Derren Brown: The Experiments

Last nights episode was completely staged from the word go, even the audience were in on it (stooges shouting "smash the TV" etc).
But that wasn't his point.

It was a cautionary tale about how easily large groups of people can become dangerous and lose their moral compass, and large groups of anonymous people even more so.
It's all just a press of a button until someone innocent is hurt.
 
Herd mentality is quite interesting, and very real, though it has been researched to death. Were the audience in on it? I don't know, but I do know that the possibility of a nonstooge shouting out "smash the telly" in that scenario is high... Worth considering.

I wish they could recreate The Stanford experiment, be interesting to see if things had changed but I doubt they'd get ethical clearance to do it again.
 
The "producer" just so happened to have h+s gear for smashing up the TV as well as a replacement turning up the very same day?, fixed for sure dude. :)

[edit]Although I do see your point, if it wasn't a prompted sequence, the likelyhood of the scenario occuring would increase as each decision plays out with no consequence to the audience.[/edit]

The Stanford experiment is still going strong except now it is called the internet.
Take for example the recent trolling of a deceased persons facebook tribute page, virtualised and decentralised lynch mobs / riot mobs etc etc.
 
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I don't think the audience were in on it, the guys introduction ensured that at least 90% of the women in the audience would hate him. Plus it was obvious most would choose the punishment because the good alternatives were boring.

It's no different to I'm a celebrity get me out of here when people continually vote for the same person they dislike in order to see them suffer.
 
The setting is just wrong, a "game show". The audience knows that no harm will ever come to him so they think it's alright to pick the bad thing.

Personally, I'd have picked the positive option every time. Felt sorry for the poor guy tbh.
 
Personally, I'd have picked the positive option every time. Felt sorry for the poor guy tbh.

And that's the whole point of the experiment, most people would say that but it's remarkable how quickly people in a crowd get caught up with it and do things that they wouldn't otherwise do and do things that they don't think is acceptable. You may think you wouldn't do it, and perhaps you wouldn't, but the evidence suggests that a sizeable proportion acts otherwise.
 
Ahh the airplane hoax, that was just cringe-worthy.

I've hated him with a passion since the lottery hoax though. That was just so bad it stopped being entertaining.

wow....you know he's an illusionist right? A magician if you will? He doesn't claim to be a miracle worker....His job is to entertain people by doing illusions that make people sit back and think....wow, how the **** did he do that.

If you actually sat at home watching him predict the lottery numbers, thinking it was claiming to be 100% real and not knowing from the start that you were being misdirected and fooled (magic!) then I'm sorry, but you're retarded.

No hoax....just a magic trick that a lot of people seem to be upset about because they don't seem to know they are watching a magic show......
 
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wow....you know he's an illusionist right? A magician if you will? He doesn't claim to be a miracle worker....His job is to entertain people by doing illusions that make people sit back and think....wow, how the **** did he do that.

If you actually sat at home watching him predict the lottery numbers, thinking it was claiming to be 100% real and not knowing from the start that you were being misdirected and fooled (magic!) then I'm sorry, but you're retarded.

No hoax....just a magic trick that a lot of people seem to be upset about because they don't seem to know they are watching a magic show......

Grabbing a pilot, clicking your fingers at him a few times, then throwing him into a flight sim to land a plane is not magic my friend.

And I knew he was a hoaxer well before the lottery stunt, so I didn't sit there thinking it was 100% real. Calling me retarded just because I called DB a hoaxer? he your boyfriend? Apologies if he is, no offence intended.

There's a vast gap between Derren Brown and "magic".
 
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Tell me more about the aeroplane one being a hoax? He was a pilot what?
Where did you find this information?

Also it never crossed my mind there were stooges in the audience for the recent episode.. I think its highly likely someone would shout out something like that, even if not serious. I find it odd how people don't question there may be stooges but seem to firmly believe there are.. I don't think i'm an idiot but its never even crossed my mind.

David
 
Brilliant series as usual, and a great one to end it on; Lucky and Guilt Trip were my favourites. Remote Control wasn't anything special but it was an interesting piece of social commentary.

All the people who think everything he does is faked/stooged then you can't really comment until you've seen one of his live shows. My girlfriend got picked from the audience with a frisbee and I'm pretty sure she's not a stooge :p.
 
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Just finished watching Lucky on +1, was a very good show indeed.
A great look at... to use a song lyric... "Life is what you make it".
Thoroughly enjoyed it, congrats to Wayne & family. :)
 
All the people who think everything he does is faked/stooged then you can't really comment until you've seen one of his live shows. My girlfriend got picked from the audience with a frisbee and I'm pretty sure she's not a stooge :p.

I don't see it as being faked/stooged, I see it as theatre of the mind.

Theatre as it is on television, far too many people over the course of wireless history have failed to see the distinction between a broadcast and reality. (Orson Welles, I'm looking at you dude!)
Mind because Derren appears to love exploring how the conscious and subconscious works in tandem or even against each other.

I'd love to see one of his live shows.
 
All the people who think everything he does is faked/stooged then you can't really comment until you've seen one of his live shows. My girlfriend got picked from the audience with a frisbee and I'm pretty sure she's not a stooge :p.
I will back you up on that. I went to see Enigma and will put money on at least most of the participants not being stooges.

That's not to say that I write off the possibility that not everything he does is genuine (you know what I mean), but having seen what I have seen first hand, I am confident in saying that most of it is.

But at the end of the day, he's an entertainer and he invariably leaves me having been entertained. :p
 
Grabbing a pilot, clicking your fingers at him a few times, then throwing him into a flight sim to land a plane is not magic my friend.

People like you annoy the hell out of me, come into threads about Derren Brown throw the words "fake" and "stooge" around and then run away without a shred of evidence.

Do you not think one of the hundreds of stooges he must have used by now would have spoken out or the newspapers would have found one of them?

You clearly have no idea how the selection process works for his shows and the idea the lad in the hero show was a pilot is so stupid it beggars belief. Why on earth would you need a pilot to land a flight simulator?

Not everything Derren does is face value but he does not use stooges. If your not intelligent enough to understand what is real and what is not in his act then you should probably keep your opinions to yourself.
 
I can't remember what episode it was but I liked when he played chess against all the chess masters but was playing them against each other.

It all got rather complicated and how he remembered all the moves and who to make the next move on really was pretty amazing.
 
I enjoyed the murder mystery one, he seemed quite convinced that he done that murder after admitting to it by feeling guilty.

The only thing I really didnt believe would happen, was when that guy fell asleep, then they all carried him outside

Would that really happen??!?! Even if I was drunk on champagne, I could see myself waking up if I had a bunch of people carrying me off my bed, downstairs and outside.
 
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