
Inside the Whispery, Wonderful Golden Age of ASMR - laurex
https://www.newsweek.com/2018/09/07/asmr-whisper-videos-tingles-craig-richard-whisperlodge-1096749.html
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subjectsigma
It's funny, I was thinking the exact opposite just yesterday, that the Golden
Age of ASMR had passed and that we're in some sort of Dark Ages. Most content
I see now in YouTube is unimaginative, low-quality attention whoring. Young
people (usually women, but not always) just doing random shit on camera with a
clickbait title and calling it ASMR.

Maybe I'm grumpy and crotchety, or maybe it's because I have very specific
triggers, but I almost never enjoy 'intentional' ASMR and I especially dislike
some of the more commercialized or sexualized content. It just feels like the
opposite of what ASMR is supposed to be, which is simple and relaxing.

~~~
colordrops
I would suggest checking out some of the Korean ASMR out there. Yes, most of
it is done by pretty women, but it's usually not sexualized, and very creative
and relaxing. Now, Chinese ASMR, that is often sexualized. I honestly don't
find a problem with it, and don't understand why others do.

~~~
sasaf5
I think the strong consonants of Korean speech help making the videos more
ASMR triggering. I am also fond of them.

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drusepth
Interesting timing. I thought I'd check out ASMR recently and, wow, the videos
I found were bad. Like, really bad. I completely gave up on it as a medium
after giving a half dozen different videos a shot, and went back to rainymood
(although I'd love to find some delightful newspaper crinkling or Scottish
accents).

For reference, here's the videos that served as my introduction to ASMR:

* "ASMR: My Treasured Darling [Irish Accent] [Gaelic] [3D Sound][TLC]" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJiojl9ixRw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJiojl9ixRw)

* "Zen ASMR | Typing & Soft/Whisper | Coding: Python | # 1" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWMYKfiNYts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWMYKfiNYts)

* "ASMR Keyboard Sound 1H (No Talking)" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6noMxePbj6w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6noMxePbj6w)

* "ASMR Paper sounds , Old book , Crinkling ( No Talking )" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgtbr5oQeQw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgtbr5oQeQw)

* "ASMR~ Fixing You {Keyboard Sounds}" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEpBdb-RGRM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEpBdb-RGRM)

* "ASMR Ear to Ear Whisper About C Programming for Relaxation (Layered Typing Sounds) Pt. 1" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrFegNHpHfc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrFegNHpHfc)

To people who enjoy ASMR: are these videos just especially bad videos, or am I
just not doing it right / appreciating it right? FWIW, I quit each video after
a minute or two, after skipping around to see if they get any better. The
thing that bothers me the most is when there's these ridiculously long spaces
between words (maybe.. for emphasis?), but comes across as them just not
knowing what to say, which is extremely offputting. OTOH, it's in every video
i've watched so far so I don't know if it's intentional.

~~~
qualitative
It's pretty much just a cover fronting for a genre of soft core cheesecake
pinup phone sex.

It targets from two angles, the models don't really understand the cheap
thrills listeners get from this audio, and the listeners retain plausible
deniability for the sexualization of their fantasies, such that they don't
have to admit to hoarding pornography, as is the case with images and video.

~~~
soylentcola
Sadly this is more about Youtube views and has become a huge bummer for me. I
started listening to some of these early videos around 9 or 10 years ago and
they weren't referred to as ASMR videos at first but rather I'd search for
"whisper videos", "soft spoken relaxation videos", and stuff like that.

These typically didn't even show the person who was speaking as you typically
listened on headphones while laying down to relax. I found it soothing and
they probably triggered some instinctive reaction to non-sexual intimacy and
care.

Over the years it's become harder to find videos that soothe and relax me in
this way because the "scene" that has developed around ASMR seems to focus on
all sorts of weird sounds like tapping on stuff, loud crinkling, rubber
gloves, and the absolute worst (for me)...touching the damn mic!

If I'm trying to relax with some soothing, soft voice talking me through some
relaxation scenario or just something to zone out on while I fall asleep, the
last thing I want to hear is some loud, unexpected sound or brushing on the
mic. As someone who has done quite a bit of video and audio production, if
someone bumps or touches the mic it's not a good thing and it just kicks me
out of whatever relaxing, tingly zone I may have been sinking into.

I understand that a lot of people dig the foley art and sound effects but it
seems like now (on youtube at least) it's 95% crinkly, crackly, brushy, tappy,
chewing (ugghhh) sounds made right up into a mic by some pretty girl in front
of a ring light and a DIY chromakey backdrop. None of this is relaxing or
soothing to me and it certainly doesn't trigger any ASMR tingles in me...

...but I'm sure it helps boost those view counts and grab viewer attention
when that sexy thumbnail shows up in the Youtube listing.

~~~
bachbach
>the absolute worst (for me)...touching the damn mic!

It really is the worst.

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strict9
To many, whisper content in commercials and other A/V is the equivalent of
nails on a chalkboard or someone clipping their finger nails.

Can think of few trends that are so anxiety and discomfort inducing as
intentional loud whispering. I sincerely hope it disappears as quickly as it
arrived.

~~~
dmix
Same, I demand my partner uses headphones whenever she listens to ASMR in bed
(which is pretty often). It makes me very uncomfortable. It's almost an
irrational reaction, but a real and uncontrollable one for me.

~~~
Kiro
I wouldn't be able to live with someone who couldn't stand ASMR, much less
someone who would get irritated by it.

~~~
dmix
Relationships are full of compromises like this. I put up with it occasionally
but generally asking her to wear headphones when she listens to ASMR (which I
believe youre supposed to anyway) is not a big ask.

~~~
xarball
You can even go the extra step and get them realistic noise-canceling ones for
sleeping. They'll probably even thank you for it!

------
bachbach
Personally I enjoy the Cranial Nerve Exams and some of the unintentional asmr
videos such as Sequoya by Lucas Paakh, the infamous T.M Lewin suit fitting
video and that video on the Alexander Technique.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAfBsrds4_g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAfBsrds4_g)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_qc5Veo9p84](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_qc5Veo9p84)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXqIuvav5hY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXqIuvav5hY)

~~~
keithnz
I like those, and also the vietnam barber shop stuff for some weird reason
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqwnv1eLfY4&t=836s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqwnv1eLfY4&t=836s)

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PinkMilkshake
My trigger is hairdryers. This is the best channel by far:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ryuK4Fv1hvvIxMcXfcHsQ/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ryuK4Fv1hvvIxMcXfcHsQ/videos)

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a_imho
ASMR is probably pretty well suited to ML. I had a sox one liner generating
~infinite content from [no talking] ASMR videos, which worked surprisingly
well with some post processing in audacity. I would guess today some services
could synthesize convincing speech too.

~~~
wrinkl3
Would you mind sharing the said oneliner? I've never worked with sox, but it
looks interesting.

~~~
a_imho
Sorry, it seems I lost it.

It was nothing fancy at all though, I simply piped youtube-dl to sox, cut up
the original audio on 'silence' (some tweaking the thresholds for what is
considered silence was necessary) then concatenated the resulting segments in
random order until it was long enough. Then some manual touches with audacity.

End result was something like this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO_Z3MLZrNQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO_Z3MLZrNQ)

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ryan-allen
I've never had the experience with any videos online, but I do get it with
certain music, and I got it a _lot_ more when I was younger.

I still get it a bit active listening to this song:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UviPosBdGAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UviPosBdGAo)

~~~
glastra
Could it be that you are referring to frisson and not ASMR?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson)

~~~
ggm
What if I told you ASMR is just a frisson brought into the future?

Oh. My. God! I'm having one now. No.. hang on. That's horripilation.

