尽管同行嘲讽，哈里·胡迪尼（真名Ehrich Weiss，1926年去世）在其时代的收入最高，按今天价值最高可达每周20万美元，并把报社与警局变成舞台以换取版面。1899年他以“赤身重复手铐脱逃”反驳“藏钥匙”的指控；他还用“把表演登记为戏剧版权”的方式在德国起诉并胜诉，以对抗模仿者（而“为保密而申请专利”的主张本身自相矛盾）。
如今“揭秘”本身被量化为流量生意：2017年Justin Flom发布《SAWING A BABY IN HALF!!》，以四个月大的女儿为噱头，播放量接近2亿；今年的续集与如今8岁的女儿一起公开机关，并称此类内容每年带来数百万美元。TikTok上一段“手机壳消失”视频有8300万观看，其17秒教程有4600万观看，另一个从魔术师视角揭秘街头魔术的视频也有超过3900万观看，显示“秘密”往往与“奇迹”同样可售。
注意力收缩被直接表述为时长门槛：Criss Angel说现在人们连3分半钟都不愿只看一件事，同时行业既卖250美元的硬木魔杖也卖8000美元的逃脱装置，并用微芯片与磁机关等技术降低成本、扩大舞台。揭秘也被反向利用：Asi Wind展示“52副牌轮盘”，每副牌含51张空白与1张目标反置牌（约98%为空白）后再反转一次把装置变成平面照片；而线下仍靠稀缺体验对抗算法化观看——David Blaine在1999年把自己活埋一周吸引约7.5万人围观，但2023年Mr Beast复刻后的视频观看量超过2.85亿，形成从“现场人群规模”到“平台播放规模”的数量级迁移。
Although peers mocked him, Harry Houdini (Ehrich Weiss, died 1926) out-earned any magician of his era—up to about $200,000 a week in today’s money—by turning newspaper offices and police stations into publicity engines. In 1899 he answered a “hidden key” claim by repeating a handcuff escape naked, and he later beat imitators by copyrighting a signature stunt as a play and winning a case in Germany (even as “patenting” a secret act made little legal sense).
Today, exposure is monetized at scale: Justin Flom’s 2017 “SAWING A BABY IN HALF!!” video featuring his four-month-old daughter neared 200m views, and a sequel this year shows the method alongside his now eight-year-old daughter while he says the format earns millions of dollars annually. On TikTok, a phone-case vanish has 83m views and its 17-second tutorial has 46m views, while another magician’s-eye reveal of street tricks has over 39m views, suggesting the “how” can rival the “wow” in reach.
Shrinking attention spans are framed as a hard time limit—Criss Angel says people won’t watch one thing for three and a half minutes—while the business spans $250 wands, an $8,000 escape device, and tech like embedded microchips and magnet-driven gimmicks that cut costs and scale effects. Even “exposure” gets subverted: Asi Wind’s demonstration hinges on a 52-deck wheel where each deck holds 51 blanks and one reversed card (~98% blanks) before the apparatus vanishes as a flat photo; yet live magic still sells scarcity—David Blaine’s 1999 week-long burial drew about 75,000 passers-by, while Mr Beast’s 2023 copy drew over 285m views, shifting magnitude from physical crowds to platform totals.
Source: How magicians stay relevant in the age of AI
Subtitle: As TikTok dulls the world’s sense of wonder, conjurors are adapting
Dateline: 12月 18, 2025 05:44 上午 | Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York