The kids lost it for the Danes. Like, jump-out-of-your-seat incredulity, involuntary burbles of whoas muffled by hands over mouths. These kids (nine-year-olds to twentysomethings) were watching a slick three-minute video titled “Pacemaker” accompanied by a propulsive drum-and-bass soundtrack. In it, a pair of 20-year-olds named Tobias Levin and Oliver Sogard walked around their native Copenhagen with playing cards in hand.

What these Danes did with a deck of 52 made those in attendance do double takes. They manipulated cards into impossible 3-D configurations at speeds that even to the naked eye resembled camera tricks. They cut, flung, flipped, rotated, juggled, and shuffled playing cards in the middle of the street, along train tracks, their faces emotionless, their hands a blur. It’s yo-yo tricks performed by cardsharps with the street cred of a Parkour video. There’s a name for it: cardistry.

By Chiara Marinai.

Within this room, in a Brooklyn loft overlooking the Gowanus Canal in early April, Levin and Sogard—collectively known as Dealers Grip—are bona fide celebrities. In fact, everyone here is recognizable to some degree. They can all thank YouTube, the big-tent church in the clouds that won’t judge your hobbies, however arcane. There are video channels now dedicated to speed Rubik’s cube solving, finger tutting, competitive cup stacking, niches of niches of niches that now enjoy online communities of kindred spirits. YouTube is how 85 like-minded cardistry fans (and 200-plus live streaming online) found one another inside a loft in early April. And this three-minute video “Pacemaker” just left jaws dragging on the floor.

“What. Just. Happened?!” said one teen sitting in front of me, as if he’d seen the Holy Ghost.

If you’ve never heard of cardistry, take heart, you’re not yet tragically uncool. This might not be the case in a year. Cardistry—which has roots in card magic—is still in its nascent stage but popular enough to support Cardistry-Con, a $125 three-day convention in Brooklyn. Perhaps more telling, the scene is burgeoning to the point that a select few can make a full-time living juggling playing cards.