Ted Serios somehow stumbled onto a magician's maxim --- that is, people long to be amazed. He discovered that once you amaze them you own them.

This maxim has been expressed differently by a famous Scottish philosopher:

The passion of surpriseand wonder,arising from miracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency towards the belief of those events, from which it is derived. And this goes so far, that even those who cannot enjoy this pleasure immediately, nor can believe those miraculous events of which they are informed, yet love to partake of the satisfaction at second-hand or by rebound, and place a pride and delight in exciting the admiration of others.

David Hume

--- Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

(1748)