WTF Happened To Justin Flom?

I’m not on TikTok. I’m not on most things. I deleted Instagram recently. I also deactivated my Facebook. I’m still on YouTube, though. In writing this article, I find myself asking why. I guess I find immense value in YouTube. I don’t have the app, so I suppose the act of visiting the website feels more intentional and purposeful. It’s not something I accidentally slip into. I also like that I can choose to only see videos from people I subscribe to and in chronological order.

In a recent interview, David Blaine stressed the power of YouTube for discovering brilliant magic. He compared the act of searching on YouTube and watching any trick you can imagine getting performed to going to the library, as he had done as a kid, and having to use his imagination when reading about different effects.

And he’s right — 99% of the magic I have consumed has been on YouTube. Classic TV magic clips as well as medium-form clips from magicians a decade ago who would go on to become Netflix stars or TikTokers.

Two magicians’ content stood out to me as a teen on YouTube. The first was the Magic Meltdown video series from Justin Willman. Willman worked with Nerdist to produce a series of six-minute magic episodes. The series is spectacularly entertaining.

The second YouTube magician I subscribed to was Justin Flom. I loved his Magic Block Party videos, in which he would invite his whole block to his family home for a huge party filled with magic.

Both Justins represented a new trend in magic: it’s only a trick. We were starting to emerge from Blaine’s era of presenting everything as though actual magic existed. This was an era that even Blaine has since come out of himself, blurring the line between real and magic and even selling magic lessons.

Willman put more emphasis on comedy than the tricks, and he wasn’t afraid of looking silly and poking fun at himself and the magic. Flom opted less for a comedic take and more for a fun-loving magic nerd. He presented his tricks like a giddy school kid eager to share the latest prop he bought from the magic shop.

And he went in on this playful magic nerd brand — he’d smile in his videos as he taught his wife tricks on camera, share the creation process, film his magic consultants, and tell the story of how his Dad taught him magic as a child.

It sounds mad, but that was all felt incredibly new at the time. To not only admit that it’s all tricks, sleight-of-hand and unique props — but to passionately share your hobby with the world like that.

Heck — Justin Flom was the co-creator of Wizard Wars, a TV show in which teams of magicians are tasked with creating magic with a surprise collection of props. This guy was a magic nerd through and through; he LOVED magic and loved magicians.

I met Flom — we would Skype back when I was doing my daily magic project. I helped him with one of the block parties and some other small projects. I’d never met anyone who loved magic tricks so bloody much.

When I rocked up at his house for the first time, he eagerly showed me the collection of tricks that had just arrived from SEO magic. He was constantly buying tricks and browsing magic shops. He was always the first magician to show me the newest magic releases. I should say in the few times we met, he was always lovely to me. By all accounts, the guy is a lovely guy.

Anyway — you get the idea:

Tall, handsome, charismatic magic nerd.

The final time I saw Justin before the pandemic, he was a Dad now and eager to shake the block party brand. I’m too old to be inviting twenty-somethings to my parents’ back garden now, he said, and though I hadn’t thought about it that way, he was right to note it. I left with this notion on my mind, wondering what would be next for the man who loved tricks more than anyone I knew.

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So, Justin followed in the footsteps of his good friend Rick Lax. I’ve written about Rick Lax and his incredible ability to chase algorithms.

Financially, Flom has found incredible success on Facebook. He’s made tens of millions of dollars. He’s leant into the algorithms and further and further away from his love of magic. It was during the pandemic when he shared a video on Facebook exposing an illusion base. Magicians were not happy about this.

I understand the frustration; the illusion base is the method for most stage effects. I wasn’t too bothered but more confused by it all — it just felt so unnecessary and lazy. But then, isn’t that all algorithm-chasing? ‘We’d get more views if we expose the secret for no real reason’ reads the same to me as ‘we’ll get more views if we put only use models and make them wear bikinis in the video.’

I remember one of his friends backing him up in one of the FB magic groups. Who made up the rule that you can’t expose tricks? She said. I don’t know, I thought, maybe the people who created the tricks he’s exposing. Who says you can’t reveal trick secrets?! She’d say next. I don’t know, I thought, maybe Justin Flom ages 0-32.

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Anyways, YouTube just announced that they’ll begin paying creators to post Shorts on their platform. That’s their version of short-form videos like Reels or TikToks. Almost immediately, Justin Flom began flooding my subscription feed with his Shorts for the first time.

I have a feeling he’s doing it for the money.

The timing is too perfect.

I have a feeling he does all of it for the money.

And so, for the first time since excitedly watching his medium-form videos on YouTube many years ago — I find myself watching his content again. Here are two examples he shared this week in which he exposes the secrets to magic props for no real reason. Look at how unhappy he looks.

Since returning to YouTube last week, Justin Flom’s Shorts have amassed 1,093.4 million views. I’m going to write that out again, so you don’t think it’s a typo:

1,093,400,000 views in less than two weeks.

I feel like Martin Scorsese saying that Marvel movies are not real movies and are just theme park rides. These Rick Lax clan videos are theme park rides — designed to satisfy the algorithms and manipulate you into watching, commenting and rewatching. Dragging out content to hit the precious three-minute mark in which an ad can be placed.

That’s the thing about art and taste. There are so many great directors who, if they wanted to, could make Marvel movies — some do, like Taika Waititi. Others, like Edgar Wright and Jordan Peele, will quite publicly turn down or exit superhero movies when they are not allowed to execute a unique artistic vision.

But even these big superhero movies - they’re designed to get as many butts in movies, to not take big risks, and to satisfy a huge range of audiences - at no point are their directors sat around asking how do we satisfy the algorithms and ensure that someone on the toilet in Singapore taps on the thumbnail and makes in past the crucial three-second mark.

Flom’s latest Short, as I write this, is thumbnailed with an image of Justin’s hand about to squeeze the ass of a woman in tight yoga pants. There is no doubt that this objectively is not art. Is it smart? Perhaps — it’s ticking all the boxes to turn Flom into even more of a multi-millionaire than he already is.

There are plenty of social media magicians making brilliant content. They’re smart, playing up to the algorithms while making content with value — and without needlessly revealing trick methods.

But I don’t think that the use of objectively bad magic practices as clickbait is going anywhere. The truth is that it satisfied algorithms too well. People like money. People do all sorts of things for money.

And, if we’re honest, and we look back at magic — there are a lot of times when magicians used what makes magic unique to command attention. Playing Russian Roulette live on TV, doing water escapes in the middle of packed cities, sawing barely dressed models in half and exploiting animals on stage.

Look — I don’t know how to conclude this article. But I wanted to write about how someone I looked up to so much for his incredible passion for magic tricks returned to my subscription feed this week with a gloomy look on his face to reveal tricks for no good reason.

That’s it — that’s the post.