Update (2/14/2018): Other magicians have come forward expressing their displeasure with Jibrizy’s latest video, which has exposed the method of several currently-marketed tricks as well as copied a previous viral video. Mentalist Bedros Akkelian (aka Spidey) has posted his own thoughts on the matter:

Whether a result from criticism from other magicians or the fans, it would appear that Jibrizy has since deleted the video from his Facebook page. We have removed the embedded post (which has since thrown a “video unavailable” warning”) and updated our story below to reflect this.

Original Story:

A few months back, a series of videos starring someone fans dubbed the “Pokerface Man” hit critical viral mass on the internet. In the videos, a magician pulled off a series of tricks while his jerkface friend exposed all of his methods, all while continuing to stare stonefaced into the camera. They were funny, got millions of views, and were shared across all corners of the internet, including mainstream sites like MSN.

Today, Jibrizy posted a compilation of magic tricks along with his friend Paul Vu, but the format looks very familiar…

(The original post for this story featured the Facebook video embedded here, which has since been pulled.) 

The tricks themselves are different from the ones performed in the Pokerface Man videos, but the effect is the same: Jibrizy does a trick, then Vu walks over, steals whatever item Jibrizy is using, exposes the method, they bicker, then the duo moves on to the next trick.

Other magicians don’t seem too happy with the video, like Xavier Spade, who shared the video on his Facebook page with the comment “Another sad day in magic… Can’t even steal magic in an original way…”. YouTube illusionist Chris Ramsay (who has previously been critical of Jibrizy’s work) replied to this post saying “When all else fails…”

This isn’t the first controversy Jirbizy has gotten himself embroiled in: back in August, 2017, the magician had been caught stooging his magic tricks, coaching his onlookers on how  to react in his videos. It hasn’t seemed to have effected his popularity, though, as he continues to boast over 1.1 million followers on Facebook.

Exposing method is one thing, and whether it’s ok or not is still a hotly-contested debate in the magic community. Copying someone else’s routine, though, is something else entirely. What do you think?