I’m assuming you two are talking about the looming and not the fixing things in empty rooms thing.

Context is very important, everybody jokes here, the job is that stressful that jokes are very necessary.

I’ll be finishing my degree next year, hoping to get into Corporate Governance and Socialy Responsibilty :D

Derren Brown is as fake as Penn & Teller.

then no.

And actually. Now that I think of it I *don’t* tickle anyone. I don’t know anyone who seems to like it.

Of course I can empathise with them. Should that make it less funny?

Are you actually claiming that to find this amusing you need to lack empathy?

Get over yourself.

Using accomplices is very different to using stooges. And completely faking a schtick is pointless for someone that doesn’t need to – if he needed to fake this one trick, then surely it’d be easier for him to do something else. Unless you’re proposing that he has absolutely no skills whatsoever and his entire act is a fraud then I’m not sure what incentive you think he has to fake 1 trick – a relatively unremarkable trick at that, it’s just hypnosis.

Of course you’ll find forums full of people doubting a magicians work – Derren, being a skeptic himself, probably completely understands, even if he does get a little frustrated by it (“If I didn’t get this reaction then I wouldn’t be making very good television…”). Again, same thing with Apocalypse, there’s no real reason for it to be fake – it’s a psychological experiment, there’s no ‘trick’ involved – I’d actually find it more remarkable if it were faked, due to the pointlessness of it.
“At least some part of it will not be the truth, and if you can’t determine which part, then it’s best to doubt the lot.” You don’t really get magic do you? :)

Brown claims to never use actors or “stooges” in his work without informing the viewers. In/Tricks of the Mind/, Brown writes that to use such a ploy is “artistically repugnant and simply unnecessary”; furthermore, he “would not want any participant to watch the TV show when it airs and see a different or radically re-edited version of what he understood to have happened”. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren_Brown#Criticism

And I have no reason to believe otherwise; as that’s a dangerous game to play for him and is likely to blow up in his face, especially as it’s much easier to just do something else instead – it’s not like he had to do it. Why do a trick that requires a stooge when you can just do one that doesn’t? I would only buy this argument if he were a complete fraud (as in no genuine ability whatsoever), and it’s not even impressive enough to be worth a gamble IMO, it’s just a bit on a single show.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more to the trick you’re referring to, but I’d be willing to put money on it not being an actor, as that would be empty and pointless, and likely career damaging for him (and as pointed out, against is principles and common sense anyway). What do I think? Not so sure, but my guess would be that he was already hypnotised before hitting the arcade machine, i.e. the flash was a trigger and not what actually brought him under – the amount of prep work Derren often does is impressive – his greatest skill is making an entire conditioning experience look effortless in its final execution.

Like all good stage illusionists, Brown accomplishes his tricks in any way he can. It simply doesn’t matter how he does it, as long as his audience believes him. This is the principle on which stage illusionism works.

Have you ever seen a magic trick and pestered the person who did to tell you how it worked? Do you remember that flat feeling when you found out – dang, is that all there is to it? ALL stage illusionism is like that. Derren Brown knows some pop psychology, and some hypnotism and uses both occasionally. Derren Brown’s biggest skill – like Chris Angel and many others – is in exploiting his audience’s trust of what he tells them. You think he’s ‘open about his techniques’? Ha. He’s open about what he wants you to know, and nothing more. I’m telling you again: it’s his JOB to fool you. That’s how he earns money. 

Yes, I was talking about the arcade thing – which is certainly a fake. I watched it again to be sure. The main guy is an accomplice, with no shadow of a doubt. I am fascinated to know what the other thing you’re talking about is, though. Link?

It’s fine to do a trick and leave it mysterious, but if you pile on more bull$#!+ when you purport to explain “how its done”, you’ve entered the realm of “someone who’s deliberately trying to fool me”.

And if you’ll lie that brazenly to explain one trick, you’re just as likely to do it to explain another.

So for me, the most logical explanation of the Zombie Apocalypse gag is that he’s lying again during the part where he’s promising honesty, and the person was in on it.

I’m just saying that trying to correlate empathy with the joy of falling over or fright is silly.