Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is defined in a BBC News article as “a strange tingle in the head caused by certain sights and sounds” and “a growing YouTube subculture”. The discussion of ASMR is a fairly recent phenomenon and it is not wholly recognized, but this BBC article claims that these ASMR-triggering videos, where users often whisper or make “crinkling” sounds, help viewers to relieve stress and sleep at night.
On week one, we learned about the communication model. This
includes nonverbal communications like paralanguage, the use of voice that
doesn’t have to do with words, which is where ASMR fits in. TinyMixTapes.com, when talking about ASMR YouTube videos notes, “the tingling sensation that each
piece aims to invoke comes from a combination of often delicate, fragile
sounds, while the narrator uses whispering as their primary method for
communicating actions or signals to their audience.” They were covering YouTube
user softsoundwhispers’s video titled “ASMR Facemask – Festive Cranberry Face Brushing”. If you watch the beginning of the video, you’ll note that the user, Jenny,
speaks in the aforementioned “delicate, fragile” whisper that is intended to
trigger the ASMR response. It doesn’t really matter what she’s talking about,
it’s how she’s talking that matters. If this were just a makeup tutorial
video, the YouTube user would speak in a normal tone instead of a whisper.
What I find fascinating about these ASMR videos is the way
they use paralanguage to illicit a very specific response, and how that
response can vary from what I’ve read that others feel (relaxing) to what I’ve
experienced (heightened discomfort). In short, I think these ASMR videos are
scary. The unease inspired by the whispers and tones recalls something out of a
David Lynch movie, or the creepy disembodied whisper of “sweet girl” that Nina
hears in Aronofsky’s ballet horror Black Swan.
Another instance of ASMR that caught my attention was “Lonely at the Top”, a song (if one could
call it that) featured on Holly Herndon’s album Platform, released last year on
4AD, one of my favorite music labels. Since the album was covered on some of my
favorite music websites, and I follow 4AD on social media, I approached the
album. Although Herndon’s music is totally inscrutable to me, it is kind of
awesome that she devoted a whole song on her album to the monologue of ASMR
specialist Claire Tolan. I challenge you to listen to this track for more than
10 seconds without feeling uncomfortable. I am not sure if Herndon’s approach
is subversive or has some hidden meaning, (like I said, shit’s inscrutable),
but I believe this to be the first intentionally ASMR-triggering piece to be
featured on an album in the history of music.
Back to the BBC article, the writer traveled to Sheffield to
partake in an ASMR study where he met someone who shares my discomfort. He says
PhD assistant Theresa Veltri “finds many of the videos frankly rather creepy -
and rather sexual”. Of course we must consider the implications of whispers and
how they operate as an example of paralanguage in the communication model.
Whispers can be relaxing, or creepy, or sexual. Or maybe two or all three at
once. The world of ASMR seems to achieve this bizarre combination.
