Web 1.0' in which interactivity was almost non-existing. Back then it was normal to not be able to give opinions in public but now this leads to a legit damage of the image of businesses and persons in question.

2) I completely miss spectators' opinions in your huge list of steps and situations. If a layman gives criticism, it doesn't seem like you would approve that.

Keep in mind that there is a big difference between live performances and video performances. Effects that work great in real life are much more obvious in video performances to both magicians and laymen.

3) What exactly did you disagree on about Vincent's 'Crazy Man's Handcuffs' feedback?

Thanks.^_^

1. Easy answer: My channel is mine I make the decisions, I choose how it looks, I choose what comments are appropriate. If you don't like the decisions I make simply don't subscribe. Do you let strangers clean your house, choose schools for your children or make other decisions. I would hope not.

2. What purpose would a layman have for criticizing my work on my public comments other than insulting my work? If they had a legitimate idea or way to improve they would contact me privately. Most criticism is hater nonsense and not worth approving.

3. I disagree with his suggestion. I would not do it the way he suggested. I feel you should never go back and forth. The 2 bands should touch in the center and not go near the ends. Its a possible solution. You could of gotten them off at the ends.

---------- Post added at 05:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:44 AM ----------

Imagine this. If your first contact with a person is criticism no matter what it is you are saying it is going to be insulting. You are a stranger. It would be like going up to somebody you don't know and telling them "Dude you should not wear that shirt." How do you think that person would feel? Would they thank you? No they would be pretty upset. Not necessarily about the comment but your lack of respect in thinking it was alright to make that comment.

Its all about respect. You show me respect and I will listen to what you have to say.

It even takes your best friend a long time before they feel they have earned the right to criticize you. If you are a stranger it is never cool.

---------- Post added at 03:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:03 AM ----------

Its been brought to my attention that you gentleman may not be aware of the following.

I do magic for a living? I have no other job. I have been with the same restaurant for 13 years that is very rare in this business. While working there I also did 4 years with another brewery and 5 years with two other major restaurant chains. I also do private shows for some of the biggest companies in the area. I just recently started a regular gig at the Hollywood Casino and I plan on lecturing next year.


Richard,

Regarding my comment "Highest rated" 'Most viewed" on YouTube. It is not a lie. It refers to a video of my performance of a routine. It is the highest rated most viewed video of that routine on YouTube. Surpassing Bill Malones, Daryls and Tommy Wonders. When you look up the routine on Wikipedia it's my video.

When I need advice I ask people who are more skilled, more experienced, and more knowledgeable then I am. This is the way to get ahead in life. Avoiding negativity is another way to get ahead in life and the internet is full of it. Of course not all advice is negative. But all the best advice I have ever gotten in my 40+ years has been from people more knowledgeable, more skilled and more experienced than I am. I'm a very positive person and I listen and learn from people who know what they are talking about. I have even met friends on YouTube who have come and seen me work. Young magicians who I have helped get into the restaurant business. I learn from them and they learn from me. They came to meet me. We shared some magic. We got to know each other and now I value their opinion. They are bright and respectful young men who went about it the right way.

If your first interaction with me is you criticizing my work. You are not going to win any points.

It's all about respect. I find the pro magic world is full of very respectful people. They get it. But the internet forum magic crowd can be scary. I have never seen such mean and disrespectful people.

[Richard]

Well I thought it was insulting saying that my tutorial was not worth $12.50. I consider his mention of lifts exposure and he is also insulting my DL saying it isn't very good because I didnt hit it the first time. There isn't a DL in the world that you don't miss now and then because of this or that. I missed it twice then hit it the 3rd time, I don't see any problem with that. The audience didn't either. I also answered all his questions so I still see no problem here.

I have had nobody complain about any of my tutorials who have bought them. If any did feel they were inferior I would gladly refund their money.

Basically what it comes down to is I post my videos for free, they are gifts and nobody has any right to complain about them. If you do you are being petty and disrespectful

I think it is because I am an outsider, but it does not look insulting to me at all. It would have been different if he would have said that it was not worth the $12.50 instead of asking about it. A response like "There isn't a DL in the world that you don't miss now and then" would have been a lot more appropriate in that case, rather than just marketing it saying that it is a steal. It is the difference between informercials and quality marketing. I really hope you do not like the first one the most.

Also, I still do not see how the word 'lifts' is considered to be exposure. Anyone watching the video could see you actually slipped when trying to grab and lift the card. If Vincent intentionally wrote it like that, he definitely thought about not exposing it. Intentionally or not, he did not reveal anything.

From all the messages I read, I can tell that Vincent has only been trying to help and shared his views and ideas about the effects with you. In response, you reacted as if he did not know what he was talking about. Some people who care a lot about the art did notice that the replay in your 'One More Time' video gives away the effect to laymen and let you know about that. Some others have been trying to help as for video-technical aspects like the extremely long intro which now is much better.

Of course, there are haters who just like to hate on others, but I see that you also treat people who do not hate on you at all as actual haters. I do not know why this is or if you got so many more haters than helpers that you assume all people who mention such things automatically are hating on you, but I personally see complaining and trying to help as two completely different things.

When no one is allowed to 'complain', that would be the moment to get rid of the comment sections completely. This would force those who complain to PM you about what they dislike about you and your magic. Even better yet, is that it forces everyone to think about your videos whatever they want rather than being pushed in a positive direction while it is not the best video in the world and ending up being disappointed or upset to figure out you do not approve their feedback. This is exactly why many people contacted us about you.

Imagine this. If your first contact with a person is criticism no matter what it is you are saying it is going to be insulting. You are a stranger. It would be like going up to somebody you don't know and telling them "Dude you should not wear that shirt." How do you think that person would feel? Would they thank you? No they would be pretty upset. Not necessarily about the comment but your lack of respect in thinking it was alright to make that comment.

Its all about respect. You show me respect and I will listen to what you have to say.

It even takes your best friend a long time before they feel they have earned the right to criticize you. If you are a stranger it is never cool.

That is a very valid point but it seems to be the difference between real life and the internet. On the internet, everyone is allowed to say whatever they want. Of course that means haters are too, and it is not that I like that, but it is good to know that you and I can say whatever we want as well. I am sure you have been using that freedom yourself too.

And often it are strangers who can judge something the best. If you already know someone, you are biased and this will have a lot of influence on the comment and rating you would give this person. For instance, if you would do a very bad trick your regulars know that you are capable of doing better and they will not dislike it that fast. On the other hand, when someone just finds out about you and watches the bad trick first, they can and might tell that it is not all that good.

But at least it is clear what you are coming from now. Thank you.

[kammagic]

Richard,

Can you tell me about yourself? What is your magic background? I put myself out there. It seems only fair that I know who I am talking to.

Jonathan Kamm

[Mark]

Thanks for the answers! I don't necessarily agree with them but thank you for taking your time to answer my questions. Much appreciated.:)

Instead of being all critic over it, I just want to remind you that you probably were the very first person who ever criticized me back when we were strangers to each other. You were in a very powerful position and I was just a beginner. So are you disliking on your own actions too or do you really think you got more rights than anyone else to say whatever you want because you are so much more experienced?

Because of the part you wrote that was automatically added to your big post later I'll have to mention the very first rule of this forum board. Please keep this in mind:
Everyone is equal
All of us are human beings and we all deserve each other's respect. This also means we expect everyone to respect each other's opinions, performances and all the different kinds of arts, even if it is something you totally don't like or agree with. The only exception is if the person in question is not following the forum rules.

Also, Administrators and (Top) Moderators are here just to keep the forums clean and to guide those who need help with the forums. They are in no way better than any other person on here. This differs from most other forums out there where staff and elite members cause a lot of unnecessary trouble and hate by thinking they are better than the rest of the community. Please don't worry.

[kammagic]

Thanks for the answers! I don't necessarily agree with them but thank you for taking your time to answer my questions. Much appreciated.:)

Instead of being all critic over it, I just want to remind you that you probably were the very first person who ever criticized me back when we were strangers to each other. You were in a very powerful position and I was just a beginner. So are you disliking on your own actions too or do you really think you got more rights than anyone else to say whatever you want because you are so much more experienced?

Because of the part you wrote that was automatically added to your big post later I'll have to mention the very first rule of this forum board. Please keep this in mind:

Mark,

Do you think it's respectful of this forum to talk negatively about me behind my back? Devoting an entire thread to bashing me and never inviting me to defend myself. I think this forum has shown me very little respect. Wouldn't you agree?

[Mark]

I don't think the way you treat others is respectful either but as Richard said in the main post this thread was definitely not meant to bash or to hate on you.

[kammagic]

I don't think the way you treat others is respectful either but as Richard said in the main post this thread was definitely not meant to bash or to hate on you.

So you think this thread shows respect for me and doesn't show me in a negative light and it was fair of them to do this without my knowledge?

[MeandmagiC]

Why would you want to defend yourself from facts? This is about warning people from behaviours like that.

[Mark]

Actually, this thread gave you new magic fans and I'm pretty sure no one unsubscribed to you. I know for a fact that dougall360 and some others subscribed to you just because of this. It's up to people themselves to decide to like you for your magic or to dislike you for your attitude.

And the more people get to read this thread, the less you will have to deal with people getting upset over you removing their comments because they know about it already.^_^

I don't think it's anyone's fault you react like this. I do think people should know about it though. So yes, I approve this message.:)

[kammagic]

I personally would never talk badly about someone behind their back. Let alone publically on the Internet. What kind of a person does that? None of the people I hang around with would do that. What kind of person judges someone without having ever met them? I would never do that.

[Mark]

That's the same as saying you can't talk bad about someone like Sarah Palin as long as she doesn't know about it or maybe someone like De'vo which is a huge topic in the flourish community thanks to his attitude. A hundred of people took part in that and thousands took part in posting bad things on Sarah Palin so I guess the answer to your question is: a lot. Is it wrong? Not when it's based on facts, and definitely not when the person in question (in this case you) has been confronted with these personally before anything was posted and has denied it.

I think it's more appropriate in a public forum than actually behind anyone's back. This way you can give feedback and your own side of the story instead of everything coming from one side only.

The main post includes very well grounded facts to warn others. It's not about you but about this kind of behavior like Richard and MeandmagiC say. You are just the authority in this case. Richard could have written about a small YouTuber that would behave like you but then no person could take that serious.

And I really remember some posts of you talking bad about me behind my back. I may as well have a full thread like that from MVD saved on my back-ups in which you certainly took part too. That is the past, this is now but never is not the correct word in this case.

[kammagic]

Actually, this thread gave you new magic fans and I'm pretty sure no one unsubscribed to you. I know for a fact that dougall360 and some others subscribed to you just because of this. It's up to people themselves to decide to like you for your magic or to dislike you for your attitude.

And the more people get to read this thread, the less you will have to deal with people getting upset over you removing their comments because they know about it already.^_^

I don't think it's anyone's fault you react like this. I do think people should know about it though. So yes, I approve this message.:)

Only a handful of people think I have a bad attitude. Those who have met me know that I don't. The people who think I have a bad attitude have all had their comment removed for one reason or another and they didn't like it so now I'm labeled as not able to take criticism and having a bad attitude. that doesn't even make sense.

But I do think it funny that when people criticize my work and then they get all bent out of shape when I criticize their comment.
What? Can't handle criticism?

[MeandmagiC]

I know you replied on Marks post, but, still, I want to reply to you here.
You do not critize the critics in a very kindful way.
You refute what they said and doesnt even take it in consideration...(al least, so does it look to me)
Think about that :)

[Richard]

Richard,

Regarding my comment "Highest rated" 'Most viewed" on YouTube. It is not a lie. It refers to a video of my performance of a routine. It is the highest rated most viewed video of that routine on YouTube. Surpassing Bill Malones, Daryls and Tommy Wonders. When you look up the routine on Wikipedia it's my video.

When I need advice I ask people who are more skilled, more experienced, and more knowledgeable then I am. This is the way to get ahead in life. Avoiding negativity is another way to get ahead in life and the internet is full of it. Of course not all advice is negative. But all the best advice I have ever gotten in my 40+ years has been from people more knowledgeable, more skilled and more experienced than I am. I'm a very positive person and I listen and learn from people who know what they are talking about. I have even met friends on YouTube who have come and seen me work. Young magicians who I have helped get into the restaurant business. I learn from them and they learn from me. They came to meet me. We shared some magic. We got to know each other and now I value their opinion. They are bright and respectful young men who went about it the right way.

If your first interaction with me is you criticizing my work. You are not going to win any points.

It's all about respect. I find the pro magic world is full of very respectful people. They get it. But the internet forum magic crowd can be scary. I have never seen such mean and disrespectful people.The poster is about you, yet the statistics are about your video. As long as you do not put the video name with the statistics it is a lie because it reflects to something completely different. According to you, anyone who has a YouTube hit on a well known trick, or who comes up with an original trick and films it could call themselves "Most Viewed". Of course, only one person is actually the most viewed, or perhaps the most viewed magician as that is the displayed profession.

Also, the average video ratings are lower than for instance the ones of Tommy Wonder his video so even for a video of that routine it is not the "Highest Rated". It does have the most ratings though.

It would help to know if you could actually tell us if you realize what we are coming from, or whether you honestly think that we are crazy people with no common sense, talking bad about you for absolutely no proper reason. I would love to believe you are actually a great and very positive guy in real life, but it does not show on the internet. Almost two hands full of people contacted us about you, and obviously not everybody who thinks that about you does actually contact us.

Richard,

Can you tell me about yourself? What is your magic background? I put myself out there. It seems only fair that I know who I am talking to.

Jonathan KammI do not see any reason for this because we are not discussing any magic in here. I do have a Master's Degree in Communication Sciences though, which seems to be a lot more relevant in this case.

My magic carreer started in 1999. I have been doing street magic for a little while, and I actually performed quite some years at private gigs but I never took it to a professional level. I do not do all that much with it anymore apart from being product manager at DarkSleightZ and doing research.

[kammagic]

I know you replied on Marks post, but, still, I want to reply to you here.
You do not critize the critics in a very kindful way.
You refute what they said and doesnt even take it in consideration...(al least, so does it look to me)
Think about that :)
Critics are not kind to people. Why should people be kind to them? If you are going to choose to criticize you have to be up for it in return.

As I have already stated I listen to what everyone has to say. It just turns out that according to my educated opinion the majority of them are wrong and they have trouble dealing with that. They love telling people what to do and when people don't listen to them they throw a fit. The people who criticize others would be better off putting that energy into bettering themselves.

---------- Post added at 06:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:34 PM ----------

The poster is about you, yet the statistics are about your video. As long as you do not put the video name with the statistics it is a lie because it reflects to something completely different. According to you, anyone who has a YouTube hit on a well known trick, or who comes up with an original trick and films it could call themselves "Most Viewed". Of course, only one person is actually the most viewed, or perhaps the most viewed magician as that is the displayed profession.

Also, the average video ratings are lower than for instance the ones of Tommy Wonder his video so even for a video of that routine it is not the "Highest Rated". It does have the most ratings though.

It would help to know if you could actually tell us if you realize what we are coming from, or whether you honestly think that we are crazy people with no common sense, talking bad about you for absolutely no proper reason. I would love to believe you are actually a great and very positive guy in real life, but it does not show on the internet. Almost two hands full of people contacted us about you, and obviously not everybody who thinks that about you does actually contact us.



I do not see any reason for this because we are not discussing any magic in here. I do have a Master's Degree in Communication Sciences though, which seems to be a lot more relevant in this case.

My magic carreer started in 1999. I have been doing street magic for a little while, and I actually performed quite some years at private gigs but I never took it to a professional level. I do not do all that much with it anymore apart from being product manager at DarkSleightZ and doing research.

Richard thanks for the small bio that helps.

As far as the YouTube comment stands. I just checked and my video has 136,799 views and 842 positive ratings. Tommy Wonders has 97,145 views and only 408 positive ratings. My video clearly has more views and is higher rated. These are the facts. The statement is not a lie.

A poster highlights my accomplishments there is no need for it to include statistics and details. But if checked my claims are legit. Posters and ads make those claims all the time. "Chicago's favorite Band!" "New Improved soap!"
If my work didn't reflect these claims then you would have an argument. If my skills were subpar or my performances unprofessional you could say I was misleading people. But my performances are of the caliber of someone who can make those claims. Plus if looked into Yes I can back it up with impressive statistics.

---------- Post added at 06:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:06 PM ----------

Well it's Friday night I have to get ready for work. 7 hours of magic. Private show then the restaurant. I will check in later.

[Richard]

Richard thanks for the small bio that helps.

As far as the YouTube comment stands. I just checked and my video has 136,799 views and 842 positive ratings. Tommy Wonders has 97,145 views and only 408 positive ratings. My video clearly has more views and is higher rated. These are the facts. The statement is not a lie.

A poster highlights my accomplishments there is no need for it to include statistics and details. But if checked my claims are legit. Posters and ads make those claims all the time. "Chicago's favorite Band!" "New Improved soap!"
If my work didn't reflect these claims then you would have an argument. If my skills were subpar or my performances unprofessional you could say I was misleading people. But my performances are of the caliber of someone who can make those claims. Plus if looked into Yes I can back it up with impressive statisticsOkay, I know that your math skills are not that good because I read that in the 10 Questions For A Magician interview you did. So let me try to explain it so that you can understand it.

If a movie has eight 5-star ratings and two 4-star ratings, it is rated 4.8 stars. A movie with just seven 5-star ratings, is rated 5.0 stars and thus is rated higher. The only thing is that because the one with 4.8 has more ratings, its rating is more trustful, but it definitely is not the highest rated. When something on the internet has over 250 ratings, you can say that it is trustful anyways. I hope this clears it up.

A better example might be that a video with 2000 ratings of which 1000 are positive and 1000 are negative, is obviously not higher rated than if it are just 999 ratings, all 999 being positive ones. On the old YouTube it would be the difference between 2.5 stars and 5 stars.

Back to your video. It has 843 positive ratings and 32 negative ratings as for now. That is 875 ratings in total which is definitely more than any video of that routine. Now, please keep in mind that it has 32 negative ratings.

Up to Tommy Wonder his video. That one has 409 positive ratings and just 5 negative ones, which makes 414 in total. Now, if you take those 5 negative ones and equal it with the amount of ratings your video has by deviding it with its total of 414 and then multiplying it with your total of 875, you will see that only 8 or 9 of those ratings would have been negative if Tommy his video would have had as many ratings as yours. Since 8 or 9 is obviously less negative than 32, I hope you understand it now. It means that Tommy his video is rated 4.94 out of 5 and yours is rated 4.82 out of 5. Also, I am sure that there are people with videos of the routine which have absolutely no negative ratings and so those are actually rated the highest.

"Chicago's favorite Band!" and "New Improved soap!" are either people their opinions or it are facts. If the band in question won a competition and earned that title they could put that on their poster as a fact. If anyone just said it, the band can put it on their poster or anywhere else as an opinion as long as it is in quotation marks. If the soap really improved or if anyone said so, it is either a fact or an opinion as well. If it is about TV series, it will always be opinions, if it is about hand soap it can be a fact too. Actual statistics are not to mess with. In many countries that is even against the law.

Hope you had a good night.

[kammagic]

Okay, I know that your math skills are not that good because I read that in the 10 Questions For A Magician interview you did. So let me try to explain it so that you can understand it.

If a movie has eight 5-star ratings and two 4-star ratings, it is rated 4.8 stars. A movie with just seven 5-star ratings, is rated 5.0 stars and thus is higher rated. The only thing is that because the one with 4.8 has more ratings, its rating is more trustful, but it definitely is not the highest rated. When something on the internet has over 250 ratings, you can say that it is trustful anyways. I hope this clears it up.

A better example might be that a video with 2000 ratings of which 1000 are positive and 1000 are negative, is obviously not higher rated than if it are just 999 ratings, all 999 being positive ones. On the old YouTube it would be the difference between 2.5 stars and 5 stars.

Back to your video. It has 843 positive ratings and 32 negative ratings as for now. That is 875 ratings in total which is definitely more than any video of that routine. Now, please keep in mind that it has 32 negative ratings.

Up to Tommy Wonder his video. That one has 409 positive ratings and just 5 negative ones, which makes 414 in total. Now, if you take those 5 negative ones and equal it with the amount of ratings your video has by deviding it with its total of 414 and then multiplying it with your total of 875, you will see that only 8 or 9 of those ratings would have been negative if Tommy his video would have had as many ratings as yours. Since 8 or 9 is obviously less negative than 32, I hope you understand it now. It means that Tommy his video is rated 4.94 out of 5 and yours is rated 4.82 out of 5. Also, I am sure that there are people with videos of the routine which have absolutely no negative ratings and so those are actually rated the highest.

"Chicago's favorite Band!" and "New Improved soap!" are either people their opinions or it are facts. If the band in question won a competition and earned that title they could put that on their poster as a fact. If anyone just said it, the band can put it on their poster or anywhere else as an opinion as long as it is in quotation marks. If the soap really improved or if anyone said so, it is either a fact or an opinion as well. If it is about TV series, it will always be opinions, if it is about hand soap it can be a fact too. Actual statistics are not to mess with. In many countries that is even against the law.

Hope you had a good night.

I asked the brewmaster at work who is a brilliant mathematician.

It depends on how you look at it.
For the people that have watched and voted, I have 842 positive which means .615% of the viewers liked my video.
Tommy has 408 positives which comes out to .419% of the viewers that voted, liked it.

Now, out of all the people that voted for me, 874. 96% liked it.
Tommy comes out to 98.5% of all votes liked his.

Another way to look at it is:
The negative ratings cancel out the positive ones.
MY VIDEO
842 Positive
-32 negative
810 total positive ratings

TOMMY"S VIDEO
408 Positive
- 6 negative
402 total positive ratings

I have approx. twice as many positives as Tommy But I have 29% more views so if you take 29% of my positives away it gives me approx. 597 positives to Tommy's 408.
My video is still higher rated.

So will I change my poster? No.. But Tommy is getting close.

[Richard]

I asked the brewmaster at work who is a brilliant mathematician.

It depends on how you look at it.
For the people that have watched and voted, I have 842 positive which means .615% of the viewers liked my video.
Tommy has 408 positives which comes out to .419% of the viewers that voted, liked it.

Now, out of all the people that voted for me, 874. 96% liked it.
Tommy comes out to 98.5% of all votes liked his.

Another way to look at it is:
The negative ratings cancel out the positive ones.
MY VIDEO
842 Positive
-32 negative
810 total positive ratings

TOMMY"S VIDEO
408 Positive
- 6 negative
402 total positive ratings

I have approx. twice as many positives as Tommy But I have 29% more views so if you take 29% of my positives away it gives me approx. 597 positives to Tommy's 408.
My video is still higher rated.

So will I change my poster? No.. But Tommy is getting close.I hope you came up with that latter way of looking at it by yourself. What if there would be a video of the routine with as many views as yours but with 2700 ratings instead, 900 being negative? Indeed, only two-third of the voters liked it and it is rated 3.3 out of 5 stars, yet according to you it would be the highest rated because 1800 positive ones minus 900 negative ones equals 900 and that is still more positive ones than you have.

And unlike the others, you make a lot of profit out of barely and non-related video tags, including but not limited to "Tutorial explained sleight of hand cheat expose tutorial teach learn how-to instruction card trick world record best".

I really hope that this does not explain why you earlier posted about not minding free magic tutorials, because apparently those bring you a lot of views. As far as YouTube Insight tells, you received thousands of viewers from people looking for tutorial-related tags only.

I am sorry but everything that was said in my main post stays valid and has now been validated.

[kammagic]

I hope you came up with that latter way of looking at it by yourself. What if there would be a video of the routine with as many views as yours but with 2700 ratings instead, 900 being negative? Indeed, only two-third of the voters liked it and it is rated 3.3 out of 5 stars, yet according to you it would be the highest rated because 1800 positive ones minus 900 negative ones equals 900 and that is still more positive ones than you have.

And unlike the others, you make a lot of profit out of barely and non-related video tags, including but not limited to "Tutorial explained sleight of hand cheat expose tutorial teach learn how-to instruction card trick world record best".

I really hope that this does not explain why you earlier posted about not minding free magic tutorials, because apparently those bring you a lot of views. As far as YouTube Insight tells, you received thousands of viewers from people looking for tutorial-related tags only.

I am sorry but everything that was said in my main post stays valid and has now been validated.

You can come up with all the hypothetical situations you want and your original post was the most confusing thing I have ever read. I trust my friend of 20 years and I know he knows what he is talking about. You are merely a stranger who has done nothing but say negative things about me and thinks I am ruining the art of magic. So tell me again why I should listen to you?

As far as tags go you are supposed to put as many things in there as possible thats why they are there. Marketing 101. Draw the customer to your product.
Its not like I don't deliver the goods. Im quite proud of the videos I put out. I think they are some of the best magic videos on YouTube.

Tags make your video pop up in the side bar. People still choose to watch the video. They are not forced to. They also choose to vote.

How old are you Rich? What do you do for a living. I won't use this against you. It's just that you are a stranger and if I knew you better I might be more inclined to take what you say seriously. How did you meet Mark. What is a product manager. Why does an amateur magician need one? You seem young I'm gonna guess under 25.

[Richard]

You can come up with all the hypothetical situations you want and your original post was the most confusing thing I have ever read. I trust my friend of 20 years and I know he knows what he is talking about. You are merely a stranger who has done nothing but say negative things about me and thinks I am ruining the art of magic. So tell me again why I should listen to you?

As far as tags go you are supposed to put as many things in there as possible thats why they are there. Marketing 101. Draw the customer to your product.
Its not like I don't deliver the goods. Im quite proud of the videos I put out. I think they are some of the best magic videos on YouTube.

Tags make your video pop up in the side bar. People still choose to watch the video. They are not forced to. They also choose to vote.

How old are you Rich? What do you do for a living. I won't use this against you. It's just that you are a stranger and if I knew you better I might be more inclined to take what you say seriously. How did you meet Mark. What is a product manager. Why does an amateur magician need one? You seem young I'm gonna guess under 25.

I am pretty sure that I started this thread by complimenting you for your magic. You are definitely a very talented magician. Unfortunately, every single bad thing I found out about you and put in the main post to warn others, has been verified by you, yourself, and no one else, right here in this thread.

For instance, it is obvious that you want to have the last words in this discussion, but instead, you keep making yourself look worse and give us more reasons to reply and clean up the mess. A good false assumption is that you guessed that I am under 25 while on my profile it clearly says that I was born in 1979. I know that I may be a gifted researcher, but I think that anyone could have easily figured that out. I guess you said enough about the criticism, quoting statistics and the marketing for everyone to make up their mind about it, but it is not that that does you any good.

Then there is the fact that you keep saying that you think you are one of the best magicians and persons, making some of the best videos. There was absolutely no reason to say that, yet you did and thereby you showed that the conclusion is nothing but the truth. Everyone can tell that I was correct, which gives me quite some satisfaction as it shows that I did a good job on the research. And according to your posts, I am actually an authority to you in this situation being a communication expert, which should be enough reason to listen to me.

Tags are part of Search Engine Optimization. You are meant to put words that have something to do with the related article, video, image, web page, etcetera, and not words that have nothing to do with it or are barely related to it. But yes, you have been proven to make false assumptions and this is a great way to share that with the rest of the world.

Currently, I am hired by a Dutch electronics multinational to set up a project regarding online communication strategies, which I will not be managing myself though. The rest of the time I work at DarkSleightZ being a product manager which is someone who, indeed, manages the products. I keep an eye on them, make up prices and strategies for future releases, look for business partners, and decide what is best. As you already know, I also do about half of the online communication like on YouTube.

I originally met Mark years ago when he was doing street magic in Rotterdam, later figuring out a good friend of mine was also a good friend of his and that is how I got in contact with him. That you call him an amateur magician only says something about you, like everything else you have said in here. I will let Mark and others decide what to do with that. Perhaps it is just too immature to give any attention.

[kammagic]

You started this thread by insulting me. The title of the thread clearly states that you think that I am someone that is ruining magic. This is laughable to say the least and clearly typical hater nonsense. Haters love to compliment you then insult you as if that makes it ok. Yes you have made many accusations about me in which you claim I am hurting magic. None of which you have proven. Do I filter my comments. Yes! Does this hurt magic in any way. No! What it does do is protects me from the haters like yourself. You claim I need to have the last word when it is clearly you. I felt you were 25 because that is the age you act.
I came here just to poke my head around and see what was going on and I found just what I thought. A tiny amateur blog run by someone who thinks he has the right to insult, belittle and pass judgement on people he has never met.

You can tell a true professional when they never need to put down others or judge, or insult, or knit pick peoples work to make themselves feel adequate. They simply put all their energy into doing good work and they let that speak for itself. I feel I do good work and I believe it shows in my videos and performances and in the way I help others and treat others. What I don't have time for is negative people, hurtful people, dishonest people, disrespectful people. I think this is what I teach young magicians is they don't have to put up with those people. The more successful you get the more haters you get. It just goes with the territory. You haven't made it in this business until you have haters. You haven't made it until people hate your success so much that they need to devote an entire thread to it in a blog.

Thank you, Jonathan Kamm

[Mark]

Although it would be a personal opinion to say whether you do or don't ruin the art I do not see any insults or hate in "This is where inappropriate actions of magicians and magic services are exposed to the public so you know what to look out for.". It clearly says it is to warn people so that they know who and what to look out for.

[MeandmagiC]

Sounds like WikiLeaks. The people who post the articles post them to make the world a better place, but the people the article talks about hate on it and try to defend themselves while that is absolutely impossible.

[kammagic]

Although it would be a personal opinion to say whether you do or don't ruin the art I do not see any insults or hate in "This is where inappropriate actions of magicians and magic services are exposed to the public so you know what to look out for.". It clearly says it is to warn people so that they know who and what to look out for.
All I'm guilty of is filtering my video comments. It's my right and my channel. So I can do whatever I want. YouTube gives you that ability. Everyone should do it. When I watch someone else's video I never judge the video according to the comments it has. I decide wether I like it or not by viewing the video and deciding for myself. This goes true with my videos. What comments appear or don't appear on my videos have no influence on wether the video is good or not. The decision is made by watching the video and deciding for yourself. My filtering of comments does not hurt magic in any way. If it could please explain how.

I've been doing magic long enough that I know whether or not my video is good or not and I know all the mistakes I make in them. I don't post my videos looking for help. I post to educate and entertain. When I need help I go to people who I trust and I know they know what they are talking about.

The problems people brought up on this thread about my videos are ridiculous and are not even issues of concern.

Example:

Someone complained about a 20 second intro I had on my videos. A long intro is not any problem. I have had longer and shorter ones It doesn't matter. I subscribe to over 200 channels I have never not watched a video because it had an extra long intro. Most people know you can simply click past an intro if you don't want to watch it. So when someone made comments about me having a long intro I found it petty and a ridiculous thing to complain about and the comment got deleted.

Example:
Someone also complained that I missed a DL twice. Are you serious? Have you ever performed live? Missing a DL is the least of your worries.
There is a common misconception among beginners that missing or double pumping a DL gives it away. This is not true. To a lay audience when we do a DL they think we aren't doing anything. If I were just turning over a single card and I missed and got 2 cards I would need to double pump and try again to get a single card. This is a completely natural action and looks exactly the same. Missing is a rare occurrence but it does happen to everyone. I have done the math and I have done some 2 to 3 million dl's under the heat of live performance and I have never had an audience suspect anything when I missed a double. You just need to keep your cool and continue. Like I demonstrated in the video.

I have explained why I filter comments and how it doesn't hurt magic. and I have explained that if people contact me with respect I will gladly talk to them about magic, help them in any way and listen to there concerns.

Is there something I'm missing? You guys have not shown any way in which I hurt magic. You have not shown any way that I am a bad influence on young magicians.

I do make my living from magic. I put food on my table with magic. I survive by doing magic. So yes I do sell my tutorials and advertise on my channel. There is nothing wrong or unusual about that. In the states the economy right now is very bad. Restaurants are closing all over and business in the restaurants is very slow. I am so lucky that my tutorials have been selling well and taking up the slack from the money I lose at the restaurant. It is very hard to be a full-time professional entertainer. You must make many sacrifices. But magic is something I love and I hope I can continue doing it forever.

I work hard. I am passionate about what I do. I love putting a smile on someone's face. I love talking about, sharing and teaching magic with those who are interested. You claim my attitude is bad but my philosophy is simple. You respect me I'll respect you.

I would just like to mention we may be having some cultural differences here. We may have different ideas of what is rude or disrespectful. This should be taken into consideration.
I live near Chicago IL. Most of you guys are from the Netherlands correct?

[Mark]

Only the last part of the post was really relevant towards the subject. It is and stays a fact that this thread is not about you ruining magic.

I would say you're guilty of unnecessary causing hate rather than filtering comments. The way you filter comments is part of that though. And the more positive comments, the less people will comment negative things. Sometimes it really doesn't make sense. If a video is rated with 22 likes and 19 dislikes and all the shown comments are extremely positive, something must be really wrong.:thinking:

Frank (MeandmagiC) and I talked about cultural differences on MSN some days ago. It's indeed true that those exist. For instance we are having many more and much more difficult hecklers over here. You can see the impact of TV and online exposure much more than in most other countries and you can see how the way people look at magic tricks changes along with that. Not that it makes it impossible to perform though, but the past few years the audiences have been really changing.

About cultural differences as for having different ideas of what's rude and disrespectful, I really doubt it. Many of the people contacting us live in the US and one of them even in the city nearby you. I have many good friends living in Chicago too and there really isn't much of a cultural difference as for that.

Sure, I'd support you anytime to continue doing magic. There really isn't anything wrong with it nor have we ever said so. There isn't anything wrong with marketing too and as Richard mentioned this explains a lot of the actions that may look disrespectful to others and to the many people contacting us. This thread makes them understand it.:)

[kammagic]

Only the last part of the post was really relevant towards the subject. It is and stays a fact that this thread is not about you ruining magic.

I would say you're guilty of unnecessary causing hate rather than filtering comments. The way you filter comments is part of that though. And the more positive comments, the less people will comment negative things. Sometimes it really doesn't make sense. If a video is rated with 22 likes and 19 dislikes and all the shown comments are extremely positive, something must be really wrong.:thinking:

Frank (MeandmagiC) and I talked about cultural differences on MSN some days ago. It's indeed true that those exist. For instance we are having many more and much more difficult hecklers over here. You can see the impact of TV and online exposure much more than in most other countries and you can see how the way people look at magic tricks changes along with that. Not that it makes it impossible to perform though, but the past few years the audiences have been really changing.

About cultural differences as for having different ideas of what's rude and disrespectful, I really doubt it. Many of the people contacting us live in the US and one of them even in the city nearby you. I have many good friends living in Chicago too and there really isn't much of a cultural difference as for that.

Sure, I'd support you anytime to continue doing magic. There really isn't anything wrong with it nor have we ever said so.


The way to decide wether or not a video is good is watch the video and decide. I never look at comments or ratings. There are no prizes given out. You don't win anything. Comments and ratings don't mean anything. I'm not understanding your obsession with thinking the ratings and comments hold any value. They can say whatever they want about something the only thing that matters is what you think. Do you like my videos? If you do then subscribe. It's that simple.
Luckily a lot of people like my videos.

[Mark]

Is it me or are there a lot of contradictions in what you just said?:thinking:

About half of the people who watched the video and voted apparently didn't like the video. These votes represent the viewer's opinion. Usually the comments do that as well but these are manipulated because of the filtering.

If you don't look at comments you can't approve or disapprove them either. It would save you a lot of time if you would disable the comments and ratings because you think they are worthless.

I myself see them as a tell if something is good or not. If almost half of the voters disliked my video, I obviously didn't do a good job. If you still think that it's a good video, you will never learn till someone with 40 years of experience walks up to you and tells you about it. But the majority of those magicians isn't even active on the internet.

[MeandmagiC]

ok, wait a minute, you set great store by marketing but you do not listen to your customers?????

---------- Post added at 01:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:52 PM ----------

Is it me or are there a lot of contradictions in what you just said?:thinking:


it is not only you, i see them too :)

[Mark]

Jonathan, I would like to quote something from Marketing 101. Apparently you are familiar with this but I don't think you got it. It's what Marketing 101 starts off with:

"Most people mistakenly identify marketing with selling and promotion only. While selling and promoting are a part of marketing, they are not the most important part."

I bet you that you could place yourself much more effectively on the online market if you'd change your current strategies and handle things differently. This would get you less haters and more costumers. In Web 2.0, haters are the thing companies and individuals want the least because they could draw back costumers and potential ones from buying your products.

Costumers aren't only those who pay you for what you do, it is everyone who makes use of your services. Watching your videos and commenting to them is part of that. Eventually they may buy something from you but your current strategies doesn't help with that.

Just trying to help.:)

[kammagic]

Is it me or are there a lot of contradictions in what you just said?:thinking:

About half of the people who watched the video and voted apparently didn't like the video. These votes represent the viewer's opinion. Usually the comments do that as well but these are manipulated because of the filtering.

If you don't look at comments you can't approve or disapprove them either. It would save you a lot of time if you would disable the comments and ratings because you think they are worthless.

I myself see them as a tell if something is good or not. If almost half of the voters disliked my video, I obviously didn't do a good job. If you still think that it's a good video, you will never learn till someone with 40 years of experience walks up to you and tells you about it. But the majority of those magicians isn't even active on the internet.

Most people don't even think to vote. They may have loved the video but just didn't bother to vote. I never vote on videos. You could have 1000 people view a video. If 40 people vote 20 good 20 bad it doesn't tell you anything. Because you don't know what the other 960 people thought that didn't vote!
I don't need YouTube ratings to know I'm a good performer. I know I am because I get paid very well, my audiences love what I do. The video of mine that got 20 good and 20 bad votes is a great video I don't need the votes to tell me that. The video was difficult to film. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

What contradictions did I make? I think you simply misunderstood. When I said I don't look at comments or ratings I was talking about videos that I watch of other people. I don't judge their video by their comments or ratings. I watch the video and decide for myself. The only way that votes would matter is if everyone that viewed had to vote. Most people don't even know you can.

As far as cultural differences go I have only talked with you and Rich and you are both from the Netherlands. I found certain comments insulting and Rich didn't think they were. So there certainly could be some cultural differences there.

---------- Post added at 08:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:10 AM ----------

Jonathan, I would like to quote something from Marketing 101. Apparently you are familiar with this but I don't think you got it. It's what Marketing 101 starts off with:

"Most people mistakenly identify marketing with selling and promotion only. While selling and promoting are a part of marketing, they are not the most important part."

I bet you that you could place yourself much more effectively on the online market if you'd change your current strategies and handle things differently. This would get you less haters and more costumers. In Web 2.0, haters are the thing companies and individuals want the least because they could draw back costumers and potential ones from buying your products.

Costumers aren't only those who pay you for what you do, it is everyone who makes use of your services. Watching your videos and commenting to them is part of that. Eventually they may buy something from you but your current strategies doesn't help with that.

Just trying to help.:)

Mark,

I'm doing just fine. I make very good money. My tutorials sell very well. I'm very happy with my success. It's funny that you think you need to help me.
I'm seeing a pattern here. You guys just seem to enjoy telling people what to do. That's pretty much what all your posts are. It would be understandable if you guys were an authority on something.

---------- Post added at 08:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 AM ----------

ok, wait a minute, you set great store by marketing but you do not listen to your customers?????

---------- Post added at 01:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:52 PM ----------



it is not only you, i see them too :)

Well I'm listening. What are they?

---------- Post added at 08:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:32 AM ----------

Mark,

Marketing 101 is an expression it doesn't mean the actual text. It simply refers to basic marketing. Its common in USA to just put "101" after something when you mean it is a basic principal of that subject. "Oh that's Bowling 101" would be referring to a basic rule of bowling. A rule everyone should know. Understand?

---------- Post added at 09:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:45 AM ----------

ok, wait a minute, you set great store by marketing but you do not listen to your customers?????

---------- Post added at 01:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:52 PM ----------



it is not only you, i see them too :)


What does "you set great store by marketing" mean?
Your English is not correct.
When did I say I don't listen to my customers? I get feedback on my tutorials all the time. Always positive. I also get feedback from my audiences all the time. Always positive.

What I said is ...I don't look at the comments and ratings of other peoples videos. I decide wether their video is good by watching it. Their ratings and comments do not influence my decision. This is how most people view videos that I know.

[Mark]

That most people don't vote doesn't mean that the ratings don't represent them. You could easily compare the votes of the one video with those of the next video which has about as many views but 38 positive and 4 negative ratings. That's a lot more positive. Because of the similar amount of views and ratings you can say that only half of the people actually liked it. I bet that the people who voted to the one video also voted to the other one.

At presidential elections not everyone is voting either. That doesn't mean that the votes aren't valid and should not be listened to. Of course, in the US it's slightly different because of the rigged system in which the democrats need more votes than the republicans in order to win. On YouTube that isn't the case nor is there anything to win in this case.

You do not need the ratings to know that you are a good performer but you certainly should use them to see what people like so you could improve on the things they like the least. The fact that you call the video great although a lot of your viewers don't like it makes you extremely ignorant towards your own audience. Do you think any of them appreciates that?

In your latest two posts you literally said that comments and ratings do not mean anything and you say that it doesn't matter whether it is to someone else's video or to your own. That is a huge contradiction for someone who puts comments by just awesome magicians on his poster and approves just good comments to his videos. None of those have everyone's voice heard so I agree that your comments indeed don't say anything. The ratings do have many more voices heard and so would represent your online audience's opinions much better.

There are many more contradictions but I could start a whole new thread if I would name them all. Another one would be that you used Marketing 101 to make something clear but when I told you its essentials you put yourself in defense. Then why did you use it to back up yourself in first place? It doesn't matter if it's from the text or not because the essentials of Marketing (101) in general is that promoting and selling aren't the most important things in the world of marketing.

If only I would enjoy this discussion. It's going nowhere because you keep defending yourself for absolutely no reason because there isn't anything to defend yourself from. Unlike Richard I don't even appreciate it that you are giving the main post a massive ground for the whole world to see it's all true. Joining this discussion to defend yourself was the stupidest thing to do and it only adds more value to the main post.

And I am sure that there aren't any cultural differences for being respectful if you compare Chicago to the Netherlands. This is a matter of personal differences. I am sure that you would stand alone or with an extreme minority no matter what forum this would be posted on and no matter in what country it's hosted.:)

[kammagic]

That most people don't vote doesn't mean that the ratings don't represent them. You could easily compare the votes of the one video with those of the next video which has about as many views but 38 positive and 4 negative ratings. That's a lot more positive. Because of the similar amount of views and ratings you can say that only half of the people actually liked it. I bet that the people who voted to the one video also voted to the other one.

At presidential elections not everyone is voting either. That doesn't mean that the votes aren't valid and should not be listened to. Of course, in the US it's slightly different because of the rigged system in which the democrats need more votes than the republicans in order to win. On YouTube that isn't the case nor is there anything to win in this case.

You do not need the ratings to know that you are a good performer but you certainly should use them to see what people like so you could improve on the things they like the least. The fact that you call the video great although a lot of your viewers don't like it makes you extremely ignorant towards your own audience. Do you think any of them appreciates that?

In your latest two posts you literally said that comments and ratings do not mean anything and you say that it doesn't matter whether it is to someone else's video or to your own. That is a huge contradiction for someone who puts comments by just awesome magicians on his poster and approves just good comments to his videos. None of those have everyone's voice heard so I agree that your comments indeed don't say anything. The ratings do have many more voices heard and so would represent your online audience's opinions much better.

There are many more contradictions but I could start a whole new thread if I would name them all. Another one would be that you used Marketing 101 to make something clear but when I told you its essentials you put yourself in defense. Then why did you use it to back up yourself in first place? It doesn't matter if it's from the text or not because the essentials of Marketing (101) in general is that promoting and selling aren't the most important things in the world of marketing.

If only I would enjoy this discussion. It's going nowhere because you keep defending yourself for absolutely no reason because there isn't anything to defend yourself from. Unlike Richard I don't even appreciate it that you are giving the main post a massive ground for the whole world to see it's all true. Joining this discussion to defend yourself was the stupidest thing to do and it only adds more value to the main post.

And I am sure that there aren't any cultural differences for being respectful if you compare Chicago to the Netherlands. This is a matter of personal differences. I am sure that you would stand alone or with an extreme minority no matter what forum this would be posted on and no matter in what country it's hosted.:)

Your English is very hard to understand. This was a very confusing post. It's clear you are not understanding me as well. I think we will have to end this discussion.

[TheMisdirectingHand]

Hello Jonathan,

You present many points, but there are a few things I must point out.


As far as cultural differences go I have only talked with you and Rich and you are both from the Netherlands. I found certain comments insulting and Rich didn't think they were. So there certainly could be some cultural differences there.


First off, why is cultural difference involved with one's ability to interpret comments? I am an American, and so are you. I find none of these comments to be insulting to the very least. You may have grown up learning a different way of thinking and philosophy compared to us. Mark, Richard, you, and I, we may be from different parts of this world, but we are all human beings, who speak the same language.

2. I judge the advice first by itself. Is it good or bad advice? Using my 25 years experience usually this is quite clear.

You use your twenty-five years of experience to judge if the given advice is good or bad? Overall, it is just advice, would you not say? Though it is up to you to judge the advice, what difference does it make if others read it?


2. I also look at the tone in which the comment is made.
" Your double lift is terrible!" - DELETED
" Why do you use that DL?" - APPROVED

3. Any comments with exposure in them are - DELETED


Two and three are both contradictory. Why would you approve exposure? More so, what is the point of deleting exposure if you already do so yourself? In some of your videos, I noticed that annotations are placed. For example, in one of your effects, you perform the Card to Wallet effect, and you post an annotation that specifically shows what is needed to perform the effect, should you delete that annotation since it contains exposure? I will let you ponder on that.

Only a handful of people think I have a bad attitude. Those who have met me know that I don't. The people who think I have a bad attitude have all had their comment removed for one reason or another and they didn't like it so now I'm labeled as not able to take criticism and having a bad attitude. that doesn't even make sense.

But I do think it funny that when people criticize my work and then they get all bent out of shape when I criticize their comment.
What? Can't handle criticism?

Before you arrived to this forum, I did not think you carried a bad attitude, but it is not in my place to judge you.

Also, if you think that we cannot handle criticism, please look at yourself, before you ask us. I find it funny that you delete comments depending on the tone of it. Doing that is the same as getting mad at someone for saying, "Hey, that was a very good performance!", instead of, "I think that was a great performance."

You started this thread by insulting me. The title of the thread clearly states that you think that I am someone that is ruining magic. This is laughable to say the least and clearly typical hater nonsense. Haters love to compliment you then insult you as if that makes it ok. Yes you have made many accusations about me in which you claim I am hurting magic. None of which you have proven. Do I filter my comments. Yes! Does this hurt magic in any way. No! What it does do is protects me from the haters like yourself. You claim I need to have the last word when it is clearly you. I felt you were 25 because that is the age you act.
I came here just to poke my head around and see what was going on and I found just what I thought. A tiny amateur blog run by someone who thinks he has the right to insult, belittle and pass judgement on people he has never met.

You can tell a true professional when they never need to put down others or judge, or insult, or knit pick peoples work to make themselves feel adequate. They simply put all their energy into doing good work and they let that speak for itself. I feel I do good work and I believe it shows in my videos and performances and in the way I help others and treat others. What I don't have time for is negative people, hurtful people, dishonest people, disrespectful people. I think this is what I teach young magicians is they don't have to put up with those people. The more successful you get the more haters you get. It just goes with the territory. You haven't made it in this business until you have haters. You haven't made it until people hate your success so much that they need to devote an entire thread to it in a blog.

Richard did not start this thread to insult you. Since when did insulting someone include praise, and positive comments? The thread was started merely by request of the many people that had asked him to. If you do not have time for negative people, hurtful people, dishonest people, or disrespectful people, then there really is no reason to make anymore contact with the world, seeing as how we do not live in a perfect world. In many other businesses, it is the same as magic. Music, acting, even painting, there are the groups of the admirers, and the haters. The only thing we can do is go with the flow, there is no use complaining.

Your English is very hard to understand. This was a very confusing post. It's clear you are not understanding me as well. I think we will have to end this discussion.


Why are you poking at his English? Is it because he is not from America? People from around the world learn other languages to communicate with one another, and someone like you putting them down because of their inability to type, or speak as well as you can might really hurt them. That in itself is not right. Or maybe it is because you want to end this with the final word.


That is all I needed to point out, how you interpret my words, love or hate, is up to you.

[kammagic]

Hello Jonathan,

You present many points, but there are a few things I must point out.




First off, why is cultural difference involved with one's ability to interpret comments? I am an American, and so are you. I find none of these comments to be insulting to the very least. You may have grown up learning a different way of thinking and philosophy compared to us. Mark, Richard, you, and I, we may be from different parts of this world, but we are all human beings, who speak the same language.



You use your twenty-five years of experience to judge if the given advice is good or bad? Overall, it is just advice, would you not say? Though it is up to you to judge the advice, what difference does it make if others read it?

Its bad advice.Why would I approve bad advice or incorrect comments or accusations?



Two and three are both contradictory. Why would you approve exposure? More so, what is the point of deleting exposure if you already do so yourself? In some of your videos, I noticed that annotations are placed. For example, in one of your effects, you perform the Card to Wallet effect, and you post an annotation that specifically shows what is needed to perform the effect, should you delete that annotation since it contains exposure? I will let you ponder on that.

DL is not exposure. double lift is

Before you arrived to this forum, I did not think you carried a bad attitude, but it is not in my place to judge you.

Also, if you think that we cannot handle criticism, please look at yourself, before you ask us. I find it funny that you delete comments depending on the tone of it. Doing that is the same as getting mad at someone for saying, "Hey, that was a very good performance!", instead of, "I think that was a great performance."

not the same at all. I delete what I feel are bad or inappropriate comments

Richard did not start this thread to insult you. Since when did insulting someone include praise, and positive comments? The thread was started merely by request of the many people that had asked him to. If you do not have time for negative people, hurtful people, dishonest people, or disrespectful people, then there really is no reason to make anymore contact with the world, seeing as how we do not live in a perfect world. In many other businesses, it is the same as magic. Music, acting, even painting, there are the groups of the admirers, and the haters. The only thing we can do is go with the flow, there is no use complaining.

The title to this thread claims I am ruining magic. Richard chose to put me under that heading. Thats an insult. Then he complimented and insulted me in his post. The compliments do not lessen the insults

Why are you poking at his English? Is it because he is not from America? People from around the world learn other languages to communicate with one another, and someone like you putting them down because of their inability to type, or speak as well as you can might really hurt them. That in itself is not right. Or maybe it is because you want to end this with the final word.

We were not understanding each other. When trying to convey specific thoughts if one word is incorrect it can make interpretation difficult

That is all I needed to point out, how you interpret my words, love or hate, is up to you.

Jonathan Kamm My resonse are in red

[Mark]

You can't say that Vincent's use of the word 'lift' was exposure and then say that 'DL' isn't exposure. 'DL' is semi-exposure because every magician knows what it means yet spectators don't. If a magician asks you how something was done and you just say "(it's a) DL" they don't need further explanation and so it is exposure. The word 'lift' isn't because it's exactly what everyone is seeing: you lifting a card.

You are the only one who openly exposed it in this thread and on YouTube by selling tutorials for it which you named the way everyone considers it to be exposure. Your ACR even has an annotation over the entire video which links to it and with you telling that you used it in the video. And if you search for the keywords 'double lift' in your video search engine it even shows the ACR between all the tutorials you sell. A lot of exposure going on there. Are you sure you don't support it?

We thought this was the only correct forum to post this kind of thread in. Reason is that it wasn't all that different from the other threads in this forum. Richard originally decided to post this in the 'General Discussions' or 'Public Magic Discussions'. Another Admin then moved it to this more proper place with our approval which in the end meant that the forum name had to be changed as it was slightly too negative as mentioned in the beginning of this thread.

You say Richard insulted you in his post. Can you please list some of the insults so we can see what exactly you were insulted by? Thanks.

[kammagic]

INSULTS PART 1

This is where inappropriate actions of magicians and magic services are exposed to the public so you know what to look out for.
The above topic heading is still insulting claiming that I am in some way misbehaving and need to be exposed

For the past month, our inboxes and messengers have been seriously flooding over on this subject. A lot of you apparently wondered about our opinions on Jonathan Kamm and so we started doing research on this magician. To complete this, Jonathan himself sent us a PM about a week ago out of the blue. What a coincidence! Mark passed this message on to me because apparently he had been having some issues with him in the past and so I was able to make up my mind about Jonathan Kamm, his magic and his personality. I think I succeeded in the fairest way possible. To keep it clean, this article will only go over the facts as for all negativity.

First of all the first sentence suggests that there are possibly hundreds or thousands of people writing in having issues with me. When the reality is probably a handful or even the same people multiple times. This is insulting and meant to make me look like some terrible person. Then Mark is mentioned as having issues with me. What issues? They are not explained so people assume the worst. This is unfair and in result insulting

MAGIC
Let's start off with his magic. He is a great magician and especially a brilliant performer. He has a great audience control and presentation which must have to do with the fact that he has been performing the art for over twenty years.

On the sidenote, his video comments would make you believe that he truly is one of the very best sleight of hand artists in the world and that he has mastered every single sleight he does. True, he is good and certainly handles cards well enough to fool laymen, but when comparing his sleight of hand to people who truly mastered the sleights he uses, there still is a big gap. Usually we would not make a deal out of that because he sure is talented and it all works fine in real life, but this seems to be an important thing regarding the subject.

He insinuates that my Sleight of hand fools layman but its not good enough when compared to other people who have mastered sleight of hand. This is a huge insult and and out right lie. Especially when I have testimonials like the following to back me up.


ATTITUDE
Now this is where all trouble starts. Those who love Jonathan, love him for his magic. Those who hate Jonathan, hate him for his attitude.

Actually they hate me because I deleted their comments. Then in anger they accused me of having a bad attitude or that I can't handle criticism. None of which is true and therefor insulting. They feel they can go up to anyone anytime and simple tell them what to do and that person must agree or be labeled with "can't handle criticism" or having "a bad attitude". I simply didn't agree or didn't approve of the comment. If a person feels the need to criticize then they have to be mature and handle the possible rejection of their criticism. If someone rejects your criticism you have no right to complain about it.

Discussions and false assumptions
Jonathan always wants to have the final words in a discussion. This makes it impossible to discuss anything with him because he thinks he stands correct on everything he says including false assumptions he tends to make. This is something I noticed in the messages he and I sent back and forth because every reply I needed to correct him one way or the other. As soon as I corrected him, he would choose something different to discuss and to make false assumptions on.

This is based on Rich assuming he was correct. I believe the discussion was about Marks videos being edited and the fact that he can not perform them live. I have still not seen Mark perform any of his effects live. Therefor my theory is correct until proven it is not. So Rich's claims that I must have the last word are incorrect and therefor insulting. I was merely correct in my assumption of Marks effects and Rich had no proof otherwise.

An example:


Criticism
Jonathan does not seem to take criticism very well. This is what I have heard from at least five of you and it also explains why his video comments usually are very positive. Apparently when he does not like a comment, any comment including criticism for that matter, he will ignore and remove it. We do that with comments that include magic exposure but that is morally wrong. Criticism is not quite like that because it allows you to improve and become better at what you do. There is always room for improvement, so by ignoring and removing those comments you block yourself from any improvements.

Woah! now it's 5 people. You would of had us believe before complaints were "flooding" in. If I am legitimately doing something wrong in my videos the courteous and respectful way to tell me is through private message. Throwing complaints and criticism on someones video is like being at a restaurant and standing up to announce to the entire restaurant that there was a fly in your soup. The proper, respectful way to handle that situation is to take a manager aside quietly and let them know what the problem is. The same with a video if there is a problem you talk to the creator privately. This shows you respect them and are wanting to help them. If you post on the public comments you are wanting to hurt them. I have never gotten good advice through the public comments section. It's always hater nonsense. But I have gotten some good advice privately.

This does not just count for his magic, but also for his videos. For instance, he recently switched to a 20-second introduction and whoever would tell him that twenty seconds is too long for a two minute video would get a reply along the lines of "I doubt you don't have enough time" or even a full explanation on how professional his introduction is.

There is nothing wrong with a 20 second introduction. Besides mine was hilarious and most people know how to click past it if they want to. I have videos with longer and shorter introductions it makes no difference. When I watch other peoples videos I am not bothered by long introductions. So my response was correct to the original comment and Rich's assumption that this shows me as not taking criticism well is incorrect and therefor insulting. The original comment was petty but hey if that is all they could find wrong with my video then Im doing a great job. [/I]

...continued below

[kammagic]

INSULTS PART 2

Feedback from magicians & quoting statistics
Someone else showed me a conversation in which the following sentences said by Jonathan grabbed my attention:

I can see what he is coming from by saying lay audiences should be the ones to listen to because I personally agree on that, but to ignore things other magicians say does not seem to be the correct thing to do at all. Magicians know how it works so they can also say what exactly is wrong with it, if there indeed is something wrong. Laymen would or should never be able to tell that.

Actually very few amateurs "know how it works" There is a night a day difference between performing in front of strangers on a day to day basis and performing for your webcam at home. I have plenty of friends that I listen to that are actual performers. They "know how it works". If a working pro has a problem they will know by audiences reactions and they will know how to fix it themselves.

Let me talk a little about this. The most important time for a magician not to listen to other amateur magicians is in the beginning. Your fellow magicians are always going to tell you that move isn't good enough or I saw you flash or I know what you did. This is terribly disheartening. Many young magicians will never think they are good enough and never take the step to working in front of people. It's important to find a mentor who actually is working or has worked in the real world to listen to. I remember one of the first things my mentor told me was you are better off staying away from clubs and contests. The majority of guys who join a club that is where they will stay. They will never become professional and never move forward. They will get obsessed with always having to fool their magician friends. This creates terrible bad attitudes and bad habits in young magicians. The things that fool magicians are usually very boring to layman and the good layman effects rarely fool magicians. So you will be heading the wrong direction hanging around other magicians. I'm not saying never do it. just keep it to a minimum. I only joined my first club 3 years ago and its only because now I am at a level where I am not influenced by other magicians. But the club I am in is mainly guys I took classes with some twenty years ago so we are all good friends and have good attitudes about magic.

Then again, does he really never care about what magicians think about his magic? Testimonials beg to differ.

Its funny when you reach the pro level the only people who try to criticize you or tell you what to do are the amateurs.. Your other pro friends would never do that. But there is a lot of advice shared amongst Pros its just that we ask each other for advice.

Also, on his poster he quoted "Most Viewed", "Highest Rated" and "5 stars". Those are statistic-related things which should rely on facts rather than on quotes, and he obviously is not quoting anyone. It are lies instead.

This is a pure insult but has already been talked about and proven not to be a lie.

Marketing
In the end, it is all marketing. Unlike DarkSleightZ, Jonathan obviously took the commercial highway. He mentions the tutorials he is selling in every video he makes and he puts it in annotations whenever he does the sleights he teaches in those tutorials as well. I would consider this to be ruining the magic or even being actual exposure, but he probably realizes that most people watching his tutorials are magicians who know these basics already anyways.

Good Grief. I guess every pro on the planet is ruining magic then. I make my living from magic. That is very hard to do. you have to get money where ever you can. I took the commercial highway? …no I took the professional highway.


CONCLUSION
So to answer the question "What do you think of Jonathan Kamm?" I will have to go with the facts: Jonathan Kamm is a very talented magic performer who makes himself look better than he actually is by removing all criticism and bad comments.
This is another insult claiming that I somehow fool my clients into thinking I am better then I am. As a grown up I make my own decisions. I would expect most people are the same way.They are not influenced by the comments. They watch the video or watch me live and decide for themselves.

This article is in no way meant to hate on Jonathan Kamm. It is just to expose the truth and should function as a good lesson for every single one of us because there are a lot of people like this. But the most respected ones are those who allow both positive and negative feedback, and who are completely honest to themselves and to the rest of the world.

More insults, apparently because I remove bad comments from my videos I am no longer a respected magician. It also insinuates that I am not honest. I am completely within my rights to approve whatever comments I want on my videos. Its like saying that your neighbor is dishonest because he only puts out the good Christmas lights and the ones he disapproves of he keeps in the basement.

A special thanks goes out to everyone contacting us about Jonathan, and especially the people who helped making this article possible.

Gee thanks!

[Mark]

I am sure that Richard would reply to this but since he is not online right now I guess I can too since I am the one who asked the question.

The above topic heading is still insulting claiming that I am in some way misbehaving and need to be exposed
There is absolutely no insult in the forum description. That you find it insulting is because you are the person in question. That means that there is no way that you can say if it's a legit description or not.

First of all the first sentence suggests that there are possibly hundreds or thousands of people writing in having issues with me. When the reality is probably a handful or even the same people multiple times. This is insulting and meant to make me look like some terrible person. Then Mark is mentioned as having issues with me. What issues? They are not explained so people assume the worst. This is unfair and in result insulting
I believe you totally misread the first sentence. Richard clearly says: "A lot of you apparently wondered about our opinions on Jonathan Kamm and so we started doing research on this magician." There is absolutely nothing bad mentioned nor that anyone who contacted us did mention anything bad. Most of them even didn't. If the outcome of the research would have been positive this would have been a positive thread about you. The fact that I asked Richard to do this is because he was totally unbiased.

I didn't even mention the issues to Richard to be sure he would be doing an honest research. Only when he was done I told him I have had trouble with you and that that was the reason why I actually asked him to do this. When he posted it I told him everything in details. The post is the most honest thing one could get.

He insinuates that my Sleight of hand fools layman but its not good enough when compared to other people who have mastered sleight of hand. This is a huge insult and and out right lie. Especially when I have testimonials like the following to back me up.
He insinuates that you are a great magician and definitely good enough to fool your audiences. But when comparing your sleight of hand to the people who have truly mastered those sleights like for instance Akira Fujii on the Pass there is no way to say you are at the same level as for that sleight. Performance-wise I'd say that you are better and teaching-wise you may be better too but that has nothing to do with how good you are on the sleight although all the comments would make one believe so.

Actually they hate me because I deleted their comments. Then in anger they accused me of having a bad attitude or that I can't handle criticism. None of which is true and therefor insulting. They feel they can go up to anyone anytime and simple tell them what to do and that person must agree or be labeled with "can't handle criticism" or having "a bad attitude". I simply didn't agree or didn't approve of the comment. If a person feels the need to criticize then they have to be mature and handle the possible rejection of their criticism. If someone rejects your criticism you have no right to complain about it.
No one ever told you what to do. They just made suggestions to make the best out of it. It is obvious that you can't handle criticism and have a bad attitude if you don't approve comments that don't do any harm to your magic or to magic in general. Whenever you'd approve negative comments you'd try to slay them and make yourself look like the best. Then if someone would react to that in a way you don't like as well you don't approve that comment or would try to slay it too. It goes on forever and you keep confirming that you can't actually handle criticism.

This is based on Rich assuming he was correct. I believe the discussion was about Marks videos being edited and the fact that he can not perform them live. I have still not seen Mark perform any of his effects live. Therefor my theory is correct until proven it is not. So Rich's claims that I must have the last word are incorrect and therefor insulting. I was merely correct in my assumption of Marks effects and Rich had no proof otherwise.
Even whenever it wasn't about my magic being edited or not Richard had to correct you on other things. I read through all of the messages and it's truly amazing how you think you could just say things without any ground of truth and to get away with it. I already proved myself right. When will you actually prove yourself right on this thread not being the real deal? Your replies only confirm everything. Obviously it's the real deal.

Woah! now it's 5 people. You would of had us believe before complaints were "flooding" in. If I am legitimately doing something wrong in my videos the courteous and respectful way to tell me is through private message. Throwing complaints and criticism on someones video is like being at a restaurant and standing up to announce to the entire restaurant that there was a fly in your soup. The proper, respectful way to handle that situation is to take a manager aside quietly and let them know what the problem is. The same with a video if there is a problem you talk to the creator privately. This shows you respect them and are wanting to help them. If you post on the public comments you are wanting to hurt them. I have never gotten good advice through the public comments section. It's always hater nonsense. But I have gotten some good advice privately.
I believe five people actually told us about your criticism handling. This is not even half of the people who contacted us. The rest to be said could be found somewhere above in this post.

There is nothing wrong with a 20 second introduction. Besides mine was hilarious and most people know how to click past it if they want to. I have videos with longer and shorter introductions it makes no difference. When I watch other peoples videos I am not bothered by long introductions. So my response was correct to the original comment and Rich's assumption that this shows me as not taking criticism well is incorrect and therefor insulting. The original comment was petty but hey if that is all they could find wrong with my video then Im doing a great job.
We have seen a whole lot of comments of people giving constructive feedback on it. You changed it to a shorter introduction for a reason didn't you? Not that you ever publicly agreed with any of the constructive feedback towards it.

[Mark]

Actually very few amateurs "know how it works" There is a night a day difference between performing in front of strangers on a day to day basis and performing for your webcam at home. I have plenty of friends that I listen to that are actual performers. They "know how it works". If a working pro has a problem they will know by audiences reactions and they will know how to fix it themselves.

Let me talk a little about this. The most important time for a magician not to listen to other amateur magicians is in the beginning. Your fellow magicians are always going to tell you that move isn't good enough or I saw you flash or I know what you did. This is terribly disheartening. Many young magicians will never think they are good enough and never take the step to working in front of people. It's important to find a mentor who actually is working or has worked in the real world to listen to. I remember one of the first things my mentor told me was you are better off staying away from clubs and contests. The majority of guys who join a club that is where they will stay. They will never become professional and never move forward. They will get obsessed with always having to fool their magician friends. This creates terrible bad attitudes and bad habits in young magicians. The things that fool magicians are usually very boring to layman and the good layman effects rarely fool magicians. So you will be heading the wrong direction hanging around other magicians. I'm not saying never do it. just keep it to a minimum. I only joined my first club 3 years ago and its only because now I am at a level where I am not influenced by other magicians. But the club I am in is mainly guys I took classes with some twenty years ago so we are all good friends and have good attitudes about magic.
I agree that magic clubs may be where you'll stay for the rest of your life if you don't take time to go out there on your own. But to not listen to other amateur magicians is absolutely hilarious. I don't know what amateur magicians you have had to deal in your past if any at all but nowadays amateur magicians are only commenting extremely positive on each other rather than extremely negative and causing sorts of traumas.

Its funny when you reach the pro level the only people who try to criticize you or tell you what to do are the amateurs.. Your other pro friends would never do that. But there is a lot of advice shared amongst Pros its just that we ask each other for advice.
You never confirmed if everyone who has been giving you criticism actually was an amateur. You only assume that. You also assume that I am an amateur magician which is much more of an insult than anything Richard said about you. Instead of getting all upset about it I just laugh it away.

The fact that your professional magician friends would never criticize you is one of the reasons why there is a huge gap between amateurs plus potentional ones and professional magicians plus those who think they are professional and somehow got accepted to this group. You can see it at every magic forum out there. It's all about the elite members. Some very potentional amateur magicians who skillwise may be better than many of the pros will get rejected.

It's funny to see that there is some sort of code that professional magicians never give bad comments to each other. Of course their comments may still be honest but that fact makes it extremely doubtful. Thank God there are forums made by amateur magicians who actually give their honest opinions on effects. Every now and then even professionals join these forums just for the sake of getting the most honest feedback possible.

This is a pure insult but has already been talked about and proven not to be a lie.
Richard actually proved you very wrong on this.

Good Grief. I guess every pro on the planet is ruining magic then. I make my living from magic. That is very hard to do. you have to get money where ever you can. I took the commercial highway? …no I took the professional highway.
Maybe if you would understand Marketing 101 better it would not be so hard to make a living from it. How come we can make more than enough with it without performing full-time like you do? Cultural difference?

This is another insult claiming that I somehow fool my clients into thinking I am better then I am. As a grown up I make my own decisions. I would expect most people are the same way.They are not influenced by the comments. They watch the video or watch me live and decide for themselves.
By removing feedback and by approving just the comments you like you made yourself look better than you are. There is nothing to be said against that. Of course there may be some people like you but as soon as there is a single person that thinks differently you do make yourself look better. Let alone if there are more like in your case.

More insults, apparently because I remove bad comments from my videos I am no longer a respected magician. It also insinuates that I am not honest. I am completely within my rights to approve whatever comments I want on my videos. Its like saying that your neighbor is dishonest because he only puts out the good Christmas lights and the ones he disapproves of he keeps in the basement.
He never said that you aren't respected. He said that you could be more respected or "most respected" if you would allow both positive and negative feedback and if you'd be honest to yourself and to the rest of the world. Definitely no insults right there.

Solved.:)

Gee thanks!
No problem.;)

[kammagic]

It is not possible that every comment I made is wrong yet you just disagreed with everything I said. This shows me that your goal was simply to disagree and not give an honest answer.
Also I'm telling you how I feel.I felt insulted by the things I mentioned. They are my personal feelings which you asked me for. You telling me they were not insults does not make them any less hurtful. You can't tell someone how they feel. Just disagreeing with everything someone says is no way to communicate. I think Rich would tell you that.

---------- Post added at 06:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:05 AM ----------

You can't say that Vincent's use of the word 'lift' was exposure and then say that 'DL' isn't exposure. 'DL' is semi-exposure because every magician knows what it means yet spectators don't. If a magician asks you how something was done and you just say "(it's a) DL" they don't need further explanation and so it is exposure. The word 'lift' isn't because it's exactly what everyone is seeing: you lifting a card.

The word was "Double lift" vs. DL. I only care about exposure to layman. Any competent magician should be able to figure out any magic effect by watching a video performance. I don't care about exposure to a magician. Layman do not know DL but they do know what double lift means. So I was correct in double lift being exposure and DL not. But it doesn't matter because we already talked about comments having no value to people watching a video. If the comments made a difference then nobody would dislike my videos because all my comments are positive. Comments don't influence you guys. Even with all my positives you guys still dislike my videos. So I guess you guys don't let comments influence you either. Thank you for proving my point.

You are the only one who openly exposed it in this thread and on YouTube by selling tutorials for it which you named the way everyone considers it to be exposure. Your ACR even has an annotation over the entire video which links to it and with you telling that you used it in the video. And if you search for the keywords 'double lift' in your video search engine it even shows the ACR between all the tutorials you sell. A lot of exposure going on there. Are you sure you don't support it?
You really can't tell me what I think exposure is. I don't want it in my comment section but I don't mind it in the tags. No layman will look there. Why is it I don't care what your views on exposure are but you seem to be very aggressive about telling me what I should think exposure is.You have no right telling me what to think.But it does show what kind of person you are. Your true colors are shining through.


We thought this was the only correct forum to post this kind of thread in. Reason is that it wasn't all that different from the other threads in this forum. Richard originally decided to post this in the 'General Discussions' or 'Public Magic Discussions'. Another Admin then moved it to this more proper place with our approval which in the end meant that the forum name had to be changed as it was slightly too negative as mentioned in the beginning of this thread.

You say Richard insulted you in his post. Can you please list some of the insults so we can see what exactly you were insulted by? Thanks.

Jonathan Kamm

[Admin]

Jonathan Kamm was banned from this forum board. By ignoring the 'Everyone is equal' rule for over five times after being warned, ignoring the 'No public magic exposure allowed' rule at least once, and accusing a well respected forumer of false advertising twice, Jonathan has shown not to be worth his membership. It is a pity that someone of his caliber could not keep up with the simple and obvious forum rules, and could not resist posting continuously on how good he thinks he is for absolutely no reason.

[Mark]

I didn't even disagree on everything (read: "I agree that.."). I wrote my honest thoughts on what you said and unfortunately I couldn't agree with all that much. But many of the things fall back on one and the same issue so it looks much more than it actually is. I agreed on everything I didn't write about in my replies or whenever I actually said I agreed with you on something. And I don't blame you for the part about that professional magicians never give bad comments to each other because that's just how it is and it's not up to any individual to change that.

Of course you feel insulted as this thread is about you and it's not as positive as you had hoped for. I could feel insulted about every negative thread about me on the internet too but instead I like to listen and see what I could do to make things better. I hooked up with a lot of my haters and skeptics and even took time to show them my tricks live and eventually I even taught them some of the effects which you strongly believe to be fake and/or video editing. Some of my biggest haters and skeptics now are some of my best online friends and not just because I taught them stuff.

I listened very well to what you had to say about the exposure. My full reply was all-and-only based on what you said yourself in this thread. You considered Vincent's comment to be exposure because of the word 'lift' but you don't consider 'DL' to be exposure. I just explained in what way 'DL' is exposure and it what way it's not and that considering 'lift' to be exposure just doesn't make any sense. As you didn't reply to that I don't know whether you agree on that now or still don't.

Because you put exposure in your video title rather than in the ACR video's tags I was wondering why that wouldn't be considered to be exposure. We named our release 'DL Deluxe' just for that matter and it worked just fine too.:)

EDIT: What a horrible timing on the ban! I wasn't done with this discussion yet.:mad::(

[Richard]

Rules are rules. If we let him free to ignore them, we have to let everyone free to do so. We can deal with it now but later when these forums are a lot more active, we really can't.

It adds to the misbehavior, does it not?

[TheMisdirectingHand]

You guys decided to finish this while I was at school. I was not done either.

[M4sterV]

hahhaa in his latest video he promotes his friends invisible deck handling for 45 seconds and does not perform it in the video. in it he says he does that trick because of that handling again but in the comments he put: "I don't use any stacks, systems, set ups or gimmics. At least I prefer not to."

he doesnt know what he is saying hahahaa

[MeandmagiC]

mega fail xD

--------------------------------------------------

Jonathan is on the loose again. he uploaded a video of an impromptu haunted deck. read the comments!

[Mark]

I find it funny that he says that holding the cards differently and the cards moving differently has anything to do with the method. Both Derren and Jonathan should've been able to do the 'Impromptu Haunted Deck' by placing the deck on the back of their hands as well, but that wouldn't have made any difference as for their methods. :thinking:

[MeandmagiC]

I find it funny that he says that holding the cards differently and the cards moving differently has anything to do with the method. Both Derren and Jonathan should've been able to do the 'Impromptu Haunted Deck' by placing the deck on the back of their hands as well, but that wouldn't have made any difference as for their methods. :thinking:

jup, it would have been different if he changed the principle, but he didn't. same pinciple as derren, only different handling.

[LittleLead]

I'm just saying, he is one of the most stubborn people I have ever talked to.

[TheMisdirectingHand]

He always wants to prove himself right, that is a good trait to an extent, but Jonathan just overdid it by never admitting to be wrong.

[LittleLead]

Gah! *@#()&$(&*^&!@&$*(&!^&*@&*(#$@.

I have been totally cool with this guy (compared to jonnysilver). I typed him a message, at least 900 words including some form of criticism etc. And the guy blocks me! SON OF A @*#&$!&@^$

[TheMisdirectingHand]

He probably knows you're from MTG.

So this is the logic in his head:

Mark=Hater

MTG= Haters because of this thread

Anyone from MTG=Hater

Haters? He doesn't respond.

[Albert]

In other words, he runs away like a coward? :thinking:
Or hides behind the digital wall? :thinking:

[Kieran Oloughlin]

Dudes! keep going and you will of angered every popular macigian on youtube.

[Albert]

I don't think popularity matters here.

If someone is doing something very wrong, then let it be known.

He's a human and we are all humans. There should be no such discrimination that excepts one person over another when they have done something distasteful.

I don't know Kam at all, but all I'm saying is, you shouldn't do wrong things if you don't have to.

[Mark]

And Jonathan doesn't quite represent every popular magician on YouTube, does he? ;)

But yeah, he still reads this thread. In fact, he emailed me about it so I now am very tempted to post that in here due to the incredible statements he made once again. :p

[la0o9]

Dudes! keep going and you will of angered every popular macigian on youtube.

for your information, I'd say Mark and Albert are two of the more( if not the most) famous online magicians in the community, thanks to their skills and history with mismag's contests( not to mention they know some of the other famous online magicians that you mentioned personally), so they don't have to worry about that.

[Kieran Oloughlin]

I know albert and mark are 2 of the more if not the most famous macigians online. I am just saying that there are a alot of these about macigians that can be seen on youtube.

---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 PM ----------

I am wondering though why has not a post about mismag been put up? He teaches a lot more than andyfield?

[la0o9]

Yea, but Mismag/Jay doesn't affect the community that much( tho he stand at the very top of the tutorials, he doesn't actually do anything that bad, he reveals easy self-working tricks and himself doesn't do bad things, i don't really see a point to him being put on here), but then again, i might be wrong

[TheMisdirectingHand]

Andy Field was not put on the Magic Alert just because of his tutorials. It is because of how he handled his haters, blocking comments, and among other things.

[Mark]

Actually, there would've been a huge thread about Jay if it wasn't that he made up with me during the MISM 2010, after having big trouble with me for over a year. We are fairly good YouTube friends now. ^_^ (Doesn't mean I agree with the magic exposure a single bit.)

Anyhow, this thread is about Jonathan Kamm. I hereby post all the emails I sent to him, both the ones from December right after he was banned from the board and the ones from when this thread became active again. He told me not to publish his mails regardless of it giving him a voice in here. However, I suppose it's not needed as my emails and replies say it all and I suppose posting his would only cause people to bash whatever he said in them.

December 2010 emails: Download PDF (http://magiciansthegathering.com/community/files/EmailsMarkToJonathanKamm-December2010.pdf)
March 2011 emails: Download PDF (http://magiciansthegathering.com/community/files/EmailsMarkToJonathanKamm-March2011.pdf)

[MeandmagiC]

LOL, I just READ your last mail to Jonathan. I am incredibly curious what he is gonna reply :)

Has he ever replied to you with proper arguments and sentences longer than 7 words? xD

[Albert]

If it looks like a professional magician, walks like professional magician and quacks like a professional magician.. it's a professional magician. Unfortunately, everyone would agree with me saying you haven't been quacking like one

Oh this is so good... This made my day :D

I can also tell that he is still saying the EXACT same things Johnny said. A common attribute to those who think they are superior.

I guess Jonathan here doesn't know how leaders are born: They show skills, compassion, intelligence, modesty, trustfulness, and truthfulness.

From my encounters with Mark, I think he pretty much showed all of them.

The biggest wall that an amateur faces is performing in front of people. Most never get the nerve to do it. It's a huge step. Once you get out and do that it will change your view of magic forever.

Reality check. Most of the time, at least for me, performing in front of cameras are way more challenging than performing live. Sure you can retake it as many times as you want. But first of all, it provides you with practice. Secondly, people can replay videos. Due to that, you find ways to minimize your exposure, which work just as effectively in real life most of the time. In other words, misdirection just doesn't work as well.

From the other thread:

I have a group of guys in India who all love me and watch my videos religiously. Their club is just for guys who love me.

and then...


You're used to everyone looking up to you and thinking you're amazing. So when I came along and gave you a little dose of reality and didn't believe your bullsh*t you got defensive. You should of taken the challenge and proven yourself. But instead you made excuses.

Hmmm.... I wonder why I put these quotes up there... I wonder why... Oh that's right. I was trying to prove hypocrites + wannabees do exist :)

[MeandmagiC]

Hmmm.... I wonder why I put these quotes up there... I wonder why... Oh that's right. I was trying to prove hypocrites + wannabees do exist :)

hahhhhahahhahaha :D :D Brilliant! xD

[Mark]

The latest email has been added to the March 2011 document: Download PDF (http://magiciansthegathering.com/community/files/EmailsMarkToJonathanKamm-March2011.pdf). ^_^

[TheMisdirectingHand]

I am curious in seeing the footage of Mark's live performance. Q_Q

Also, Albert is right. He is just getting defensive with language, even though the proof is in his face.

[Albert]

All well documented and proven with photos, websites and videos. I have testimonials of my talents from some of the most well respected cardmen in the world. Ken Krenzel, Peter Duffie, Steve Draun, Alan Ackerman, Jack Carpenter to name a few. All legends in the world of magic.

Well, that's all dandy and nice, but I'm not sure what the point of this statement was.

I personally believe that testimonials from other people don't really prove much about another person. Sure, it's got backup and it's great if you want to know something about a stranger. But people can say nice things about other people just to be respectful, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was actually true. Of course, there is no strength in this argument unless we hear from the people in question themselves. I'm not saying this is a lie. Just saying it has no real merit in this situation.

I was a successful and accomplished performer long before I got on the Internet. You would be nothing without it.

This is an interesting statement. Unfortunately, this is no longer valid in the 21st century. Why? Well let's observe:

There are now multiple forms of media to announce yourself, one of them being the internet. Through internet, you can announce yourself to the public, word of mouth occurs, more people from around the world takes notice and WAM! You can become a star (like Bieber :D). However, this doesn't mean that one would be nothing without it. Before I created my account, I was practically not known at all on the internet. But I was very well known in my high school. Every single student practically knew "the magician" and through their words, it spread around the whole town and even to other high schools in the district. I'm sure Mark has also had similar experiences with these word of mouth phenomenon and other magicians too.

So in fact, without the internet, Mark may have been nothing internationally. But he may have been something greater in his city, and even in the Netherlands. However through the internet, he made himself someone well known.

Same for Kam. You were mostly well-known around the places you performed at. So if you never had the internet, you would have been "nothing" in the international sense (well, Blackpool really doesn't count much).

It's just a smart usage of a form of media that is now available. Older magicians tend to have the concept stuck in their heads that direct contact is the only was to prove yourself. I think that's old school. It has its merits, but not so much anymore.

[TheMisdirectingHand]

That is correct, how else would he have gotten feedback from all of these well-known magicians? He has been a resident magician working in the bar for fourteen years. He takes pride in his internet advertising with his products and quotes from other famous magicians.


I have a group of guys in India who all love me and watch my videos religiously. Their club is just for guys who love me.

Here, we see him expressing what he is through the internet. Why would he be waving that fact around?
Kind of off topic, but his wording in this particular part of the passage reminds me of Johnny.

[la0o9]

it's odd... we never disputed his talent or skills... weren't we just saying that his personality towards other magicians that was bad?( i know of the spring control thing, that may have been our fault)

[Albert]

it's odd... we never disputed his talent or skills... weren't we just saying that his personality towards other magicians that was bad?( i know of the spring control thing, that may have been our fault)

That's exactly right.

But, it seems like Jonathan was going off track, so we decided to hitch a ride beside him :)

But as you have said, it's not skill, abilities, knowledge, experience, or whoever famous you know that matters. If you have poor respect for other people, then it just doesn't work out in the end.

I see where he is coming from, when he mentions extremely under-experienced magicians criticizing him. Even if it wasn't true, even I would feel sort of confuzzled (yes, I just added confused and puzzled together).

But being able to accept that is a trait that Jonathan was not willing to learn while boasting wayyyyyyyy too much then was necessary. I just don't agree with how he deals with people he either sees inferior or as a threat. It's very primitive from my perspective.

[TheMisdirectingHand]

Don't you think that if maybe he was skilled enough, the extremely under-experienced magicians would be criticizing him?

Jonathan uses quotes and compliments from other famous magicians as backup and proof of some of his skills to an extent, while he thinks that "other magicians are tainted with their knowledge" (taken from one of his comments on YouTube). His personality may be bad towards them, but I don't think he would fight back against compliments and praise.

[Mark]

Another email has been added to the end of March 2011 document: Download PDF (http://magiciansthegathering.com/community/files/EmailsMarkToJonathanKamm-March2011.pdf). :)

As I don't like never-ending back-and-forth emailing, I won't reply in another email myself. I'm sure Jonathan reads this anyways.

Although I'll let the mails speak for themselves, I'd like to point out some things:

Jonathan ended up saying that he was impressed with me being in the commercial and that it looked like fun. Is this how we say "Sorry. I was wrong." nowadays? I sure think that'd be the only proper thing to say after all the unnecessary, ungrounded, inappropriate bashing.. but maybe that's just me.

He also stated that I worked with paid actors. I doubt he has ever seen and/or heard of Big Brother (another concept by the Dutch) but Axe Heaven On Earth was just like that, yet with three angels and people getting invited to join the girls instead. The reactions of those girls were as honest as they could get. They sure were paid to be in the house for two full weeks non-stop, but not to act happy. They had their depressing and upset moments too and if I would've had sucked at magic their reactions would've said so.

And with so many people watching it sure wouldn't be a good idea to do the easiest tricks too, or else these would've been exposed on the web in no time. I honestly think that no unexperienced magician would've been as relaxed or would've even succeeded in that situation.

He also claimed that I'd have to prove myself right because his 27 years of experience tells me we are wrong about criticizing him. I think that continuously falling back on the fact of being a magician (something we never even questioned) while we obviously called him out for his online behavior doesn't quite help the discussion to end up anywhere. The world wide web didn't even exist 27 years ago. I think that anyone under the age of 25 is more experienced at it because they grew up with it.

As we can't see what he behaves like in real life through our screens, there is absolutely no evidence for him being the nicest guy on this planet. Saying that about yourself isn't a very nice thing to do either.

This is typical hater behavior. They attack. You defend yourself, They don't listen and attack again ......and again ...and again.
Nuff said. ^_^

[King Johnny]

Dont you think alot of what you guys are saying is judgemental and considered "hate"? To follow his videos and be critical, is what you all consider hate. Time to move on to performing people. There are far better ways to spend your time. I come back here after all this time to find people using my name again. I guess you guys never learn. Yes, me and Jonathan Kamm say alot of the same things, because as I said before-we are workers-most of you are not. Also, Albert, for you to say working behind a camera is any comparison to a real performance is just foolish. Get real. Oh yea, Mark-I still dont see any performance videos from you,and Im not talking street magic,Im talking in front of a audience.(here's the face you always use...) :thinking:

[Mark]

Right after I showed Jonathan that I perform live (although he already knew about that anyways), you decide to register and to post that? :p

I don't actually need live performance videos to prove myself right. That Jonathan and you feel like you do is just silly. :)

I keep my magic videos and live performances seperated due to various reasons. First, because the majority of live performance videos are just for the reactions and not for the magic, and thus is a totally different kind of entertainment. Second, because they often ruin the magic, if not for potential spectators who will be watching me live and then have already seen the tricks in those contexts. And third but not least, because I like to interact with my audiences which in case of YouTube are the video viewers and not the live audiences. Same with Tinychat viewers watching me live in video streams, and live audiences watching my magic in real life. Simple as that. ^_^

[King Johnny]

oh no problem-I just thought you might have more than one show. I post vids of shows I have done in the past. The stuff here on youtube I dont even perform anymore. Its not silly to question someones experience.For someone who gives advice to aspiring magicians it would be nice to see they really know what theyre talking about. If I said I was a actor and gave acting advice here on youtube,and even did little video skits of me acting on youtube,people may say"hey do you have any real-world acting clips"?

---------- Post added at 06:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:32 PM ----------

But anyway the real question was dont you think you guys are hating one here? Finding one little thing that some does or has said and drilling it? Are you all perfect or something? Also do you think its fair to post private conversations between you and others? That seems petty. When two men are talking or argueing about something,then you post it on here so your friends can jump in and gang up on the person seems a little cowardly

[Mark]

And then I say: "I do, but I didn't upload them to YouTube. If you want to see me perform live, feel free to add me to any instant messenger and I'll show you, and whoever you want to invite, privately." Problem solved. ^_^

We actually got veeeery few people asking us for live performance videos. :thinking:

And we aren't hating, no, apart from hating on hate every now and then. We actually love life enough that we try to get rid of all the hate. If we need to point out that Muammar Gaddafi does terrible things to the Libyans, we gladly do so though Gaddafi himself wouldn't like that. That's obviously exaggerated but it aren't little things we point out, it are actually very important things that could seriously damage people their chances of being succesful and/or their views towards the art of magic. We don't want that to happen and so we point it out and be sure that everyone can read it so that no one else will make such mistakes. ^_^

I think Jonathan described typical hater behavior perfectly. ;)

[King Johnny]

Could you please answer the question at the bottom of my last response?

[Mark]

Already have. :)
Sorry, but I only noticed it after I posted my reply as you added it later.

[Albert]

f you are not. Also, Albert, for you to say working behind a camera is any comparison to a real performance is just foolish. Get real.

I am getting as real as possible. I've been performing practically every single day (Except for weekends) for all 4 years of my high school through lunch breaks and after school as well. I've performed in countless parties and meetings (of course, with an exception of bar/restaurants; saying it now so you won't make false claims and statements like last time,calling me a liar.

And you know what I found? With hours of practice and the confidence you build up on yourself, I found it to be absolutely easy to perform for spectators. Of course, getting your patter work takes more effort. But I love interacting with them and just showing them my best magic possible because I know I can do it. I can use all the necessary misdirection in the world and they can laugh and have a blast. You can't do that through camera. Try making people laugh and actually enjoying their life through camera. You will find how hard it is to:
1) Make them smile and legitimately laugh,
2) To hide your moves completely so that replays become useless (i.e. to fool other magicians completely);
3) To apply surroundings to make the entertainment that much stronger.

Maybe this sort of explains how I view the consequences of video performances.

[michi]

Hi.

Is this what kammagics video is about? I googled but this is all i find.

If it is, it is not as bad than what he wrote in the video. I see what all of you come from.
Wanted to tell you guys you are wrong but your not.:)

[tzihb]

Oh man, come on. Serious?
He has uploaded a new Video, calling this site “a hater forum”, created for hating. I'm not a hater and honestly I think you guys either. There was just a disagreement between him and this forum. It is degenerated, of course, but he has generalized everything. Haters hate without a reason. Also, why has he made this video? I think he needs agreement. Maybe not. I don't know.

Jonathan, if you read this, you will probably think I am a hater. I'm not. I subsribed to your channel because I want to see magic and not to read about your “haters”. This is not ok.

Just my opinion :)

[Mark]

If only he would've kept everything in its context. If I wouldn't know about this thread I'd support him too due to what he said in the video. Who would create a whole forum just to hate on him?! Amateurs with a conman as their idol?! An amateur who tells a 27 year professional he is wrong?! How dare they?!

There is no person in the world who wouldn't feel sorry for Jonathan if they would've only seen the video and not know about this thread.

Hi.

Is this what kammagics video is about? I googled but this is all i find.

If it is, it is not as bad than what he wrote in the video. I see what all of you come from.
Wanted to tell you guys you are wrong but your not.:)
I'd like to give you props for reading this thread and not making thoughtless statements. This indeed is the thing Jonathan talked about in his video and it indeed is nothing like what he said in his video. :)

[s13zeTheDay]

If only he would've kept everything in its context. If I wouldn't know about this thread I'd support him too due to what he said in the video. Who would create a whole forum just to hate on him?! Amateurs with a conman as their idol?! An amateur who tells a 27 year professional he is wrong?! How dare they?!

There is no person in the world who wouldn't feel sorry for Jonathan if they would've only seen the video and not know about this thread.


I'd like to give you props for reading this thread and not making thoughtless statements. This indeed is the thing Jonathan talked about in his video and it indeed is nothing like what he said in his video. :)

I completely agree with you mark. I thank you michi for taking the time to research the background of the video for yourself. I only wish that everyone else knew what you do. I would post something about it on the video, but it would probably blocked.

[Albert]

-________- WOW...

He just made the video to make him sound like the complete victim here.

Well, that's the only way one can get support when they are in the wrong; to hide the wrong.

[Mark]

It also shows how dishonest he is and that he is very well aware of it too.
Ah well, if it makes him feel good, so be it. He apparently needed it. ^_^

[Albert]

What I find amusing is that he called you a conman. So in other words, he has attempted to publicly humiliate Mark by calling him a fake when he isn't.

Now I wonder how people would respond when they found out that Jonathan was calling Mark a fake when he obviously has all the proof he needs to disprove that. From a bystanders point of view, I would start questioning Jonathan's actions. Of course, some gullible people will side with Jonathan though :)

[Mark]

Well, I promised to do no harm to the guy (though it'd be the question whether it'd be me doing harm to him or Jonathan doing harm to himself).

Quite some of the people who commented are actually registered to this board already. Eventually they will find out about this and make up their minds like michi did. ^_^

[TheMisdirectingHand]

All we can do is sit back and watch. Let's see where this ride ends, shall we?

[Mark]

All we can do is sit back and watch. Let's see where this ride ends, shall we?
I have my popcorn and coke ready. Haven't seen a comedy-drama in a while. ^_^

All silliness aside, I think this ride won't ever end. Jonathan will always be frustrated due to the fact this thread will stay up, especially when figuring out that manipulating the facts wasn't the smartest thing for him to do and will eventually only cause more people to dislike him.

[s13zeTheDay]

I won't do it without your consent, but I think someone should post a link to this forum on the video.

[Mark]

Nah, eventually someone will show up and do it for us. I don't think we should boost it ourselves or else we'd be looking like the bad guys. ^_^

[Albert]

Remember David's signature:

"There are three types of people in this world;

•People who talk and never do: The Lower Class

•People who talk and do at the same time: The Middle Class

•People who do before they ever talk: The Upper Class

A real man does not need to talk. We are the upper class."

-Joseph Lau

[TheMisdirectingHand]

Thank you Albert :D

I think Seize is correct though. Why don't we let them know about the forum? They will be able to see for themselves what Jonathan really is. Their opinion is their own. We cannot change it, but the least we can do is provide the facts and evidence in front of them.

[Albert]

You are right. But you see, there are 2 possibilities why he didn't reveal the forums:
1) To try and stay respectful (which is very contradictory);
2) To try and make sure he gets his voice out there without revealing his faults.

Let Jonathan "shower" in his fame and glory for a bit more.

The most valuable lesson I've learned with the issue between Johnny and Jonathan was that whoever loses their temper first is the one who actually admits their faults (not that I believe we were at fault in the first place... maybe we did snicker at them a bit ;)).

To be honest, I'm personally a real strong-headed or stubborn person myself. But I know how to control that when I need to. Even if I know for sure I'm right, if the other party refuses to give up, I'll just let it be most of the time. Preferably, I would try and reason myself with why these people are saying these sort of things and actually open myself up to learn from my mistakes. But I don't believe that Jonathan was trying to reason with himself. It was like he is a door that allows nothing in, but allows everything inside out.

From a bystander's point of view (with bias reduced as much as possible), which I kind of am since I've never participated in direct conversations with him, he is very stubborn. My first impression of him after reading the first few pages were:
1) He hates disses against him;
2) He tries to make himself seem better than he actually is;
3) He is skillful, no doubt, and experienced; but doesn't really understand how to handle seemingly younger or inferior people as "people". He knows his stuff when he comes to spectators, I'm sure. He has been doing magic for 27 years according to him.
4) His mindset is too narrow. He should open up more. Criticism means "the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, etc."
"I NEVER care what magicians think about my magic. Their view is tainted by their knowledge of magic. I only listen to my lay audiences. That is one of the secrets to being a great magician"
If this is the case, why would you even consider deleting the comments that don't give positive feedbacks? Criticism is not only used in a negative sense. People aren't stupid enough to mindlessly give "criticism" to experienced people. They believe they are providing him with constructive criticism and then, it gets deleted. I would feel pretty upset at how my voice was shriveled up in an instant, not because it was ignored, but because it was considered useless, pathetic, and garbage.
5) He doesn't want to be wrong.

I'm sure Jonathan's a great guy and all, but from seeing this, that's all I can say. I haven't seem the best of his side, but only seen the bad side of him :(

[la0o9]

Well, like David said, let's sit back and watch whatever Jonathan and his supporters will act like, the ride should be ending within the next week or two, when all the smart people realizes the truth.

[GloriousMagic]

Hmm... Recently saw Kammagic's video, and was so infuriated by the 'haters'!

Then I realised that the 'haters' turned out to be DarkSleightZ!

I then proceeded to read the forum, and was shocked to know about Jonathan's arrogance and his dishonest behaviour, to make his subscribers take his side.

Seriously, I think that one should not be so over-bearing and arrogant, but should be receptive to new ideas. Just because he has 27 years of experience and is quite skilful, does not mean he is the best and he is always right.

True enough, it is his channel and his video, so nobody has the authority to prevent him from deleting useful comments. But that will not change the opinion of others. Imagine how other people will look at him after they read this forum. That may be the reason why Jonathan does not dare to notify his subscribers about this forum.

I do not think that there is a need to continue on with this argument, since Jonathan's ear are shut to valuable opinions. By the way, Mark and Albert are certainly no amateurs=)

P.S. I apologise for my typo errrors

[Mark]

That may be the reason why Jonathan does not dare to notify his subscribers about this forum.
I think we can be sure of that. If this was actually a forum made to hate on him, Jonathan could've just linked to it and have his subscribers kill it. If he would do that in this case, his subscribers would find out the truth.. like you.. and would turn against him. :)

Thanks for joining and letting us know about it. ^_^

[michi]

I did link the forums to people who commented to kammagics video. looks like people agree with this thread. some statements from PMs:

'i agree, but i still love Jonathan, he is one of my favorite magicians on YouTube'

'I agree Jonathan Kamm is EXTREMELY talented and has obviously put in the hard hours to become this good. Though i notice when i watch his videos and see the comments he always reply's to them by kind of correcting them and in my opinion trying to play god.
I hope this makes sense.'

'I guess Jonathan just took it out of proportion.'

[Albert]

Ah... I see. I was wondering why there were so many guests viewing the threads the last few days. :hm:

[Mark]

Thanks a bunch, michi! I appreciate your honesty and that you did this, being a true supporter of Jonathan.

Here is a great quote sent in by one of my subscribers.

"It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. What matters is how many people do."

Bravo!
I think this would be a good closer. It's great to see that his supporters get what we are saying in here while Jonathan himself doesn't get it. It's not about him not getting it, it's about all the people including his supporters who actually get it. ^_^

[MeandmagiC]

He removed the comment and posted it again with "This is referring to haters. Haters don't get it. They don't understand. All that should matter to you are the people who like you."

does he really not see he is the only person hating and not understanding it? while everyone else does?

[Mark]

I wonder if the subscriber in question actually meant it that way. However, I'd like to point out something else from the comment section:
You say they just hate and don't have any arguments, but that is incorrect as you can see on the so-called 'haters-forum', you can ask mister niceguy here for the link, if he dares to give it.

Besides, you are manipulating people, you give them false information and you remove negative comments, how else could 17 people dislike with only positive comments?

You'll propably delete this one too, but I hope you don't, it would be very nice since there is nothing wrong or inappropiate ;)
See what I have to deal with subscribers. Jeffrey you guys have your forum where you can post all the opinions you want. This is my forum where I get to post mine. You made your bed. Now "lie" in it.
I don't even know Jeffrey.. and I'm pretty sure he's not a member of this board either. :thinking:

If Jonathan thinks that either his supporters or we are actually dumb and that he can make up things to win souls like he did in the video, he sure doesn't know what he's actually doing.

But I guess we did our job well because we even got approval of his own supporters and subscribers now who apparently noticed the exact same things we wrote in here. He can continu manipulating whatever he wants but it won't get him anywhere. ^_^

[Albert]

*sigh* It's not very hard to admit your own mistake is it? I mean, compared to losing all faith from your loyal subscribers.

[Mark]

He already said he doesn't care about subscribers/virtual supporters, didn't he?

But I'm glad to see that they said they will keep supporting him for his magic, the way it's supposed to be.. just like what we said in here already. We don't want him to lose magic supporters, neither ones who support his magic just on the internet. :)

[Albert]

You are right Mark. You are right. :)

[michi]

after many more positive replies i get this: 'i dont subscribe to anyone who blindly hates someone else. Mark for instance is a total douche. i will not "join".'

i didnt ask to subscribe anyone and he says he doesnt blindly hate but calls Mark a total douch!??!?!

[Albert]

Don't worry too much about it. It's just self-serving bias in play. Some people just really hate to be proved wrong. I do too sometimes. I'm sure Mark won't take it personally :)

But thanks for letting us know michi :D

[JoshsMagic]

Hahaha... you guys made a forum against Jonathan Kamm? Thats too funny... Are any of you as experienced as him? Everything he has said makes sense, and it seem everyone here can't deal with his responses. He performs for effects to share with the public. The comments posted about his effects are meaningless. Why does everyone here put this much time into trying to prove someone wrong... hahahaah.... this seriously cracks me up. He puts videos up of live performances and I havn't seen one from the guy who made this thread. What does that say about his effects and how practical they are? Something to think about... actually its a no brainer... you guys are all pathetic... but thanks for entertaining me :)

[Albert]

To each his own Joshy :)

By the way, it's actually just a thread, not really an entire forum against him because that would just be stupid :hm:

[Mark]

Josh, I think you missed the entire point of this thread. It's not about Jonathan Kamm's effects, nor his experience, nor anything that even has the slightest bit to do with magic yet that's where the obvious misunderstanding is. Don't worry, every single one of us really likes Jonathan as a magician and performer. :)

[Magician777card]

Whoa man! This must be the very best first post someone ever made on any forum on the world wide web!!

Awesome job! And thank you for not having him bother me.^_^


I love this comment!!!!!!!!!

[Gnarlycardz]

yep, that seems right to me

[TommySteal]

What I said is ...I don't look at the comments and ratings of other peoples videos. I decide wether their video is good by watching it. Their ratings and comments do not influence my decision. This is how most people view videos that I know.

I understood what you meant the first time you said this. When I'm on Youtube I just watch the vids, and sometimes comment. The ratings and comments have nothing to do with my desision to watch the vid. I strongly believe that not everyone who watches a vid thumbs it up or down - I don't always. So yeah, ratings would only hold true meaning if it was compulsory to vote

[Mark]

So yeah, ratings would only hold true meaning if it was compulsory to vote
I actually have to disagree with that, as said in the reply to the original post. If you have a video in which you performed everything all fine.. both as for the performance and the technique.. and you get 30 likes and 1 dislike on the video, and then you post another video and you get 11 likes and 20 dislikes on it, it's obvious that the viewers don't like the video as much as the first one.

You can be sure that many more people left a negative comment too.. although in this particular case those got (and get) disapproved.

[TommySteal]

I actually have to disagree with that, as said in the reply to the original post. If you have a video in which you performed everything all fine.. both as for the performance and the technique.. and you get 30 likes and 1 dislike on the video, and then you post another video and you get 11 likes and 20 dislikes on it, it's obvious that the viewers don't like the video as much as the first one.

That's true for all the viewers that rated - what about the people that watched, and enjoyed it but didn't thumb up? See what I mean how if voting was compulsory, the results would be fixed with no dispute.

[Mark]

But it's not just those who rate the video, who dislike it. Usually the ratings are very well represented by the comments (which half of the time aren't given by the same people) and by the rest of the viewers for that matter. It's just like in any democracy, you don't need every single person's vote to see whether something is more liked than something else.

Plus, in this particular case the lower rated video indeed wasn't quite as good as the higher rated one, from a performance and technical point and for either laymen and magicians.

[TommySteal]

But it's not just those who rate the video, who dislike it. Usually the ratings are very well represented by the comments (which half of the time aren't given by the same people) and by the rest of the viewers for that matter. It's just like in any democracy, you don't need every single person's vote to see whether something is more liked than something else.

Plus, in this particular case the lower rated video indeed wasn't quite as good as the higher rated one, from a performance and technical point and for either laymen and magicians.

Hey Mark, I think this is a case of a mutual misunderstanding because I was speaking about all videos in general, and now it's become clear to me that you are talking about one or two very specific videos. Is that true? If so, it may help the discussion if I knew which vids you were talking about.

---------- Post added at 01:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 PM ----------

All I was saying was I generally watch A video first, then sometimes I read peoples comments if A particular video has caught my interest. I have never clicked on a video, read the comments first, and then decided to watch it or not. That method isn't natural to me.

[Mark]

Okay, I'm majorly confused now. :(

I was merely replying to the last sentence of what you said in post #126. I fully agree on the rest, which is similar to the second part of what you just posted (post #130).

However, I was indeed comparing two videos of the same artist (Jonathan Kamm) with each other, but I'm pretty sure the same thing goes for all videos in general, which is why I am lost right now. :hm:

[TommySteal]

I'm lost too. Personally, ratings mean nothing to me. I mean if it were compulsory to vote I still wouldn't check how many likes the video had before watching the vid. I'd just watch it and decide for myself.
Maybe, I meant better regulated as opposed to true.

---------- Post added at 03:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:27 PM ----------

Though I'm not suggesting this should happen for real. It's too black and white.

[Mark]

I think the confusion is caused because you're mixing things up a little. It's not about the people who watch the video and rate it but about what the video author does with those ratings.

If a video author thinks he did an amazing job while many if not most people who usually give his videos thumbs up, give this particular video thumbs down instead, there must have been something wrong and the video author better starts questioning the video. That, Jonathan said he would never do because he got so much experience and knows that whatever he does is great.. which is what I strongly disagree with.

[TommySteal]

I don't know if it's possible to manipulate the ammount of likes and dislikes your video has, is that what you mean about "what the authour does with those ratings"?, but I'm aware that comments can be removed. But yeah of course you have a point in your last paragraph - that very much sounds like the attitude of someone who doesn't like to be criticized.

[Mark]

"What the video author does with those ratings" means whether the video author will look at those ratings and whether he will use them to improve.
I'm glad you agree. ^_^

[Travmang]

I have a very similar problem that just happened to me. A guy came on one of my videos and commented on it saying its nothing like the original which is true, and also that my change sucked. I'm completely fine with that and I know its true, because I think the same myself. Its just the way he said it came across as highly disrespectful. I have no intention of deleting comments or anything because I'm not like that. BUT, I did leave a fairly lengthy 3 comment response speaking my mind, which I think is okay because he left his honest opinion so i left mine as well. Maybe I went a little too far with it, and keep in mind I never would have responded had it been a normal comment or even a negative one as long as its constructive, i mean thats what leaving comments is there for.

Basically, I'm asking if my response was justified or If I went too far and my actions were unwarranted. I'd like your guys' thoughts on the matter, and thanks alot for taking the time. =)

Here is the link to the video where the comments were posted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y4C1BBZGTE

[Mark]

I have a very similar problem that just happened to me. A guy came on one of my videos and commented on it saying its nothing like the original which is true, and also that my change sucked. I'm completely fine with that and I know its true, because I think the same myself. Its just the way he said it came across as highly disrespectful. I have no intention of deleting comments or anything because I'm not like that. BUT, I did leave a fairly lengthy 3 comment response speaking my mind, which I think is okay because he left his honest opinion so i left mine as well. Maybe I went a little too far with it, and keep in mind I never would have responded had it been a normal comment or even a negative one as long as its constructive, i mean thats what leaving comments is there for.

Basically, I'm asking if my response was justified or If I went too far and my actions were unwarranted. I'd like your guys' thoughts on the matter, and thanks alot for taking the time. =)

Here is the link to the video where the comments were posted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y4C1BBZGTE
Can't agree more with what you did. Maybe it was a bit too much as it could've fit in a single comment, but it's all correct and fine. ^_^

[Travmang]

Okay thats good to know, thanks a lot! I appreciate it ;)

[TommySteal]

I just clicked your link and read his comment and your response. I'd be pretty pissed too with that lack of respect. Thinking about it though, I really don't know how I'd reply other than try to defend myself like you did. And it's really not worth deleting comments

[Travmang]

Oh yeah of course not, I have a thing about Freedom of Speech. Everyone deserves to have their opinion heard even if you don't agree with it. Besides, another thing of mine, I really wasn't angry, i was upset though but.... After playing WoW for almost 4 years now off and on, and having to deal with incredibly rude and immature people in the game, its come to a point where I enjoy arguments, I thrive off of them, and I don't lose arguments. Well, mostly! lol :)

[Mark]

Back on topic, I actually found something and I just.. felt the need to share this. About a month ago, Jonathan actually commented to a video of someone performing his trick. Now, let me try to explain the situation:

In the original video of the trick, the deck is shuffled and the jokers are going find.. let's say.. the two jacks.. visually. One joker gets put in the middle of the deck, the other one is on top, the deck is turned over and bamn.. the cards have changed.

Now, in this other person's performance, the jacks (deuces) were separately lost in the deck first before the jokers (kings) were put in and onto the deck and the change happened. The person in question did a pretty good and amazingly consistent job. And the comment that followed is just.. blah..

Losing the 2's in the beginning is completely unnecessary.

Really? And you think that you're the nicest guy in the world? That definitely was the most constructive and nicest criticism I have ever seen. Major props to the performer actually making this trick his own and doing whatever suited him. Jonathan, if you read this, just.. wow.. left me speechless.. (till I started writing this, of course).

[TommySteal]

Hey Mark, you should post a link to the video in question.

[Mark]

Since you know who we're talking about, finding it for yourself is a real piece of cake. ;)

[Kelan]

Sorry, about bumping the thread guys, but Jonathan has seem to strike again =0

I commented on his "Middle School Magic" video saying something along the lines of "Great performance but I did feel the card to wallet was a little rushed. But excellent performance". (I really did like it, I just felt the need to comment about how he rushed the effect) This, to me, in no way, shape, or form violates his "rules" of allowing you to comment on his videos. Which are right here:

(1. I listen to everyone (I don't ignore anyone)
2. I judge the advice first by itself. Is it good or bad advice? Using my 25 years experience usually this is quite clear.
3. If I'm on the fence or don't understand the advice I start looking at criteria.
4. Where did they get the info? Why do they think this is good advice? What do they know about the topic? I will ask a battery of questions if I don't understand the advice.
5. If the advice is something they really know about they will have no
problem answering my questions. If it's something they read or heard somewhere. They will have trouble answering my questions.
6. It may only take one answer to a question for me to realize this guy knows what he is talking about or one answer to know he doesn't.
7. I will ask questions until I have enough information to make an intelligent decision regarding the advice.)

I even discussed this with Mark on MSN, Mark first mentioning it to me and me realizing that is was true (at least, in our opinions of course. Your guys' might be different). The only shred of reasoning Jonathan might have is me (and Mark) "Violating" "rule" number 2. Apparently, his 25 years of experience thought this was "bad advice". What do you guys think of this?

EDIT: Also, what is not impromptu about the following trick? Jonathan told me it is not impromptu.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljqOntviTfM

Sorry about the audio being out of sync- it was made with my webcam :P

[ItsMagicITellYou]

this guy sounds absolutley ridic. whats his channel? i wanna see some of his videos.

[Albert]

this guy sounds absolutley ridic. whats his channel? i wanna see some of his videos.

It's kammagic.

This occurrence is exactly the same as when Andy Field had claimed, when he saw my ACID transpo to Jay, saying this, which Jay told me later:
Acid: Darwin Ortiz taught me this last year. To avoid any palming a duplicate card must be used. Pocket can't be shown empty and the cards can't be signed. Waste of time trick.

Oh' REALLY!? Darwin Ortiz taught you moves I've used that was most likely never released or published until I used it?

He friggin' called it a waste of time trick just because he has no friggin' creativity developed in all his 'experience' of magic. This phenomenon seems to be very common: You get more experience in magic, you get stupendously cocky just because you have more people acknowledging your talents through time. This is one of the main reasons why I was placed 5th in the contest. I had to perform for Jay one of the secret moves I used in ACID Transpo and then Jay practically took that performance of one move and used it as my contest entry, as you can hear him say about my entry something like "It's not a trick, but more of a move".

I'm getting really irritated by people their stupidity in claiming something as something else when they lack the intellect to figure it out.

[la0o9]

@kelan: he did now did he? i wonder why mister kamm with his 25 years of experience actually THOUGHT that you need a set up or anything other than your one deck to get this effect( srly... no offense but you messed up a bit on the handling, too much fidgeting, and thus gave away the secret a little).

[Mark]

Actually, he said it wasn't impromptu because "impromptu means anywhere anytime". The possible lack of a table makes it "not impromptu", that is, according to Jonathan. I think he forgot that there at least is a floor everywhere we go. Oh wait, not if we go swim. Hmmm.. seems like he doesn't know what impromptu magic is. Really experienced, no? :thinking:

[ItsMagicITellYou]

yeah, a lot of "experienced" magicians i think lose vision of what magic is really about. they focus more on fooling and degrading other magicians and putting themselves forward. As long as i can make my spectators happy, i'm happy. If you give man the earth in one hand and the moon in the other, he would simply ask for the sun as well.

[la0o9]

If you give man the earth in one hand and the moon in the other, he would simply ask for the sun as well.
nice saying

[Kelan]

It could be adjusted to an in the hands version. I'll prolly post a video of this later :P

[MysteryHand]

I wonder who is Jonathan Kamm ? Anyone please give me a detail about his man !!!
P/S: Is Kam? I saw him has lots of great vids

[Albert]

I wonder who is Jonathan Kamm ? Anyone please give me a detail about his man !!!
P/S: Is Kam? I saw him has lots of great vids

If you read my latest post on this thread I do tell who it is. It is Kammagic on YouTube.

I will tell the Admin to add Jonathan's YouTube name and channel to the thread again.

[Mark]

I actually never took time to say Jonathan did not keep his promise of deleting the video trashing this board (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWzt1KlJtRg) as soon as this thread wouldn't show up in search engines anymore. He has been asked about this multiple times but did not take any further actions. Go figure. For that, we put his full name back in this thread.

I actually thought of a way to sum up the situation for those who are fairly new and don't feel like reading eight long pages. Essentially, Richard (a certified communication expert) criticized Jonathan for lacking online communication skills. Jonathan then joined to say that because he has been a magician for a very long time, longer than any of us, he knows how to communicate online in a proper manner, basically saying "I'm a clown so I know how to give someone a surgery. You're a doctor? Well, I've been a clown for decades so I know much better how to do it". Obviously, we disagreed.

Anyhow, the thing I really wanted to announce and make this post for is to let you know that we have planned to make a video on Jonathan's magic: whether it's good or not and why it is and isn't. This is of public interest (although due to the magic secrets involved it won't be available for free) because Jonathan sells his takes on tricks and makes quite a lot of magicians and beginners believe his takes on magic are proper ones.

It won't be all negative, don't worry, because as you know we do applaud him as a magic performer as said many times in this thread. It'd be an in-depth review on what he does though.

[Des]

He can take absolutely no criticism. I commented about a little problem with his DL not being consistent. I did it in the nicest way humanly possible, and even complimented his performance, but he still deleted my comment.
@Albert I commented on the results video about that. I couldn't believe 'Rebecca', a combination of two unoriginal sleights, and that confusing mash of sleights and plots 'Kinveresed', ranked higher than you.