Can You Feel It?

[rionaleonhart]

I watched Derren Brown's The Heist yesterday, and it was excellent. For those who do not know the premise: Derren Brown offers a motivational seminar to a group of respectable businessmen and women. The seminar is a cover for manipulating them into robbing a security van. It is a fascinating study of what people can be persuaded to do, and of the little-known danger that the song 'Can You Feel It?' by the Jackson Five poses to society.

I think my favourite part was the shop assistants becoming increasingly frustrated by the endless parade of people in suits coming in and stealing sweets. Hee! (I can't believe people did that. Derren Brown says 'steal from this shop! :D' and people - people who clearly haven't been hypnotised, although they have been manipulated somewhat - actually do it? I would probably have assumed he was joking.)

The replication of the Milgram experiment was just disturbing. HUMAN BEINGS. WHY SO CREEPY?


Here is a Heist-related quote from Tricks of the Mind that I rather enjoyed:

Had the final armed robberies not worked - though I had no doubt they would - I had a very vague plan B and C up my sleeve to ensure that the show would come together in some form. But I didn't need to go down those routes. (Let's just say that I had a lot of dancers tucked around corners, waiting for a signal.)


It looks as if you can watch the entire awesome thing here! It is fifty minutes long, and it is so interesting, so please do watch it if you have a spare hour right now. If you enjoy it, you could consider buying Derren Brown's DVDs.

Alternatively, if you do not have the time to watch the entire thing, here is a two-minute cut-down, speeded-up version set to 'Yakety Sax'.

Comments

[sideshow-meg.livejournal.com]

The Heist is my favourite one. It's fascinating!

[rionaleonhart]

It really is! Although it has got 'Can You Feel It?' stuck in my head, and I fear it may not be expunged for some time. I hope I do not find myself compelled to rob green shops.

[culf.livejournal.com]

Okay, I didn't see the whole one, but isn't a replication of the Milgram experiment terribly unethical? Because there's no way in hell psychologist would have been allowed to do it today.

[rionaleonhart]

Hmmm, good point. Perhaps Derren Brown hypnotised the ethics board.

[rionaleonhart]

That response seems a bit callous, doesn't it? I'm sure he must have found some way of making it ethically acceptable, because otherwise surely he wouldn't have been allowed to perform it and broadcast it on television. He mentioned at the beginning that psychologists had made sure all the subjects would be able to handle what he was going to put them through.

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

Considering that Derren Brown will also kidnap someone with the help of that person's friends without the kidnappee volunteering to be part of it in any way that I could see, it's not the first time he does something ethically dodgy. In fact, he seems to be doing ethically dodgy things quite a lot.

[dots.livejournal.com]

This was my thought. "Wow, Milgram experiment, that's pretty dodgy ... but I guess nothing compares to the zombie shoot-em-up."

[moogle62.livejournal.com]

I watched that on Friday! He was ridiculously attractive in that, I found. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME. Why is he suddenly more attractive when convincing people to steal? That was another one of those moments where you kind of want to see the people being fine afterwards as opposed to just being told that they were.

Also, that experiment: I've heard about another form of it, where the people had to do essentially the same thing but were split into two groups. One group had to ask the questions and press the electric button of doom in the same room with the test subject while the other group were, like here, in a different room but they could still see the subject through a window of some sort. The people with the distance from the subject were more likely to take the experiment further. I did find the one here disturbing though. AUGH HUMANS SUCK.

I will never be able to hear that song again without expecting to be held at gunpoint for my slightly childish purse (what, it was a present about five years ago and I've just not got round to buying a new one yet. So what if it has a cat on it?).

Edited because my html skillz are weakened even further when flu-like.

[rionaleonhart]

Derren Brown's attractiveness just increases tenfold when he is being evil. It is alarming.

I was quite surprised that only one of the participants had already heard of the Milgram experiment. Everyone should know of the Milgram experiment! It teaches such an important lesson!

(My purse was a joke present from a friend. It says 'Superbabe'.)

[moogle62.livejournal.com]

It teaches such an important lesson!: HEY, EVERYONE: DON'T ELECTROCUTE OTHER PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE SOME GEEZER TELLS YOU TO DO IT.

(ridiculous purses: unite!)

[dots.livejournal.com]

I have the same question about the Milgram experiment recreation (I recognized what it was going to be as soon as they showed the NEXT: with the guy screaming over the mic), but I found this so absurdly fascinating that I pardoned it.

I'm really surprised more people hadn't heard of the experiment. Is it only common Psych 101 discussion over here? Did they just never take Psych 101??? I DO NOT KNOW.

[rionaleonhart]

It really is so interesting!

I don't know what Psych 101 is, but a quick search tells me that it seems to be some sort of compulsory psychology course at American universities (is this correct?). As far as I can tell, in an American university, there's the main focus of the course (major?) and then quite a number of compulsory unrelated courses. At a British university, the major is all there is. I study English Language and Literature, so every one of my courses is related either to the English language or to literature; there's no maths, no psychology, et cetera. A British university student is educated in a much narrower range of subjects.

So now you know! (Typing that was actually a bit embarrassing. IT SOUNDS LIKE WE ARE SO UNEDUCATED.)

I'd heard of the Milgram experiment, but perhaps that was just because a friend of mine took Psychology at secondary school. I'd thought it was more commonly known than it apparently is.

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

"A British university student is educated in a much narrower range of subjects."

Which is as it should be! The Dutch system works that way as well, and I never got the point of the US system, which seems to me to be 'hahahaha you THOUGHT you were going to study this one thing you found fascinating, right? WRONG! You will have to learn a little about everything IN THE WORLD, especially the stuff you have absolutely no interest in :D'

Seriously, secondary school is for 'learn a little bit about everything!', not university.

[dots.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense, then. That's why I was puzzled! We have what are called General Education credits, most of which are largely disconnected from the major, so you've got it pretty much right on. The Milgram experiment is pretty much one of the most basic concepts in Psychology 101 (which is either your gen-ed psych credit, or an entry-level psych course before you get into the major). Most Gen-ed credits are done within the first two years while the last two are devoted to your major. Example, in my first year, I took some entry-level Communications courses, but I also took writing, math, psychology, and history, among other things. I could have gone without the math :( I didn't know that difference between universities, it's fascinating and explains why I was confused!

So yeah, I've been taught the ins and outs of the Milgram experiment, among others, though I can never recall their names. I'm really surprised only one of them knew it regardless, though. It's such a telling experiment and so interesting in terms of the human mind.

...Wow, look at me ramble, you can tell I almost switched my major to psych :D

[rionaleonhart]

Differences between countries are always interesting! The American university system confused me for a while. What also confused me was seeing Americans on my flist complaining about what seemed to me like excellent marks, before I realised that the percentages meant different things in the US (here in the UK, over seventy per cent is a First, the best degree you can get; getting over eighty per cent in a subjective subject means that you are a gigantic freaking genius. I get the impression that the grade boundaries in the US are rather different).

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, here the usual way of doing is to have sixty-five to seventy percent be just barely passing (D to C in letter grades), seventy to eighty be adequate but not that great (C to B), eighty to ninety be good (B to A) and anything over ninety percent be very good (sometimes, depending on how extra-credit is scored, people can get over a hundred percent, which looks slightly nonsensical at first). Of course, different schools tinker with that to some extent, there's the pluses and minuses, and some schools (or some classes within a school) use the bell curve to grade people which complicates things and isn't very popular with students I've met.

I was really freaked out when I studied in France for a semester and a lot of my scores were in the fifty or sixty percent range. I was convinced I was failing so badly. Fortunately my school in the US knew how to convert grades from Europe, and I ended up with a lot of Bs and a few As (apparently, getting eight out of ten on any test rather blows teachers in France out of the water).

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

I still don't understand using letters for grades. How am I supposed to figure out my average grade if I get an A? You can't add A + B and divide by two. And the letters equate to numbers any way, so why bother with the letters? And then Scottish universities use LETTERS AND NUMBERS. A5? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of Derren Brown wandering around with packs of cleverly hidden dancers in case things go wrong. In my head, they're all wearing spangly costumes and crouching in the alleyway (people don't notice them, obviously, because Derren Brown has hung "There is no dancer" signs around their necks and used his Jedi mind-tricks Neuro-Linguistic Programming to make it work). When tricks fall apart, he blows a whistle and they all rush in and dance for dear life while he makes a fast get away.

As I seem to be writing the "Derren Brown erases the memories of the Top Gear Presenters as part of a joke, and the Stig turns up to rescue them" as well as the one where Richard turns up in Mongolia with no memory and mistakenly concludes he's a spy, I may use the Emergency Backup Dancers.

[rionaleonhart]

Hooray for Derren Brown fic! And extra hooray for Derren Brown fic that may propagate ridiculous 'Derren Brown always keeps backup dancers around, just in case' fanon!

[serriadh.livejournal.com]

"Derren Brown keeps backup dancers around, in an unusually unconvincing 'I'm straight' demonstration".

Seriously, it is so funny watching/reading stuff from before he came out. :D

Oh, Riona, where do I buy Trick or Treat DVD?? IT IS NOT ON AMAZON

[rionaleonhart]

Hee, yes! There's a rather cute pre-coming-out (pre-boyfriend, in fact, and I'd love to know whether that was an awakening for him) interview over here.

You won't be surprised to hear that he lives alone. The longest relationship in his life was a "sort of three-year, on and off relationship around university - that's probably the longest".

With a girl? "Yes," he says, looking startled.

There are no Trick or Treat DVDs, to my distress! Were Channel Four to release some (preferably with commentary and more adorable behind-the-scenesness - are you listening, Channel Four? WHILE YOU ARE AT IT: SERIES THREE OF TRICK OF THE MIND), I would buy them immediately.

(Psst! Has your e-mail address changed in the past year?)

[serriadh.livejournal.com]

Are your internets back?! Hurrah, if so.

Because I am a religious obsessive type of geek, I wonder how closetted he must have been to survive in evangelical christianity (though actually I do know one gay evangelical - celibate, naturally) and how much of his 'oh, I realised it's all circular thinking and fakery' is entirely the whole story. But as I said, obsessiveness.

Ah, I got confused with behind the scenes-ness and thought there was a DVD. Hurrah! The tv shows are downloadable for NONE of my english pounds.

No, still the same!

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Shoot, which experiment was the Milgram one? I MEAN, I CAN THINK OF AT LEAST SIX THAT FALL INTO "WHY SO CREEPY" CATEGORIES.

[rionaleonhart]

OBVIOUSLY YOU WILL HAVE TO WATCH THE HEIST TO FIND OUT.


It was the experiment to see whether people would administer dangerous electric shocks just because a scientist was telling them too.

[rionaleonhart]

...WHETHER A SCIENTIST WAS TELLING THEM TO

I CAN SPELL

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

asdjfkl;ajsk;ldfjas;lkfj; THAT'S THE ONE I THOUGHT IT WAS. WHAT DO YOU MEAN WITH REAL PEOPLE?

[rionaleonhart]

YES WITH REAL PEOPLE.

WATCH THE HEIST; IT IS FASCINATING AND ALARMING.

[rionaleonhart]

...and by 'with real people' I mean that real people think they are administering electric shocks.

They are not really shocking other real people.

Work by Derren Brown requires such clarifications.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Oh jesus okay. That is far less alarming. I was like "WHAT DO YOU MEAN REAL PEOPLE ARE SHOCKING OTHER REAL PEOPLE OMFG"

[rionaleonhart]

Man, that really would have been difficult to get past an ethics committee.

Without hypnosis.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Maybe... maybe he DID.

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

Was it an Actual Scientist or Random Person In A Labcoat Looking Like A Scientist?

[rionaleonhart]

Probably a random person in a labcoat. Does it matter in the context of this experiment?

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

Well, they might want to see how authoritive the person giving the order has to appear.

[thrennion.livejournal.com]

Riona, this is very, very important. You see, I've been wondering who Derren Brown looks like all this time, and I've just figured it out.
He looks like, and may well be, my poetry seminar leader. D:

[rionaleonhart]

I AM ON MY WAY TO ROYAL HOLLOWAY RIGHT NOW.

OR POSSIBLY I AM RUNNING AS FAR AWAY FROM IT AS POSSIBLE.

Do you suspect that there may be subliminal messages implanted in the poetry you study? Do you find yourself struggling with criminal impulses? Do you occasionally walk into your seminar and suddenly find yourself in a foreign country with no recollection of how you got there?

[thrennion.livejournal.com]

JOIN UUUUUUUUS, WE HAVE SNOW.

Well, seeing as we were studying Walt Whitman last week, I may well have arrived in ninteenth-century America when I got to the room... and there *might* have been subliminal messages too... >_>;;

OH.
I STARTED WATCHING AVATAR.
MY GODS, THAT SHOW IS MADE OF WONDERFUL.

[rionaleonhart]

It's a kind offer, but we've got more snow than we know what to do with down here.

Avatar is indeed wonderful! Although I haven't watched any for a little while, because Derren Brown ate my brain and I thought I wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the episodes if I watched them whilst in the CRAZY OBSESSION PHASE for something else. Where are you? What do you think of the characters?

[thrennion.livejournal.com]

I have just finished watching "The Great Divide", and I love all the characters! I think it's one of those shows where even the bad guys are just so *awesome* that you can't not like them a little bit. And the writing, and the art, and the humour and the flying bison... it's all utterly wonderful. <3

So... it's all Derren Brown's fault that you haven't been posting about Avatar!
...
WHAT WOULD HE BE LIKE ON AVATAR?

{Am watching Heist at the moment, and I think Derren Brown might be Iago. Seriously.}

[rionaleonhart]

THOROUGHLY AGREED ON ALL POINTS. The villains are probably my favourite from any animated work. Well, with the possible exception of Team Rocket. And my love for Sokka and Iroh in particular is huge and ridiculous.

Ooh, Derren Brown would be a wonderfully ambiguous character on Avatar. Is he a hero? Is he a villain? And he is a mindbender, which is probably not a common bending technique in the world of Avatar.

(With everyone as the world as his Othello? It makes sense! ...possibly!)

[thrennion.livejournal.com]

{Yes. It makes sense. BECAUSE IT'S DERREN BROWN.}

Iroh is brilliant! Ridiculous amounts of love for Katara from me. It's just crazy. And, um... now I'm insanely crossing Derren Brown over with multiple fandoms. Death Note! Avatar! The World Ends With You! The Dresden Files! Supernatural!
Especially Death Note. And now, "Can You Feel It?" has become Nighmare Fuel. >_>

[rionaleonhart]

Derren Brown is clearly enormously educational.

(Yes! HIGH-FIVE, GUY WHO VALUES SOMEONE ELSE'S WELLBEING OVER A SCIENTIST'S CRAZY EXPERIMENT.)

[make-a-move.livejournal.com]

I adore him so much he makes me want to burst into song, like some sort of strange Disney film.

[rionaleonhart]

I concur! Unfortunately, the song into which he makes me want to burst is 'Can You Feel It?' by the Jackson Five.