ASMR: A Community Lost in Connotation

As someone who regularly and unashamedly forces her friends to discuss, participate in and enjoy the same interests as myself, it is no surprise that the topic of ASMR has made it on to the Collaborative Point’s discussion list. It is something I have become quite a fan of over the past year, and I now seek to include even more people in its fold.

 

So what is ‘ASMR’? Well, I thought about it for a long while and I concluded that it is essentially as weird as Dungeons and Dragons, but lacking simply the community and collaboration that comes with Dungeons and Dragons. This, I think, is the reason it has such a reputation as one of the creepiest parts of ‘deep internet’. Let me explain.

 

So ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, and I think if you’ve never watched an ASMR video before, you should quickly go check this one out made by the Queen of ASMR, gentlewhispering. Basically, ASMR is when you listen to a noise you find relaxing and you have a physical reaction to it.

 

Now, this is something I don’t think is so insane a concept. I was first introduced to the concept of ASMR by a documentary I watched on Rooster Teeth’s website last year, which explored the practice (I have linked here to the documentary’s trailer, as you need a RoosterTeeth membership to watch the whole thing – but there is a month free trial, which I strongly recommend watching if you get a chance).

 

While listening to psychologists and ASMRtists (as they’re called in the community) discuss ASMR triggers in everyday life, like the sounds of getting your hair shampooed, I had a Slumdog Millionaire-flashback moment to when I was a kid watching Playschool. Nothing – and I mean nothing – was more relaxing to me than the sounds of the presenters reading the book during story time and turned the pages really slowly. That sounds bizarre, written down. But I find the sounds of pages turning calming, I realised. I delved into the world of ASMR to explore that.

 

So I went through a lot of stages with ASMR, I’ll admit that. The first was pity, for these people who took it way too seriously. I couldn’t help but cringe as they got close to the camera and pretended to touch my face, or breath in my ears. For a while there, I stuck only to the ‘no talking’ ones, were people were rarely on camera. I always had an emergency fake tab open when I was watching it, to quickly flick to in case someone came up behind me.
Because in truth, I did think it was weird. I do the same thing when I’m reading fan fiction – it would be mortifying to have someone catch me reading it, so I’m prepared to quickly hide what I’m reading.

 

And yet I would not do the same thing with a book. But where’s the difference? Fan fiction and books are the same thing – written content. The only difference is that fan fiction is distributed on the Internet, which has always been connoted with the idea of eccentricity, and Internet Mole People, and fifty-year-old men still living in their parents’ basement. But the Internet is now such an enormous part of all of our lives, I am frankly bewildered that is connotation persists.
This is where the Dungeons and Dragons comparison comes in. ASMR and Dungeons and Dragons are, basically, the same thing. They both serve a community of people who are highly dedicated to their craft of roleplay and putting everything into delivering a concept, be it a cross-country world conceptualised entirely in their head or a pretending to be a nurse to help people feel safe and sleep.

 

And yes, in fairness, DnD is still a little ‘weird’. But it has become an accepted part of nerd culture, a community-based roleplaying game that sees the very ‘friendless nerds’ that many previously thought incapable of human contact crawl from their Red Bull fuelled holes in the ground to roleplay as a genderfluid Barbarian Dwarf with a thirst for blood and a need for love. And hundreds of thousands of people play it! Now, how different is ASMR from this, I thought, as I watched a lovely Russian lady dressed in full and believable flight-attendant cosplay bring me to my ASMR aviation sleep destination?

 

The answer, I think, is the lack of a face-to-face community and the stigma of the Internet. People unashamedly participate in Dungeons and Dragons because even if they encounter someone who attempts to make fun of them for playing, they know there are seven other real-life people in their campaign who don’t think it is a lame or nerdy thing to do.

 

How can you do that with ASMR? When I first started writing this article, I was going to drop a bunch of statistics on just how many people watch ASMR (gentlewhispering has over a million followers) and the scientific research done into ASMR (researchers Emma Barratt and Nick Davis found it to have the similar therapeutic benefits to meditation). But now I’ve come to realise that that isn’t really the basis of my argument anymore. My argument is that it is difficult for someone to cite the Internet as a legitimate source to support the basis of your liking of something that is a little unconventional.

 

When I started getting into ASMR more, I introduced my friends to the concept ironically, telling them to watch these ‘really funny videos’ where people whisper in your ears. In truth, mentioning it to my friends was a test to see if someone got into it as much as me, to find someone who could be my real-life reference of someone who likes ASMR too.

 

But now, having listened to ASMR for almost a year, I have found that I can and do shamelessly like ASMR. And does it work for me? I have never gotten the ‘tingles’ ASMRtists often reference, but it does relax me, and rarely a night goes by that I don’t fall asleep listening to ASMR. I like it.

 

There are, of course, dark parts to every community. I woke up the other night to find that I had played through a bunch of ASMR videos due to YouTube’s automatic playthrough and had winded up on a Horror ASMR video. The lady in the video was dressed as a nurse and she (I think?) was running a Saw-style roleplay on me. That was alarming, to say the least, and I’m not really sure wqho would find that relaxing. But in a way I can kind-of appreciate that, too. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there in those roleplay videos, especially since people can anonymously drag you on the net.

 

So yes, I like ASMR. Me and at least a million other people like it. And although I cannot see them face-to-face, I still count myself as apart of the community, though oceans and wifi connections separate us. ASMR feels like a very one-on-one intimate experience, but it does have a community behind it.

 

Weirdness is measured, I think, by how many people partake enthusiastically and publically in a practise. But as long as people continue to cringe at content released on the internet, and turn up their noses at things they consider somehow less legitimate because of how they access it, we will be missing a lot of opportunities to engage in some truly amazing content and communities.

 

To see what Damon and Rose had to say about ASMR, I encourage you to check out their blogs. Neither really watch ASMR, so I think their opinions will present a refreshingly unbiased approach beside mine.

 

Check us out again next week for another topic on the Collaborative Point.