The Key IS The Key

Derren Brown



This is about that video that sticks you to your chair. You know, the one that glued you to your seat so you can't get up. The one that makes you feel trapped in your seat, like you're stuck and you can't get free.

Honestly, how many times did he say words that basically meant you couldn't move.

The title of this post is very important. In the film Jumping Jack Flash, the entry key to the secret domain is the words "the key". When they drug the poor heroine to reveal the key she says "the key is "the key".". They think they've drugged her too much and completely miss the information that is there before their eyes.

Likewise, the whole purpose of the show is a conditioning for the video when in actual fact the video is completely irrelevant. Throughout the show Mr Brown constantly says words to do with staying in your seat like for example "don't get up (we're back after the break)" and "stay glued (to the screen)". Every time he does this the camera is zooming in at a steady rate so there is something to link them together for later.

Just before the video he says a great big paragraph of words meaning unable to move and an image of a person caged into the chair appears. Then all the video has to do is give the impression that it's getting closer by rotating the bars at different speeds and changing the size of the gap between them.

The video is so plain that no new info comes in but at the same time it uses the impression of getting closer to reinforce the information you took in when the camera was zooming in the other three times before.

The tone has nothing to do with it at all, it's the breathing that's the key. He asks you to take a deep breath before so when you do it again you undo what you have learned by feeding in new data, like you were just before the video.

The problem with his little word association game was the fact that I don't associate those words with the same effects he was implying. Therefore it was just words to me without some sort of general meaning. He could have said "gloob glob globble" for all I care, it would have the same effect.

I deliberately ignored all the cues beforehand so when the video played I just felt relaxed and a little bored. Then when he said I couldn't get up I leaped out of my seat and danced around a bit. See Mr Brown, I'm wise to your trickery.

Unfortunately since the program my coordination's a little off, my perspective is a little slanted and I keep getting double vision. Thanks alot Mr Brown you piece of shit. You fucked up my visual processing.