# Derren Brown - The Experiments



## belboid (Oct 25, 2011)

No thread on this?  Well, clearly not…..

A most enjoyable start to the new series, certainly a much better start than to the last crappy one.  Utter tosh of course, but most well put together tosh that was almost believable.

What I think I liked most about it was how it debunked itself, and quietly told you the answer to how he did it.  

A little bit of reading up on the original ‘acid test’ experiments was also interesting, as it showed, not only that the test didn’t really work because all the participants did really (albeit subconsciously) know it was safe, but also because the experimenters point was not to get hypnotised people to do something dangerous, but to show that both hypnotized and non-hypnotised people could be made to do exactly the same thing under the right circumstances.

So, all he needed to find was some bloke (who had to be shamed on national TV as a ‘blank sheet’ who is ultra suggestible) who really wanted Derren’s schtick to work, and he’d do pretty much whatever he was told (the fact that he was given a supposedly _real_ gun in a crowded theatre should have given the lad a bit of a clue that he was still ‘in the show’).  It was hardly surprising that he didn’t remember shooting Stephen Fry, because he saw him again straight after!

So, all complete bollocks, but jolly entertaining bollocks.


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## madzone (Oct 25, 2011)

I not only believed it but I felt really sorry for the guy. He looked so bewildered when he was shown the video and it just made me think how it would feel to be royally fucked over like that.


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## Santino (Oct 26, 2011)

It was a bit meh.


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## Lord Camomile (Oct 26, 2011)

I always thought the whole point of hypnotism was that it couldn't make you do something you weren't already inclined to do. So, if you think murder is wrong, you can't be hypnotised to murder someone.

Do get the feeling that at the very least he subconsciously knew it was a setup, and that he wasn't really going to kill Fry.


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## Lord Camomile (Oct 26, 2011)

Oh, wait, he was hypnotised to convince himself he was in the shooting range, rather than shooting at Stephen Fry, wasn't he? Hmm...


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## Santino (Oct 26, 2011)

Yes, a bit like that episode of Columbo.


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## DexterTCN (Oct 26, 2011)

Derren's trouble, as always, is that he is too good.   There's never any doubt he'll fuck someone's world up with ease.

Had a hairjob too, not a problem or criticism with me just a comment.


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## Maurice Picarda (Oct 26, 2011)

Giving me the chance to  shoot the lardy unctuous preener Fry would be a very poor test indeed of whether I was hypnotised.


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## DexterTCN (Oct 26, 2011)

Yes but it helps with your _shot_.


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## belboid (Oct 26, 2011)

Tht is not wholly unlike what I thought Maurice. If mrs b was asked 'would mr b be likely to shoot someone if I asked him to?' she'd probly answer 'No.  Well, not unless it was Cameron, Clegg or Michael MacIntyre' - obviously _murder_ is wrong, but with them it would be mercy killings

the reaction on laddies face when he watched the video was quite stunned, so i do think whatever else was goin on, he wasn't conscious of it


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## sim667 (Oct 27, 2011)

I've still to watch this.

Im guessing it was effective then.


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## Lord Camomile (Oct 27, 2011)

No, it was a complete washout. The guys just looked a bit non-plussed and said something along the lines of "I'm sorry, are you serious? I'm not going to shoot Stephen Fry with a poxy water pistol. What the hell is this?".

Derren then went a bit bonkers, ended up screaming "You must shoot Stephen Fry! You must! You're ruining the experiment!", before grabbing the gun, shooting Stephen Fry and then turning the gun on himself.

Of course, because the gun was a fake nothing really happened, so there was just an awkward silence as everyone tried to avoid looking at Derren. Eventually he turned to the camera and said "or is it....?" with an enigmatic grin, and then hid behind the curtain.


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## sim667 (Oct 27, 2011)

^ that just makes it sound like a very weird episode of QI


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## Redeyes (Oct 28, 2011)

Tonight's episode started off a bit shit but ended up being pretty good. I didn't see the outcome at all, good stuff.


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## Ranu (Oct 28, 2011)

Bit rubbish tonight.  Next week's looks good.


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## Part 2 (Oct 29, 2011)

It was interesting, and pretty horrific what they were prepared to put him through. I really thought they'd at least let him have the £10k after having him framed, telling him he was losing his job etc

I ended up wondering if the results were legit, he could've made the whole thing up at every stage.


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## colbhoy (Oct 29, 2011)

Redeyes said:


> Tonight's episode started off a bit shit but ended up being pretty good. I didn't see the outcome at all, good stuff.



The ending was very powerful, I really did not see that coming. When he got away from the "kidnappers" I thought, "oh that wasn't meant to happen, if he runs away down that street, it's all gone tits up" and then he was hit by the car and for a second or two I thought it had gone really wrong. Then I remembered that the whole thing was a set up and realised that my split second reaction would be hitting the fake studio audience for real. I do think their reaction was genuine.


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## smmudge (Oct 29, 2011)

I thought maybe they'd just pre-recorded the entire thing where they were following, was probably pretty obvious what the audience were going choose anyway, especially with all the "set ups" between decisions, the interview with the guy, his 'friend' going round his house, all picking out the 'bad' bits of his personality. I also thought they were probably all actors, as the colleague who came on stage seemed like an actress, the friend going round his house seemed like an actor etc. Still made the point it set out to, though.


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## PlaidDragon (Oct 30, 2011)

Did anyone else feel really fucking uncomfortable watching that? Especially when they were laughing, and cheering for his stuff to be smashed. Horrible.

That said, I agree with smmudge, it did try to make him out to be unlikeable, and Derren even called him the 'target' at one point.


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## TopCat (Oct 30, 2011)

I felt the whole thing was somehow wrong and exploitative.


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## sim667 (Oct 31, 2011)

Are you still talking about the assassination one? Or the one where they get the guy to confess to something he hasnt done or sommat like that?


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## PlaidDragon (Oct 31, 2011)

sim667 said:


> Are you still talking about the assassination one? Or the one where they get the guy to confess to something he hasnt done or sommat like that?



No, the game show one that was on on Friday.


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## sim667 (Oct 31, 2011)

Ah no, ive not seen that one yet.


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## lizzieloo (Oct 31, 2011)

PlaidDragon said:


> Did anyone else feel really fucking uncomfortable watching that? Especially when they were laughing, and cheering for his stuff to be smashed. Horrible.



Yep, but I'm glad they were made to feel like cunts at the end


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## mrs quoad (Oct 31, 2011)

lizzieloo said:


> Yep, but I'm glad they were made to feel like cunts at the end


But, like, he'd 100% steered them to that. 

He intentionally dehumanised the subject, avoided any and all sympathetic camera angles (always from a distance, no visible distress reactions), talked in terms of exacting "revenge" for disclosed misdemeanours, surrounded the whole event with trivialising surroundings (game show voiceover, sparkly lights, jolly music), and - yeah - talked about the target. Even in the police van, they made sure that you didn't see his face when he was told he was losing his job, AND the actor didn't take it badly. He wasn't crying or broken, he was just like "o, hai, o, nevermind."

The stuff with the masks was just belt and braces. 

Though the ONLY interesting point in the show, IMO, was when the accident happened; and the masks all came off with remarkable swiftness / spontaneity...

There was no chance whatsoever in that prog. It was raw, ugly and predictable manipulation, made far far uglier (IMO) by Derren Brown's suggestion at the end of the programme that it'd been the audience's intentional decision making, and that they were horrible horrible people. 

Properly nasty programme, IMO. Both in its portrayal of mob mentality; and in Brown's abdication of responsibility for steering it in the way, and to the extent, to which he blatantly did.


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## mrs quoad (Oct 31, 2011)

"we gave you genuine choices all the way through!!!!"

Horseshit.


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## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2011)

I have to agree. I kept flicking over to BBC1 because I just found it quite uncomfortable viewing. Brown was a lot more blatant than he normally is, and might have found it more interesting had there been more discussion of what was going on, but mostly it was just a shit gameshow with an audience that seemed to be laughing at every sentence, just to prove it still existed.

Also, was the 'mark' an actor or not. Throughout the show I thought he was, but Brown seemed to maintain he was genuine throughout. It definitely wasn't live


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## joustmaster (Oct 31, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> Also, was the 'mark' an actor or not. Throughout the show I thought he was, but Brown seemed to maintain he was genuine throughout. It definitely wasn't live



At the point when the angry little man was kicking off (the arse/girlfriend one) I thought that no way would some one just sit there. You would move a bit. Either in defense, or offence.


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## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2011)

I dunno, I'd probably just sit there - I'm astonishingly passive


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## Badgers (Oct 31, 2011)

We watched it on the in-laws digi-box which was good until the programme cut off right at the end 

My guess was that Mark was in on it. The shoplifting thing alone was so vague and woolly.


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## lizzieloo (Oct 31, 2011)

mrs quoad said:


> "we gave you genuine choices all the way through!!!!"
> 
> Horseshit.



Hadn't thought of it like that , I'm still pretty sure I wouldn't have done the same as they did, I s'pose I'll never _really_ know.


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 31, 2011)

Watched the repeat of the second one last night - thought it was utterly ridiculous. The whole thing smelt extremely fishy to the extent that I would attach zero scientific validity to any of it's supposed findings. I suppose we are meant to be judging the audience or perhaps more accurately ourselves and what can happen when we became part of an anonymous 'mob'. But to be honest I was just left thinking what a cycnical hack Derren Brown is.


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## mrs quoad (Oct 31, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> Also, was the 'mark' an actor or not. Throughout the show I thought he was, but Brown seemed to maintain he was genuine throughout. It definitely wasn't live


Why would they bother with having a real person?

I mean, I hear what he's saying, but, like, the 'realness' of the person plays - literally - fuck all role in the "experiment" (as portrayed on TV). If the focus is on the audience (as he claims), then the person in the 'mark' role is redundant. Utterly redundant. Except insofar as he's able to continue prompting the 'appropriate' audience reaction, without doing anything that'd disrupt the choices they've set up.

They need someone who WON'T punch or respond to the 'angry boyfriend,' who WON'T insist on watching the CCTV, who WON'T make a run for it whilst the copper / shop owner are out back, who WON'T go straight home when covered in a jugful of vodka on an October night (btw, the audience didn't even get to vote on that one - it was just a bit of 'we're in on the humiliation of this untermensch too' validation / encouragement / steering), who WILL go to the 'right' off-license...

And who WILL wear the magic shirt his girlfriend encourages him to wear, so the final scene works 

Brown's insistence that it was a real person absolutely stunk. IMO.

I like a lot of what he does; that gameshow was a complete fucking farce. And a particularly unethical one, to boot.


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 31, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> I have to agree. I kept flicking over to BBC1 because I just found it quite uncomfortable viewing. Brown was a lot more blatant than he normally is, and might have found it more interesting had there been more discussion of what was going on, but mostly it was just a shit gameshow with an audience that seemed to be laughing at every sentence, just to prove it still existed.
> 
> Also, was the 'mark' an actor or not. Throughout the show I thought he was, but Brown seemed to maintain he was genuine throughout. It definitely wasn't live



If he wasn't an actor then the show engaged in multiple criminal acts against him including assault, battery, criminal damage, false imprisonment and burglary. I don't believe for a minute channel four would ever give the go ahead to that!


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## mrs quoad (Oct 31, 2011)

lizzieloo said:


> Hadn't thought of it like that , I'm still pretty sure I wouldn't have done the same as they did, I s'pose I'll never _really_ know.


He always emphasised the 'majority' vote. IIRC, there was one with 81%, one with 64% in favour of the 'brutal' outcomes.

I think those are better than the % who refused in the Milgram experiments. Arguably pointing to a particularly ethical audience. But he made no mention of that.

There was also one person shouting out 'why are you still filming us?' when the fake accident was screened and the screens went blank.

IMO, the most blatant clue for the audience (if you'd been in the audience) was the fact that he explained - in great detail - everything that was happening, or which might happen for the mark; but "OH AND BY THE WAY YOU'RE WEARING MASKS TO PROTECT YOUR ANONYMITY."

Literally, no explanation given of why that might be remotely relevant, interesting, or useful. Just "OH HAI! BTW, WE'RE DOING THIS BECAUSE YOU NEED TO BE ANONYMOUS... UM. YEAH. YOU JUST DO, OK?"

That - IMO - was a proper stinker of a McGuffin.


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 31, 2011)

mrs quoad said:


> He always emphasised the 'majority' vote. IIRC, there was one with 81%, one with 64% in favour of the 'brutal' outcomes.



Given that the show bullshited us so blatently about the mark was a real person, it leads me to doubt almost every aspect of the show, like whether the votes were even counted in the first place and not just pretermined in advance to suit to show's narrative.


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## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2011)

Well, quite. That's the trouble with this - while Derren always goes out of his way to say "I'm doing tricks!", but when you fake something so fundamental it just undermines the whole thing, and you might as well fake it all.


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## Santino (Oct 31, 2011)

I tend to think he would mislead by omission rather than lie outright. The 'effect' of the trick was to get a large audience cheering and applauding another person's misfortunes, while we watching say to ourselves 'I wouldn't have behaved like that.'


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## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2011)

But I _wouldn't_ have behaved like that!


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 31, 2011)

Santino said:


> I tend to think he would mislead by omission rather than lie outright. The 'effect' of the trick was to get a large audience cheering and applauding another person's misfortunes, while we watching say to ourselves 'I wouldn't have behaved like that.'



I know this for sure, the mark being real was an outright lie. Otherwise his rights would have been infringed so seriously that channel 4's legal teams couldn't possibly have given it the go-ahead.


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## Santino (Oct 31, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> I know this for sure, the mark being real was an outright lie. Otherwise his rights would have been infringed so seriously that channel 4's legal teams couldn't possibly have given it the go-ahead.


He had already auditioned for a Derren Brown show and probably signed his rights away. He may even have guessed what was going on or had heavy hints dropped to him. That's why I mentioned misleading rather than outright lying.


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 31, 2011)

Santino said:


> He had already auditioned for a Derren Brown show and probably signed his rights away. He may even have guessed what was going on or had heavy hints dropped to him. That's why I mentioned misleading rather than outright lying.



tbh, i missed the start of the show, but i thought the premise was that he was unaware that he was part of an experiment - this seemed to be implied at the end. It's bullshit, he was 100% in on it and for the show to pretend otherwise is blatently dishonest.


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## lizzieloo (Oct 31, 2011)

There's often a disclaimer these days at the start of programmes about the "realness" of the show, something along the lines of "this is for entertainment only, lots has been made up" I bet there's one somewhere for this.


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## Santino (Oct 31, 2011)

lizzieloo said:


> There's often a disclaimer these days at the start of programmes about the "realness" of the show, something along the lines of "this is for entertainment only, lots has been made up" I bet there's one somewhere for this.


I doubt it. Unlike the unreal 'reality' shows, the success of this programme depends on the audience buying into the premise completely. The makers have to suggest and imply and allow inferences to be made without crossing over into absolute fakery to avoid exactly that kind of charge.

Lots of magic relies on people playing along without being directly asked to. Or there is a 'dual reality' effect when what the participant experiences is subtly different from what the audience think they experience.


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## _angel_ (Oct 31, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> If he wasn't an actor then the show engaged in multiple criminal acts against him including assault, battery, criminal damage, false imprisonment and burglary. I don't believe for a minute channel four would ever give the go ahead to that!


You familiar with Jeremy Beadle/ Noel Edmunds shows in the 80s/90s???


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 31, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> You familiar with Jeremy Beadle/ Noel Edmunds shows in the 80s/90s???



I remember Beadle's about, and tbh I'm sure some of those were fake as well, but I don't recall criminal acts taking place in them. It normally involved things like substituting the property of the owner and destroying that. They didn't do things like threatening to beat the person up, falsely imprisoning them in a police van or destroy their actual property (with an oh so convenient baseball bat that he happened to have in his room - do they think we were born yesterday?).


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## Mr Moose (Oct 31, 2011)

The we





mrs quoad said:


> Why would they bother with having a real person?
> 
> I mean, I hear what he's saying, but, like, the 'realness' of the person plays - literally - fuck all role in the "experiment" (as portrayed on TV). If the focus is on the audience (as he claims), then the person in the 'mark' role is redundant. Utterly redundant. Except insofar as he's able to continue prompting the 'appropriate' audience reaction, without doing anything that'd disrupt the choices they've set up.
> 
> ...



The weirdest thing is that you feel so furiously misled. Isn't that just what it says on the tin?


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## Ranu (Oct 31, 2011)

Brown went to great lengths at the beginning of the show to emphasise 'Everything you are about to see is real'.  Hardly a disclaimer.

His only disclaimer was after the event, when he added 'Oh, apart from the bit we filmed earlier with a stuntman.'

FWIW I thought the mark was clearly an actor, as was his 'colleague' and his 'mates'.


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## DexterTCN (Oct 31, 2011)

Not at all...he says at 8 minutes in that 'for the next 50 minutes it's genuine'.  The accident happens after 50 minutes.   Let's not forget the guy crashing through the door at 6 minutes either. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4shngySiIU


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## mrs quoad (Oct 31, 2011)

Mr Moose said:


> The we
> 
> The weirdest thing is that you feel so furiously misled. Isn't that just what it says on the tin?


No, tbh, it isn't / wasn't. Specifically, no, it wasn't what it says on the tin.

More generally, IMO, he tends to be relatively good at portraying himself as ethical; and / or apparently being reasonably ethical with the people he's working with.

What I thought absolutely stank about Friday's was that he was structuring choices in a very intentional way, but leaving the audience (so far as we saw, anyway) with the impression that they'd taken meaningful choices for which they were entirely responsible.

If it was something like 'think of a colour, now think of a tool, you're thinking of a red hammer / tractor'; or the 'teddy bear' 'subliminal story' he did a couple of weeks ago, he is - at least - relatively open about the structuring of choices, and the role he's played in leading people to act in certain ways.

In the gameshow ep, he was - remarkably, IMO - blaming people for making the choices he'd very intentionally, and quite explicitly, structured. And then continued to lambast the entire audience for their mob-like hideousness, when on some occasions over 1/3 had voted against a given decision.

That aspect of the gameshow episode was - IMO - peculiarly repellent.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Oct 31, 2011)

I didn't think the show was 'repellent', but rather disapointing and a bit lame. Th audience were all under the impression that the guy was being pranked. So it's not as if they were _actually_ voting for him to lose his job etc. I was expecting something a lot more sinister than what happened. Sort of along the lines of that experiment where people choose to electrocute an actor to death.


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## Mr Moose (Oct 31, 2011)

mrs quoad said:


> No, tbh, it isn't / wasn't. Specifically, no, it wasn't what it says on the tin.
> 
> More generally, IMO, he tends to be relatively good at portraying himself as ethical; and / or apparently being reasonably ethical with the people he's working with.
> 
> ...



You are quite generous. We only have his word for it that the audience voted for the negative choices at all. It could have been a lie, or half the audience were plants. What we were watching was hugely fake, the fall guy almost certainly an actor, the work colleague ditto.

Probably the audience were very carefully chosen, fairly young, all given a drink or two. They might not have really voted for the guy to be persecuted but the fascinating thing about the original research is of course many people will electrocute someone else.

And in the end, even if it was all utterly faked there is still the evident shock of the viewer.


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## Utopia (Oct 31, 2011)

Both shows so far have been utter, utter shite, and badly done shite at that, awful over acting, so obvious what was going on, felt like an ITV program or a scary version of that show with all those walking, orange, stillborn Essex types. The audience were simpletons(prob avid X factor viewers) who couldn't spot what was going on, and the 'twist', schoolboy stuff.

Always felt Brown shows had a dark, surreal yet almost believable, the way he would apply the super natural to everyday life and I really admired the way he would play out set pieces that would be really edgy, almost frighting BUT this latest series is just pants thus far, hope it improves.


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## kabbes (Oct 31, 2011)

Of course he was manipulating the audience.  Why would he not?  The point isn't that mobs will _necessarily_ act in that way, but merely how easily they can be _led_ to act in that way.  How quickly they can turn, to the point that they are volunteering suggestions for what of his personal stuff they should smash up next.

To that end, it was also irrelevant whether or not the mark was genuine or an actor.  It totally misses the point.

I thought it was pretty powerful, in its own way.  It's always going to be constrained by the fact that it is just a telly show.  There's a limit to what can be done.  But within those constraints, I think it did its job well.  It was genuinely uncomfortable to watch that audience revel in taking actions that started out as reasonable pranks but ultimately became far more sinister.


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## belboid (Nov 1, 2011)

an odd little episode, some interesting ways in which it followed on from the previous episode (especially re the 'Derren effect' which was explicitlty noted in episode 1, and which would obviously still come into play in this one, and the way that even non-hypnotised audiences will go along with/laugh along to any old crap cos they want to please Derren).  Also the way in which he fairly clearly told us what lies he was about to tell.

The mark was obviously an actor, as we were told that 'everything we see in the next fifty minutes is real.  I repeat, everything we _see_ in the next fifty minutes is real.'   And then he _tells_ us that the mark is just a normal bloke.  So, clearly, he isnt.

And this followed a segment where some other random bloke had three apparently 'free' choices, but chose the ones Derren knew/autosuggested he would all along.  So, again, clearly, they were not really 'free' choices, they were ones already suggested by Derren.Same in the 'show'.  Sometimes they were fairly blatantly led - notably on the TV smashing (the possibility of the colleague winning a TV having just been mentined, and then a baseball bat being found oh so handily right next to the TV, and waved around directly in front of it!).

The only things I am unsure about are: why did he bother leading the audience when they would very very probably have chosen the bad things anyway - it (Remote Control) is (supposedly) a fucking TV show, someone having a perfectly nice time all the time would be bloody boring, so the audience is almost bound to choose the 'nasty' outcome.  And, was there a single plant (or two) in the audience to get the actual 'baying' going when they were in the marks bedroom?  Someone had to get that whole ball rolling, and it'd only take one person shoutoing out something fairly harmless and meaningless, for the rest of the (probably slightly bored) audience to go along with it and ratchett it up a little bit each time.

I hope that after the recording of the show that we saw, Derren went back to the audience again and said 'hey. you're not all a bunchof cunts actually, I led you to making all those decisions, and you did so in no small part because you knew you were on my TV show where you are highly likely to be misled, but no actual harm will come to anyone.  Sorry, I'm  a cunt.'


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## Lord Camomile (Nov 1, 2011)

belboid said:


> The mark was obviously an actor, as we were told that 'everything we see in the next fifty minutes is real. I repeat, everything we _see_ in the next fifty minutes is real.' And then he _tells_ us that the mark is just a normal bloke. So, clearly, he isnt.


 Dammit, I was going to make that point but forgot, and now it just looks like I'm copying your point, but I'm not, that was totally my point. Dammit.



belboid said:


> And, was there a single plant (or two) in the audience to get the actual 'baying' going when they were in the marks bedroom? Someone had to get that whole ball rolling, and it'd only take one person shoutoing out something fairly harmless and meaningless, for the rest of the (probably slightly bored) audience to go along with it and ratchett it up a little bit each time.


I wondered that too. Think it's fairly common in similar shows.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

I wondered about the number of times he told us what the majority for the bad options.  Sometimes he gave us a figure (67%).  Other times he just said "majority".  Could it be that the majorities were low - 51%, say - and needed to be big to convince the audience to keep on snowballing the negative outcomes?

It was based on a number of famous experiments about de-individuation.  These are real effects.  But they do require people to abdicate responsibility.  This can happen a number of ways.  I like to think that I would have walked out before the climax.

I think it was a good show in that it makes people think about how they would act in a similar situation.

FWIW, I think Chris was a real dupe, but he'd clearly been screened for extraordinary passivity. At a number of points he just let things happen to him.  In the police van on the phone, for example, I'd have been saying to the work colleague:  "Get me my girlfriend, tell her what's going on.  Get me a lawyer." etc.  Not just allowing her to brush his story off as a joke.


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## belboid (Nov 1, 2011)

Chris had to be a real bloody idiot, if not a dupe.  Wholly ignorant of the law on Theft from Shops (he was still in the bloody shop!  Had made no attempt to leave) and of employment law (oh, you're gonna be made redundant on monday, no notice, negotiation, anything like that). And then, as you say, meekly saying next to nothing to the 'colleague'. Possibly he was too surprised at the 'fact' that two cops had just let him answer his phone whilst under arrest.

The number of times they told us the 'result' was interesting.  I suspect they were all perfectly genuine.  The closest was the shoplifting/5000th customer (an odd number - a shop like that would get 5000 customers in a couple of weeks) - when it was 60/40.  Slightly surprising that the next one still went 'bad' given that closeness, I couldnt see many people switching from nice to nasty at that stage.  By the time of the 'kidnap' tho, I'd have voted for that, cos it was so blatantly _silly_, a clear absurdity that wouldnt last long and would, in effect, let Chris know he was on telly.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

belboid said:


> Chris had to be a real bloody idiot, if not a dupe. Wholly ignorant of the law on Theft from Shops (he was still in the bloody shop! Had made no attempt to leave) and of employment law (oh, you're gonna be made redundant on monday, no notice, negotiation, anything like that). And then, as you say, meekly saying next to nothing to the 'colleague'. Possibly he was too surprised at the 'fact' that two cops had just let him answer his phone whilst under arrest.
> 
> The number of times they told us the 'result' was interesting. I suspect they were all perfectly genuine. The closest was the shoplifting/5000th customer (an odd number - a shop like that would get 5000 customers in a couple of weeks) - when it was 60/40. Slightly surprising that the next one still went 'bad' given that closeness, I couldnt see many people switching from nice to nasty at that stage. By the time of the 'kidnap' tho, I'd have voted for that, cos it was so blatantly _silly_, a clear absurdity that wouldnt last long and would, in effect, let Chris know he was on telly.


And Derren was priming the audience all the time: laughing at the bad choices, making them seem more fun than the boring nice choices.


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## scooter (Nov 1, 2011)

danny la rouge said:


> It was based on a number of famous experiments about de-individuation. These are real effects. But they do require people to abdicate responsibility. This can happen a number of ways. I like to think that I would have walked out before the climax.



Why would you have walked out? Like you I would have clearly recognised it for being a variation on that electrocution experiment and would have stayed to watch. It's not often you get the chance to sit in on a full size social conditioning experiment.

I might have walked out if it was real - like watching the nazis actually experimenting on people. But I wouldn't walk out of a Derren Brown TV show which I clearly know is all a trick/experiment. The "nastier" it seemed to be, the more interested I would be. This is the only proper academic journalistic response


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

scooter said:


> Why would you have walked out? Like you I would have clearly recognised it for being a variation on that electrocution experiment and would have stayed to watch. It's not often you get the chance to sit in on a full size social conditioning experiment.
> 
> I might have walked out if it was real - like watching the nazis actually experimenting on people. But I wouldn't walk out of a Derren Brown TV show which I clearly know is all a trick/experiment. The "nastier" it seemed to be, the more interested I would be. This is the only proper academic journalistic response


I put it badly.  I meant had I thought it real.


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## scooter (Nov 1, 2011)

ok sorry.


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## DexterTCN (Nov 1, 2011)

So anonymity pretty much turns them into a jeremey kyle/jerry springer whoop whoop type.  I wonder if it would have been different without the masks.   Surprised Danny would have left the man to the baying mob if it was real.

If one of those 51% votes had been 49% the man wouldn't be dead, would he Danny?  Eh?   He wouldn't be fucki...oh hold on, my mistake.


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## kabbes (Nov 1, 2011)

What's wrong with Derren manipulating the audience?

People insist that they couldn't be manipulated, that they would see through it.  And yet so many people clearly can be manipulated.

The game show started off harmlessly, in which the "nasty" option was clearly well worth voting for, as a bit of a laugh.  It turned from that into something else, though.  A kidnap scenario clearly always includes the possibility of violence.  To go along with that was pretty awful, gameshow or not.


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## smmudge (Nov 1, 2011)

kabbes said:


> Of course he was manipulating the audience. Why would he not? The point isn't that mobs will _necessarily_ act in that way, but merely how easily they can be _led_ to act in that way. How quickly they can turn, to the point that they are volunteering suggestions for what of his personal stuff they should smash up next.



Thing is, the whole premise of the show is what people will do merely because they are in a mob. Derren has shown us time and time again that people will do something, whether in a group or individually, because of suggestion/manipulation. If his point was that people can be led to act in a certain way, well, we already knew that, and it makes the whole point of it being a 'mob' superfluous.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

DexterTCN said:


> If one of those 51% votes had been 49% the man wouldn't be dead, would he Danny? Eh? He wouldn't be fucki...oh hold on, my mistake.


What?


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## belboid (Nov 1, 2011)

The 'mob' thing gives him a psychological hook to hang the programme on, thats all.  There are loads of experiments that show that in a crowd people will act _either_ 'cruelly' or altruistically, depending upon what others do. Derren could just have easilly created a scenario where the wisdom of crowds led to a really positive outcome for all concerned.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

belboid said:


> Derren could just have easilly created a scenario where the wisdom of crowds led to a really positive outcome for all concerned.


Indeed.  Implying _just_ one or the other is shallow.


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## belboid (Nov 1, 2011)

mrs quoad said:


> covered in a jugful of vodka on an October night (btw, the audience didn't even get to vote on that one - it was just a bit of 'we're in on the humiliation of this untermensch too' validation / encouragement / steering)


aah, i thought about that, it seemed an odd bit at first, but....

That was actually necessary to keep the studio audience on board. They had to think that it was possible for them to have chosen the 'positive' outcomes.  But in that case, why would Chris want to leave the bar?  He wouldn't.  So they would need something to push him out of there, and an 'accidental' spillage of vodka all over him might suffice.


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## kabbes (Nov 1, 2011)

I guess if people didn't get anything out of it, that's a shame but not the end of the world.  Personally, I thought it was interesting.


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## Jeff Robinson (Nov 1, 2011)

The show would have been on firmer grounds if its focus had been on how people can be manipulated to behave like a mob in a structured environment of unequal power relations rather than how deindividuation and anonymity could have such an effect. I'm not suggesting that deindividuation as a theory lacks validity but rather that the show didn't really establish any causal link between it and the mob behaviour that ensued. In order to have done that they would have had to have had another test audience without the masks whilst keeping all the other variables the same.

After all, people can also behave in the most beastly manner in crowds without the cloke of anonymity, just think of jeremy kyle or X factor audiences all to keen to participate in the humiliatation and baiting of individuals for entertainment. Whilst Simon Cowell likes to present his shows as democracy in action in reality of course they are highly stage managed events manipulated for entertainment and other commercial interests. IMO, by blatently resorting to the same sort of underhand tactics that Brown did in that show, he was obscuring, rather than revealing, how mob mentality often arises.


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## belboid (Nov 1, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> the show didn't really establish any causal link between it and the mob behaviour that ensued.


of course not, it's TV, not science.  I do wonder if right at the end Derren will reveal that the jokes on us, and none of the 'pyschology' put forward was as he claimed it to be, and actually he was just testing the TV audience to see how we'd respond.  Or something.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> The show would have been on firmer grounds if its focus had been on how people can be manipulated to behave like a mob in a structured environment of unequal power relations rather than how deindividuation and anonymity could have such an effect. I'm not suggesting that deindividuation as a theory lacks validity but rather that the show didn't really establish any causal link between it and the mob behaviour that ensued. In order to have done that they would have had to have had another test audience without the masks whilst keeping all the other variables the same.
> 
> After all, people can also behave in the most beastly manner in crowds without the cloke of anonymity, just think of jeremy kyle or X factor audiences all to keen to participate in the humiliatation and baiting of individuals for entertainment. Whilst Simon Cowell likes to present his shows as democracy in action in reality of course they are highly stage managed events manipulated for entertainment and other commercial interests. IMO, by blatently resorting to the same sort of underhand tactics that Brown did in that show, he was obscuring, rather than revealing, how mob mentality often arises.


The mask alone is not enough.  That's not implied by anyone.  A whole range of circumstances are required.  But those can really come into play in real life.

The fact is, this programme is an entertainment programme.  It isn't trying to replicate an experiment for a peer-reviewed journal.  However, it did - I think - provide fruit for thought for people unfamiliar with the effects it demonstrated.


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## Jeff Robinson (Nov 1, 2011)

@ Danny and Belboid - I wasn't expecting particular scientific rigor of course, but I did think that the natural constraints of such a show made the whole deindivudation focus utterly redundent.


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## kabbes (Nov 1, 2011)

There was still deindividuation.  They were still an anonymous part of a crowd.  The masks were just for showbiz pizazz.  The real anonymity was coming from the voting system.


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## belboid (Nov 1, 2011)

the masks were mainly for show, no doubt.  But they would have some effect upon the wearer.  For one thing, I'd imagine they became slightly irritable at wearing something uncomfortable for an hour or so (and thus more likely to vote 'cruel'). Also, when the audience shouting out took off, someone _would_ be more anonymised within the audience, no matter what they shouted, and thus more likely to shout something they wouldn't do otherwise.

That would create a very slight effect on the whole process tho, I'd imagine, relatively unimportant compared with everything else going on.


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## Jeff Robinson (Nov 1, 2011)

kabbes said:


> There was still deindividuation. They were still an anonymous part of a crowd. The masks were just for showbiz pizazz. The real anonymity was coming from the voting system.



Maybe, but of course there are all sorts of other reasons why voting systems could result in crueler outcomes than would otherwise exist. For example, by voting for something to happen you are more causally remote than actually directly making it happen yourself and your personal responsibility for the end result is diluted as a result of aggregate outcome. Voting systems could equally point to causal remoteness and safety in crowds (as opposed to anonymity).


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> Maybe, but of course there are all sorts of other reasons why voting systems could result in crueler outcomes than would otherwise exist. For example, by voting for something to happen you are more causally remote than actually directly making it happen yourself and your personal responsibility for the end result is diluted as a result of aggregate outcome. Voting systems could equally point to causal remoteness and safety in crowds (as opposed to anonymity).


The voting was part of the de-individuation.   As was reminding them all the time that they guy was a practical joker, and rooting about in his dirty laundry, looking at his bathroom for fingernail clippings, looking at his browser history and declaring it blank and therefore dodgy.  And so on.  All these are part of the de-individuation process.  The masks would have had an effect, but played only a minor part of the whole.


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## Santino (Nov 1, 2011)

belboid said:


> And this followed a segment where some other random bloke had three apparently 'free' choices, but chose the ones Derren knew/autosuggested he would all along. So, again, clearly, they were not really 'free' choices, they were ones already suggested by Derren.


This bit was pure manipulation of you, the viewer, to make you think that Derren can really predict/change people's random responses. He can't - at least not to the extent of gambling someone's life on it. They were conjuring tricks, any decent magician could replicate them.


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## belboid (Nov 1, 2011)

danny la rouge said:


> fingernail clippings


I've never understood the fear and horror at the sight of nail clippings. Oh my god!  He's cut his nails, he must be a child-raping bastard.  Peculiar.



Santino said:


> This bit was pure manipulation of you, the viewer, to make you think that Derren can really predict/change people's random responses. He can't - at least not to the extent of gambling someone's life on it. They were conjuring tricks, any decent magician could replicate them.


Absolutely, but it's point was (shorely) to show that such manipulation can go on, and would go on, or what was the point of it being at the start of the show?


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

Santino said:


> This bit was pure manipulation of you, the viewer, to make you think that Derren can really predict/change people's random responses. He can't - at least not to the extent of gambling someone's life on it. They were conjuring tricks, any decent magician could replicate them.


Indeed. The initial segment was for the viewer. Many of the other effects we're discussing were for the studio audience. And the end bit with the tacked-on car crash was to provide an ending. That was for narrative. Partly for both us and the audience to think about what went "wrong", but also to provide a climax.

It seems that some people haven't got this, though, which is why the programme wasn't as good as it could have been. Too many people are still scratching their heads. For the message to be effective, there needs to be fewer people who think the switch for the stunt double "explains it all".


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## Santino (Nov 1, 2011)

@belboid

Yes, but the extent to which he can manipulate choices is much less than he allows you to think.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

belboid said:


> I've never understood the fear and horror at the sight of nail clippings. Oh my god! He's cut his nails, he must be a child-raping bastard. Peculiar.


Not that, but rather the process of making the guy an object rather than a subject.  By giving permission to "degrade" in this way, the audience allows themselves to feel that it's OK to do other degrading things to him.


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## belboid (Nov 1, 2011)

Santino said:


> @belboid
> 
> Yes, but the extent to which he can manipulate choices is much less than he allows you to think.


No!  Derren is a witch who can get in my head and make me think black is white.


danny la rouge said:


> Not that, but rather the process of making the guy an object rather than a subject. By giving permission to "degrade" in this way, the audience allows themselves to feel that it's OK to do other degrading things to him.


Oh, I know.  I just dont get why nails?  If he'd left a tissue covered in his spunk....


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

belboid said:


> No! Derren is a witch who can get in my head and make me think black is white.
> 
> Oh, I know. I just dont get why nails? If he'd left a tissue covered in his spunk....


Nails, pubes, hair on sheets.  Things that most people go "ew" at, but things you can find in any home.


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## mrs quoad (Nov 1, 2011)

belboid said:


> the masks were mainly for show, no doubt. But they would have some effect upon the wearer. For one thing, I'd imagine they became slightly irritable at wearing something uncomfortable for an hour or so (and thus more likely to vote 'cruel'). Also, when the audience shouting out took off, someone _would_ be more anonymised within the audience, no matter what they shouted, and thus more likely to shout something they wouldn't do otherwise.
> 
> That would create a very slight effect on the whole process tho, I'd imagine, relatively unimportant compared with everything else going on.


The only really interesting bit of the show - IMO - was when the masks, 'spontaneously,' came off.

e2a: @49:00

Just before someone asks 'why are you still filming?' Most astute audience member going, IMO


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

mrs quoad said:


> The only really interesting bit of the show - IMO - was when the masks, 'spontaneously,' came off.


I noticed that.

Some observations: he'd repeatedly connected the masks with "anonymity", (at each ad break etc).  Therefore the masks were a real prop in the audience's mind.  They were a symbol of disconnection from responsibility. (Like klan hoods etc). The point at which they came off was when people were reclaiming responsibility.  The point at which they all thought they'd gone too far.

The remark "why are you still filming" could have meant one of two things.  First, "it's disrespectful; a man has been badly injured/possibly killed".  Second, "why are you still filming *us*?" ie, Is there more to this than we realise?


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## mrs quoad (Nov 1, 2011)

danny la rouge said:


> I noticed that.
> 
> Some observations: he'd repeatedly connected the masks with "anonymity", (at each ad break etc). Therefore the masks were a real prop in the audience's mind. They were a symbol of disconnection from responsibility. (Like klan hoods etc). The point at which they came off was when people were reclaiming responsibility. The point at which they all thought they'd gone too far.


A few years back, when I still wore dark glasses from time to time (mostly whilst rowing - I had functional contact lenses then), if I was chatting someone up and / or trying to have a remotely interesting / involved conversation with someone I'd take the sunglasses off.

The mask isn't JUST an arbitrary prop; it genuinely does limit communication. And expression. And engagement with other people.



> The remark "why are you still filming" could have meant one of two things. First, "it's disrespectful; a man has been badly injured/possibly killed". Second, "why are you still filming *us*?" ie, Is there more to this than we realise?


I'm inclined to think the latter


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## danny la rouge (Nov 1, 2011)

mrs quoad said:


> The mask isn't JUST an arbitrary prop; it genuinely does limit communication. And expression. And engagement with other people.


Indeed so.  I didn't intend to imply arbitrariness in its use.



> I'm inclined to think the latter


I knew that.


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## Santino (Nov 4, 2011)

From a blog today:




			
				Derren Brown said:
			
		

> _If I make a statement on these shows, it will be true._ Nowadays, the Channel 4 lawyers check every word to make sure there is no misleading of the viewer: this is a huge issue in the TV industry at the moment. The joke in the office is that a magician can’t even say ‘this is a normal deck of cards’ on TV nowadays if it isn’t, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.



http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2011/11/claim-claim-2/


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## kabbes (Nov 4, 2011)

The flip side of that, of course, is that you have to listen to what he says very carefully.  Like when he says, "everything you see for the next 50 minutes is real" and then something not-real happens after 53 minutes.


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## Santino (Nov 4, 2011)

There must be a difference also between what he says directly to camera, and the bullshit spiel he gives to people in the middle of a trick. Like telling that bloke he might have dived out of a second story window.


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## DexterTCN (Nov 4, 2011)

Ah the surprise on his face if he had.


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## kabbes (Nov 4, 2011)

No, he definitely would have dived out the window.  That would have happened.


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## scooter (Nov 4, 2011)

Also I think he's a bit tricksy with definitions eg when he says on that blog that he doesn't use stooges. Depends how you define stooge


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## smmudge (Nov 4, 2011)

Aye it must be dead easy to get round the 'misleading of the viewer' if you know how, otherwise people who make adverts would be fucked.


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## joustmaster (Nov 4, 2011)

Poor sod.


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## story (Nov 4, 2011)

Aye.


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## Bassism (Nov 4, 2011)

he seems such a nice lad, they should do it to some tosser !


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## story (Nov 4, 2011)

But it had to be a nice person, otherwise he wouldn't have confessed, or something.

Tossers are generally self-serving and self-preserving, en't they.


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## jesuscrept (Nov 4, 2011)

scooter said:


> Also I think he's a bit tricksy with definitions eg when he says on that blog that he doesn't use stooges. Depends how you define stooge



They must be stooges. They know it's Derren Brown ffs.


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## story (Nov 4, 2011)

I do wonder if shit like this changes people. WIll he feel in some way that he has survived this and didn't die so maybe being badder in future may not be so bad? Or something.


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## Bassism (Nov 4, 2011)

story said:


> But it had to be a nice person, otherwise he wouldn't have confessed, or something.
> 
> Tossers are generally self-serving and self-preserving, en't they.


ye your right just felt bad for the poor fella who wunt say boo to a goose


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## smmudge (Nov 4, 2011)

I'm sure Derren Brown used to make great TV without being a total sadist.


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## scooter (Nov 4, 2011)

The lad seemed a bit dumb. Doesn't remember whether he's eaten his food? I would have _known_ that someone had nicked it - it would just be a case of who. Wakes up on a mattress outside and just goes back to bed? Pretty odd if you're not used to waking up pissed in unusual situations


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## lizzieloo (Nov 4, 2011)

I decided not to watch this one, I didn't want to watch Brown do that to someone


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## Santino (Nov 4, 2011)

scooter said:


> The lad seemed a bit dumb. Doesn't remember whether he's eaten his food? I would have _known_ that someone had nicked it - it would just be a case of who. Wakes up on a mattress outside and just goes back to bed? Pretty odd if you're not used to waking up pissed in unusual situations


No, if everyone around you is telling you something - by their body language, by their general attitude - then it's human nature to take your cue from them.

Unless you've been recently auditioned for a Derren Brown programme, obv.


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## scooter (Nov 4, 2011)

My lifetime of food training would outweigh any short term Derren training or peer group pressure.

I know when someone's nicked my food.


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## Part 2 (Nov 5, 2011)

I started watching last night but wasn't really interested in the result (I imagine he confessed).

Some of the finer points like making him feel guilty using the sound and touch are really interesting I thought. I'd always realised the senses were particularly powerful in evoking memories and feelings but I'd never really considered how it could be manipulated in that way, I suppose it's what happens in advertising etc

The food nicking seemed a bit far fetched but these thoroughly nice guy types would be unlikely to think badly of someone and certainly wouldn't accuse people they'd only just met

The actors seemed very good to be doing a convincing job, was there a de-briefing and did he suspect anything at all?


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## Termite Man (Nov 5, 2011)

I have very big reservations about this, the whole smashing the tv thing was very convienient that he had the gloves and they had a new replacement tv for the bloke at his house . Make me think the person shouting 'smash his tv' was a plant.


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## Jeff Robinson (Nov 5, 2011)

Found the whole show pretty  but it was entertaining enough. I liked the 'murder mystery' style stately home and the spin on the cluedo names. However, that bell/clock sound was truly haunting and I'm sure it infected my dreams yesterday...


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## _angel_ (Nov 6, 2011)

Didn't really like this, it's one thing when the person knows *something* is happening, but being completely set up, secret filming... hmm. My first thought was 'what if he has a wank in his room being watched'! But maybe that's just my brain.
Felt a bit guilty watching, which perhaps was the intent?


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## Termite Man (Nov 6, 2011)

It's basically Beadles about but done up as some kind of 'experiment'


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## sim667 (Nov 7, 2011)

story said:


> I do wonder if shit like this changes people. WIll he feel in some way that he has survived this and didn't die so maybe being badder in future may not be so bad? Or something.



My and my mate were wondering this whilst watching it....... We were saying you could end up potentially feeling very used and it could really play on your paranoia.


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## sam/phallocrat (Nov 7, 2011)

I've noticed that the male participants of his tricks always seem to have a certain look about them . . . or perhaps that's just me . . .


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## belboid (Nov 7, 2011)

scooter said:


> My lifetime of food training would outweigh any short term Derren training or peer group pressure.
> 
> I know when someone's nicked my food.


Maybe not when you are in a position when you (probably) feel somewhat intimidated by the rest of the group. Everyone else supposedly at this conference had significant experience and apparent influence withion their field, while he was just some graduate with a job. Rather harder to say 'which of you cunts has nicked my food' even without having had any of the 'confusion training.'  Add that in, and even tho you may still, deep down, be sure some cunt has nicked your food, you're unlikely to say so.



Termite Man said:


> I have very big reservations about this, the whole smashing the tv thing was very convienient that he had the gloves and they had a new replacement tv for the bloke at his house . Make me think the person shouting 'smash his tv' was a plant.


naah, that was all clearly set up.  His work colleague was given options of telling him whether he'd been fired or that she'd 'won a new telly'. The producer made a bit of a fuss about his having a nice TV in his bedroom, and then, oh so handily, just happened to come across a baseball bat right next to it - waving it about right in front of the TV. _Someone_ in an already somewhat charged atmosphere, was going to shout 'smash the telly'.

Derren, I thought, looked ever so slightly put out when thwey also hit the Xbox next to the telly - somethng they _hadn't_ lined up a replacement for (not that it mattered as the bloke in that one was an actor...)


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## kabbes (Nov 8, 2011)

The use of sound was clicker training!  It's exactly what you do with dogs -- when they are doing the thing you want, you click and reward so that they associate the click with the good feeling, which emphasises the reward.  Clicker training enables you to train dogs ten times quicker.

I thought the programme was interesting.  It's a demonstration of how unreliable confessions can be.  If they can do this with a bit of clicker training and some cheap tricks, imagine what you can do if you interrogate somebody intensively for 14 hours without pause.


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## Santino (Nov 8, 2011)

To be fair, it wasn't just a bit of guilt association, they got him drunk and dumped him near a crime scene.


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## kabbes (Nov 8, 2011)

Lots of people get drunk and end up near crime scenes.  And are subsequently persuaded that they did the crime, because they were drunk and near the crime scene.


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## Santino (Nov 8, 2011)

kabbes said:


> Lots of people get drunk and end up near crime scenes. And are subsequently persuaded that they did the crime, because they were drunk and near the crime scene.


It was better in series 2 of Homicide when Pembleton made that guy confess out of pure guilt, just to prove a point.


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## belboid (Nov 8, 2011)

kabbes said:


> The use of sound was clicker training!


classic Pavlov's dogs conditioning from 1890ish


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## kabbes (Nov 8, 2011)

That was a brilliant show.  Did you see the one with the hells angels and their own version of honour and all that shit?


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## kabbes (Nov 8, 2011)

belboid said:


> classic Pavlov's dogs conditioning from 1890ish


Exactly.  But it was particularly amusing to see it when you are used to using it regularly to train your dogs.


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## Santino (Nov 8, 2011)

kabbes said:


> That was a brilliant show. Did you see the one with the hells angels and their own version of honour and all that shit?


Do you mean an episode of Homicide or that completely different programme about Hell's Angels and all that shit?


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## kabbes (Nov 8, 2011)

Homicide, dur.


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## Santino (Nov 8, 2011)

I don't remember that episode then. Was Robin Williams in it?


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## kabbes (Nov 8, 2011)

I don't know, but I do remember that it ended to the sounds of Chrissy Hynde singing, "I'll Stand By You", which was deeply moving and emblematic of all that had gone before, plus it happened whilst biker men gave their respects and moved on.


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## sim667 (Nov 8, 2011)

kabbes said:


> Exactly.  But it was particularly amusing to see it when you are used to using it regularly to train your dogs.



They teach you to use audio cues in the classroom, and bang on about pavlovs dog


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## Ranu (Nov 13, 2011)

Ok, so how did he predict the die?


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## Ranu (Nov 13, 2011)

I'm guessing the video feed wasn't live.


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## scooter (Nov 13, 2011)

Magnetic dice - he switched it when he took the die off the toy shop owner at the beginning. But how stupid was that guy - he missed a couple of opportunities to make some money so he puts a thousand pounds on the roll of a dice


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## Termite Man (Nov 13, 2011)

I gave up on that one , it was boring.


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## mrs quoad (Nov 13, 2011)

scooter said:


> Magnetic dice - he switched it when he took the die off the toy shop owner at the beginning. But how stupid was that guy - he missed a couple of opportunities to make some money so he puts a thousand pounds on the roll of a dice


He probably went out and blew the £6k on lucky scratch cards?


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## kabbes (Nov 14, 2011)

Underneath the showmanship were some serious points, actually, about how easy it is for superstition to take hold (note that some people claimed that they had known about the lucky dog for "years"), about how luck is a state of mind and about how if you don't look for opportunities then nothing will ever happen.

And I'd happily stake my new born baby on a die roll that formed the centrepiece of a Derren Brown show -- as _if_ he's going to let you lose!


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