Oh Such a Good Sound: Remaking the World, or a

Case for a Macrocosmic Aesthetic of Grace in ASMR

Philip Rice

utonomous Sensory Meridian Response, known colloquially

as ASMR1 is a pseudoscientific neologism for a pleasurable physiological sensation reported by a number of people in response to soft sounds. The
exact definition of ASMR is somewhat fluid, but it is most often described as
a pleasant tingling sensation in the top of the head, extending down the neck
and spine, and in some cases reaching outer extremities, such as fingers and toes.
ASMR is generated most often by another person in close proximity creating soft
sounds with their voice, or by manipulating inanimate objects, such as brushing
hair, running fingernails along a wooden surface, or unwrapping paper packaging. Although ASMR can be generated in person, the most common form of
dissemination is through internet videos in which an ASMRtist curates sounds
specifically for the pleasure of her viewers.2 Many of these videos have become
very popular, some having view-counts well into the tens of millions.
Proponents of ASMR are quick to point out that the sensation is distinct from more familiar frissonthe spine chill or shiver felt in response
to emotionally powerful or aesthetically arresting stimulus such as music.3 One

1 In this essay, ASMR will refer to the response itself, as the acronym implies, but it will
also sometimes refer to the stimulus that creates the response (as in ASMR video or ASMR
recording where the noun modified is silent and implied). ASMR will also occasionally refer
collectively to the whole phenomenonits community of practitioners and its body of work.
2 Craig Richard, Be an ASMR artist, ASMR University, accessed November 22, 2015,
http://asmruniversity.com/be-asmr-artist/.
3 It should be noted that many of the references in this essay refer to ongoing conversations in online discourses containing fluid content that is subject to change. Because research on
ASMR is still in very early stages, most of the evidence about it is anecdotal. I will include brief
quotes from conversations from chat forums and message boards that might change between the
time this essay is written and the time when the reader might wish to investigate sources further.
In the case of frisson versus ASMR, many debates are ongoing, but the general consensus seems
to be that they are distinct phenomena. One thread on the ASMR SubReddit postulates that frisson and ASMR can be defined as distinct in the type of chemical release that accompanies them.
Frisson/chills is pretty common, and you can find a lot of info on it. One thing is clear : its linked
to the dopamine released in your brain. Usually triggered by music/emotionally intense moments.
ASMR, on the other hand, seems to be somewhat common but its quite hard to find any documentation on the subject. But most people tend to associate it to serotonin release. Mostly triggered by close, personal attention, ambiant [sic] sounds, calming voices. mahi-mahi, Lets settle

contributer to an ongoing conversation about the phenomenon on Reddit is

quick to point out that While [...] it is possible to get ASMR from music, its
not the most common trigger.4 This remark already invites a comparison with
music, but seems to prescribe that ASMR experiences and musical ones are separate. However, this statement always already assumes that the reader and/or the
author have a clear definition of what music is, which we already know to be relatively plastic and mutable. In this essay, I will argue for an aesthetics of ASMR,
and with it invite the possibility that specially crafted stimuli intended to evoke
ASMR might be understood as veritable musical compositions. I will further ask
that the reader consider that the experiential aspects of ASMR might in fact be
an altogether new kind of sonic discourse that resembles music as closely (or in
some cases more closely, depending on the definition) than things that are traditionally held to be unequivocally musical. At this point it is necessary to step
back from the theoretical conversation and define ASMR more precisely. Its requirements are relative, but is nevertheless more complex and nuanced than simply what I have outlined above.
I should mention here that I have not experienced ASMR in exactly the
way that its practitioners describethus I am not an expertalthough I do experience a kind of relaxation and some unique sensations that might resemble
tingles. I have not experienced a headgasmas the most typical sensation is
sometimes calledand it would be fitting here to establish one of the main tenants of ASMR, which is its decidedly non-sexual function. Headgasm, thus is
something of a misnomer because while the experience is indeed pleasurable, it
is not understood by most to be sensualrather purely and exclusively sensuous.
Like music, food, and other sensory stimuli, ASMR videos can be overlaid with
sexuality, and indeed many are,5 but the experience itself is not understood by
most to be connected with sexuality.6 It is easy to mistake ASMR for a sexual
phenomenon because the videos include strong representations of intimacy and
tenderness accompanied by detailed depictions of bodily contact. In many videos,
the ASMRtist acts as if she is in the same room as the viewer, whispering into
your ear, or even reaching outside the camera frame to virtually touch your
own body. The videos tend to happen in real time, and make only very limited
this. ASMR = serotonin release. Frisson/chills from music = dopamine release, ASMR Reddit,
March 19, 2011, accessed November 22, 2015, https://redd.it/g76xg.
4 mahi-mahi, Lets settle this...
5 There is a significant body of ASMR fetish videos, however those will not be a topic of
discussion in this essay.
6 A common misconception is that all ASMR content is erotic, sexual or perverted. This
is not the case. However, there are some dedicated fetish videos. Discoverasmr, Is ASMR erotic, sexual and perverted? February 6, 2015, accessed November 22, 2015, http://discoverasmr.
com/what-is-asmr/sexual-asmr/.

use of cinematic editing. Thus they can be very long, often upwards of an hour
or more of continuous footage, simulating real human interactions and conversations. The emphasis on mimicking real-life experience sets ASMR apart from
more stylized forms of expression such as song or film. ASMRtists often work
with 3Dio binaural microphones that are shaped like human ears, supposedly to create a representation of human hearing with perfect fidelity. They often
encourage their viewers to use high-quality headphones to maximize the virtual
reality of the auditory experience.

Figure 1. 3Dio binaural microphones.

In my research and conversations, I have concluded that ASMR seems to

operate on the following three prerequisites: First, it is a pleasurable physiological response to largely auditory stimulus with visual accompaniment often enhancing the effect. Second, it is connected with interpersonal intimacyASMR
does not typically happen when the source of sound is perceived to be public
or generated by a non-human agent (e.g. a person blowing into your ear could
create a response, but the wind outside probably wont). Third, high fidelity recording is a key enabler of the documented experience, strongly aided by new
developments in digital reproduction technology and newly-formed conduits of
sharing self-generated content on the internet.7 This third feature is not as much
a prerequisite for experiencing ASMR as much as it is an element of its eventual
discovery and dissemination. While personal narratives often include or emphasize real life experiences, the online community is where the phenomenon has
been described and where it has propagated. Much in the same way that orthographies reify language or notation reifies music, the online community of ASMR
content production and consumption has led to a developing stylistic discourse.
7 Some argue that ASMR can be generated with virtually any stimuli. The website ASMR
University defines it as responses to a wide variety of stimuli including visual, aural, and tactile.
However, a close look at examples given reveal that they all would only occur in intimate settings,
and all require a human agent: light touch, massage, hair touching, grooming, physical examination, eye gazing, slow hand movements, soft, whispering, slow, gentle, increased pitch, caring,
monotone, mouth sounds, chewing, blowing, tapping, scratching, cutting, crinkling, stroking,
handling etc. Craig Richard, What Is ASMR, ASMR University, accessed November 22, 2015,
http://asmruniversity.com/about-asmr/what-is-asmr/.

This triptych of qualifications invited me to consider what makes ASMR distinct

from music. It occurred to me that from an objective auditory stance, the sounds
of ASMR videos are superficially similar to much of the avant garde canon, especially electroacoustic compositions that feature soft sounds. For example, John
Cages Child of Tree (1975) features highly amplified soft rustling and plucking
sounds of the performers fingers on cactus thorns. The piece sounds like just the
sort of thing that ought to elicit ASMR. When I showed a video of a live performance8 of Child of Tree to a friend of mine who experiences ASMR, she immediately dismissed it. While she was not able to articulate exactly why, I believe that
intimacy might be key. Rather, than engaging with the viewer, the musician was
performing for a public audience, and it was clear that the video was a record
of that event, rather than an interaction between viewer and artist. It seems conceivable that in real life, or even given a different camera angle, the piece could
easily evoke ASMR.
I realized that an important facet of the ASMR experience involves a
power dynamic consisting of agent/subject or active/passive pairs. Because the
mode of dissemination is usually a recording (rather than, say, a video call), its
unidirectionality prescribes that one party always has all the agency and the other party merely tunes in. This relationship is strikingly similar to performer/
audience dynamics. Although the dimensions of necessity for audiences and performers are still widely discussed, the near-universal rejection of Babbits infamous Who Cares If You Listen (1958) in current musical discourses indicates
toward a musicality that is understood to be necessarily both sounded and heard,
both produced and consumed. The very term ASMR implicates the listener
the term is not named for the stimulus, but rather for the response. Interestingly,
this points in the opposite direction as the term music which calls up the muse,
or inspiration for making. Unlike painting, dance, or writing, which centralize act or actor, both music and ASMR acknowledge parties before or beside
themselves, and are thus always already understood to be social experiences.
In her essay for Queering the Pitch (2006), Susanne Cusick outlines a
framework in which sexual experience is understood to be defined as consisting
of a power/pleasure/intimacy triad.9 She argues that music can be approached
with varying attitudes toward power/pleasure/intimacy, including a lesbian approach. She further speculates that music itself might operate on the same terms,

8 Kevin Dufford, CHILD OF TREE - John Cage, YouTube. March 23, 2009, accessed
November 24, 2015, https://youtu.be/XOtfyYDeFRk.
9 Susanne Cusick, On A Lesbian Relationship With Music: A Serious Effort Not to Think
Straight, in Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, ed. Philip Brett, Elizabeth
Wood, and Gary C. Thomas (New York: Routledge, 2006), 71.

and thus asks what if music IS sex?10 Of course, Cusick is not arguing that
music is inherently erotic, rather that its operative nature might be more or less
indistinguishable from that of sex. The latter two parts of the triad (pleasure/
intimacy) are already understood to be requisite for ASMR, and I believe I have
made a case for power as well. Thus, while ASMR is not explicitly sexual, I believe it operates along the same lines and in the same kinds of social and/or theoretical spaces as sex, and by association, music. This essay, after all, is not about
sex, but rather about music. The sonic world of ASMR brings it into the puvue
of music; with its particular power dynamics and response-focused economy in
tow, it stands a strong candidate for a new kind of music.
The very fact of ASMRs candidacy as a musical genre is not particularly noteworthy. Indeed, musical genre is not a fixed arrayit has grown and
changed a great deal over the centuries, and surely will continue to do so for
as long as people are making music. However, I believe that the appearance of
ASMR in the cultural and social conversation of the world is of great significance
in that it might upset, challenge, and remake our fundamental understanding of
listening, sociality, and experience in the same way that polyphony altered the
way we heard melody, or the way opera changed the way we understood narrative. ASMR is postured to call into question long-held assumptions about the
role of technology in musical economies, to such a degree that I have been woefully unable to find a satisfactory theoretical framework to wholly account for
its particulars. Like a wind turbine in a coal-powered world, ASMR seems to
yield a familiar result, but does so in a bewilderingly unfamiliar way. In his book,
Noise (1977), Jacques Attali discusses how music can be a way of perceiving the
world,11 and further how music can prefigure or even predict yet-to-come paradigms in a changing society. Attali calls music a prophet,12 categorizing sound
into the norm (or what I might call the real) and the festivalan imposed
ritual order or commentary expressed through sound.13 Like almost all modern
and postmodern theories of music and society, Attalis is predicated on the notion that music does violent work to cause ruptures that result in changes: [N]
oise is violence: it disturbs. To make noise is to interrupt a transmission, to disconnect, to kill. It is a simulacrum of murder, [and] music is a channelization
of noise.14 Attali is not alone in either of these thoughtsMcClary, Kittler,
Ross, Turabian, Adorno, and nearly all who discuss music and technology in the
10 Ibid., 78.
11 Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 4.
12Ibid.
13 Ibid., 22
14 Ibid., 26.

contemporary era problematize both as volatile entities that jeopardize authenticity or threaten norms. Although these theories dont necessarily posture music
or recording as risky in the negative (i.e. they agree that both can and often do effect positive change), I would like to put forth the possibility of an emerging musical paradigm instead defined by tenderness, delicacy, and hyper-realism. ASMR
stands at the front-lines of this possibility. Just as Cusicks lesbian relationship
undoes the heteronormative power dynamic of music, I want to suggest that
while ASMR is indeed Attalis prophet, it unseats music as simulacrum of murder
or sacrifice and remakes it as a simulacrum of grace.
Macrocosm
The effect of mass media transmissions on the thoughts and behavior of audiences is well-documented and richly theorized. Friedrich Kittlers monograph
on sound and visual production technologies lays a foundation for thinking
about recording that does for them what Attali (and others) have done for music.
Kittler is quick to problematize the advent of recording technologies as heralding the death of human memory15 in much the same way that Benjamin was
concerned with the loss of artistic space in the age of mechanical reproduction.
Kittlers argument draws on long-held assumptions about the nature of recorded
material, dating back to Romantic thought, ones that I believe are easily traceable to ancient philosophy. Kittler quotes Goethe, saying that literature is but a
fragment of fragments,16 which sounds suspiciously like ancient Platonic warnings about art as an imperfect imitation of an already imperfect world. Kittler
thinks that reality might be arrested by the limits of language, and that in the
age of recording, this tradition continues with reproduced sound and image:
Time determines the limit of all art, which first has to arrest the daily data flow
in order to turn it into images or signs. What is called style in art is merely the
switchboard of these scannings and selections.17

Kittler further argues, like Attali, that sound (along with sight) are particularly
well-situated to define human experience and fashion worlds. Thus, he fears that
media has gone beyond aesthetics when eyes and ears have become autonomous.18 In 1986, Kittler could not have predicted an autonomy of eyes and ears
15 Friedrich Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, trans. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and
Michael Wutz (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 36.
16 Ibid., 6.
17 Ibid., 3.
18Ibid.

now seen in the silicone ears of 3Dio binaural microphones and the omnipresent
eyes of front-facing cameras on every laptop and smartphone. To be sure, Kittler
articulates the fear now resounding in conversations everywherewhat does the
ubiquity of recording do to the human experience? When everything can be and
is recorded, what is archived? To which recordings are we to ascribe meaning
and significance?19
Unlike Kittler, I do not believe that media is beyond aesthetics. Quite
the opposite, I believe that media encourages us to hear in different ways, and
works to alter our perception of time and space. Contrary to a popularly held
belief that the always-connected generation is falling out of touch with reality,
I believe that ASMR videos indicate toward an understanding of time that is
arguably more real than expressive mediums of past generations. In the art music world, we are already beginning to see music with temporal dimensions closer to macrocosm than microcosm. The work began by minimalists Glass, Reich,
and others in the 1970s and 1980s and continued today in the work of acoustic
ecologists including John Luther Adams and R. Murray Schafer. This ecology of
sound enacts an aesthetic that denies reduction of temporality in favor of recreation or retelling. Adamss The Place Where You Go to Listen (2006) is an ongoing sound installation that responds in real time to weather events and seismic
disturbances in Alaska. Precisely the opposite of a Wagnerian depiction of time
(condensing epochs into hours), for Adams, minutes are minutes and years are
years. The same is true, for online video content, much of which remains largely
unedited. ASMR videos do not cut from scene to scene, and employ none of
the limiting conventions to create style in the way Kittler describes. But ASMR
videos do have style, and an easily identifiable one at that, as do the musical compositions of the acoustic ecologists. Here I intend to introduce a macrocosmic
aesthetics of real-time sound, and consider how a body of sound compositions
are rapidly being consolidated into a musical identity that operates outside stylized time.
I do not want to diminish the effect of ASMR by providing excessively
detailed descriptions of the videos in this essay. The reader is encouraged to seek
out the videos on her own to experience them firsthand. Just as music and image
do not lend themselves well to the constraints of prosaic descriptions, so ASMR
is even more resistant to verbal explanation: it is ineffable in every conceivable
sense. However, for the sake of documentation, and more importantly argumentation, I would like to describe some of the ways that ASMR accomplishes the
19 A fascinating (and more informal) conversation about the ubiquity of recording technology and how it might change the way people posture themselves and behave socially can be heard
on the radio program RadioLab, from October 6, 2015, Smile My Ass. http://www.radiolab.
org/story/smile-my-ass/.

work that I have described above. First, it should not be assumed that the social aspects of ASMR place it outside a politics of canon formation. The ASMR
community has its great composers just like other communities of aesthetic
discourse. One such superstar of the ASMR world is Maria, a Russian expatriate living in Maryland.20 Marias YouTube channel is called GentleWhispering,
and features several landmark videos, including one that defines ASMR and invites viewers to join the community.21 One of her most popular videos is called
*_* Oh such a good 3D-sound ASMR video *_*22 from which I derived the title
for this paper. As of today, the video has about 13 million views. Maria apologizes
in the video description for the low quality because although she is using her
binaural microphone for a stereo effect, the video is only recorded at 480p (standard, rather than high definition). She gives a detailed playlist of events in the
video:
0:53-wooden brush sounds
3:00-smoke blowing
6:20-temples rub and scalp massage
10:07-shoulder rub
12:28-feather tickle

Two of the items in the list, temples rub and scalp massage and shoulder rub
seem impossible to transmit via recording. Nevertheless, Maria attempts to reach
outside the camera frame to touch the viewer, and creates accompanying
sounds in the microphones that resemble what you might hear were she actually
massaging your head. Now we arrive at one of the most perplexing elements of
ASMR transmissionthe attempt to exceed the limits of the medium itself. It is
here that Kittlers definition of style is shattered. This might sound metaphysical,
but consider for a moment that when Maria mimics a scalp massage, the viewer
might experience a tingling sensation on her head. Suddenly the viewer is not
only having an audio/visual experience, but a tactile one as well. Unlike sound
and picture which create an objectively observable simulacrum of real experience,
ASMR creates a subjective sensory experience that literally exceeds the physical
capabilities of the medium. It passes beyond simulation and simulacrum and becomes real in the body of the viewer. At one point in the video (during smoke
20 Caitlin Gibson, A whisper, then tingles, then 87 million YouTube views: Meet the star
of ASMR, The Washington Post, December 15, 2014, accessed November 23, 2015, http://wpo.
st/-WLr0.
21 GentleWhispering, What is ASMR? YouTube, December 15, 2014, accessed November 23, 2015, https://youtu.be/Kb27NHO_ubg.
22 GentleWhispering, *_* Oh such a good 3D-sound ASMR video *_*, YouTube, September 7, 2012, accessed November 23, 2015, https://youtu.be/RVpfHgC3ye0.

blowing) Maria wafts fragrances at the viewer from a bowl of scented oil, and
says she wants to hopefully create an aura. Although she is certainly not talking
about aura in a Benjaminian sense, she unknowingly gets to the heart of what
ASMR accomplishes: it challenges the notion that art objects lose their unique
position in time and space when they are reproduced. Here, the very medium of
transmission through a computer screen and headphones, combined with the
invocation of a sensory response, creates a spaceASMR fashions its own aura,
which is infinitely reproducible and infinitely varied.

Figure 2. Maria gives you a scalp massage.

Marias most recent video, ...Tap That Glass... ASMR / Tapping

was published just three days prior to my writing this essay. In it, sounds are curated and organized by timbre and pitch, and Maria manipulates the resonance
of sonorous objects by dampening them and applying various types of percussive
action. When she plays glass beads hanging around her own neck, she remarks,
I can play it like a musical instrument.23 The world of ASMR continues to expand into ever more complex shapes and elaborate aesthetic configurations. The
edges of the two-dimensional video frame are already being opened with new
spherical videos that allow the user to freely explore a representation of 360
space. One of the most compelling of these 3D videos is The K3YS, a collaboration between three of the most popular ASMRtists: GentleWhispering (Maria), HeatherFeatherASMR (Heather), and ASMRrequests (Ally).24 Each artist
created her own traditional video, which appeared on their respective channels,
and the three then co-created another video in a three-dimensional virtual environment where they interact. This project comes close to employing a narrative
structurethe women have matching costumes, props, and a virtual set that
conjures the appearance of a forest at night. The video features poetry, music,
23 GentleWhispering, ...Tap That Glass... ASMR / Tapping, YouTube, November
19, 2015, accessed November 23, 2015, https://youtu.be/lwe7Rrb_FEA.
24 ASMRrequests (Ally), HeatherFeatherASMR (Heather),
and GentleWhispering (Maria), The K3YS (Online: LittleStar, 2015), accessed November 24,
2015. http://littlstar.com/videos/6d352a4b.

tactile triggers, and spoken word: by most estimates it looks like an experimental
opera. When defining where and how The K3YS exists, it becomes clear that it
intersects and transcends its own world(s) in multiple dimensionsthe video
itself is three-dimensional (despite being on a flat screen), and it resides in four
virtual places (channels) at once. Projects like The K3YS explode the genre of
ASMR into increasingly more complex spaces with ever more stylized aesthetics.
Still, the videos retain a profound sense of personal attention, intimacy, and realness: the viewer is always already at the center of a spherical video.
a simulacrum of grace
An argument for an aesthetics of ASMR will not be complete without consideration of its politics. It is a unique politics that I believe most strongly invites
the possibility for a radically new kind of sonic tradition, one that poses significant problems to theories of violence and rupture that dominate modern and
postmodern musical discourse. In her book, The Body In Pain: The Making and
Unmaking of the World (1985), Elaine Scarry discusses how bodily sensation,
especially pain, is fundamentally inexpressible.25 Language stands in as transmitter of information about sensation, a medium that Scarry argues is wholly
inadequate for pain because suffering so often renders the speaker inarticulate.
A huge quantity of expressive art and literature, then, must represent an effort
against this inexpressibility, having informed thought about human experience
across art, philosophy, politics, religion, medicine, etc. It is worth noting that the
same is true for intense pleasure: indeed, most people become wordless during
moments of intense gratification, joy, excitement, etc., and a great deal of artistic and literary work surely also addresses these pleasurable experiences. I think
Scarrys virtual omission of pleasure from her discussion is no accident, though,
and I think it stands entirely in line with what I have said earlier about discourses surrounding self-expressionespecially sonic onesthat define meaning in
terms of painful destruction. Literature (in both theory and practice) tracing
its origins all the way back to Aristotles Poetics positions tragedy as the most
meaningful and communicative form of dramatic expression. Indeed, music is
no stranger to this thinkingtheories of music have all identified dissonance as
the sole style-generating structural feature. Tension and release has historically
been the primary means by which music is understood to create drama, and by
association, to evoke a human response. Works of art that enact no tension or
conflict are regarded as drama-less and thus rendered unable to create a response:
effectively marking them as meaningless.
25 Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).

10

ASMR directly challenges the supremacy of drama for the simple reason
that it is not predicated on conflict, yet creates a measurable qualitative response.
The videos are expressly and explicitly designed to invoke a relaxed state, and the
sounds they employ tend to be consistent, unified, and non-dynamic. ASMR
initiates release without creating tension. Here it would be very easy to begin to
speculate about the reasons for the appearance of a tension-less music at this particular historical momentperhaps our world has become so incredibly saturated with tensions that music no longer needs to simulate them. I will not venture
at such conjecture, and will leave the reader to ponder those questions. However, I do not think the radical and fundamental counterpoint of ASMR against
traditional notions about music can be under-emphasized. Attalis and Scarrys
worlds are made and unmade out of murder, sacrifice, violence and pain, but the
world of ASMR is remade with tenderness, affection, clemency, and peace. It
asks nothing of the viewer, and doesnt come at the expense of the performer.
Yet it generates a very real and powerful response. ASMR, then, must be seen as
post-apocalyptic: it stands in the aftermath of a destructive world-war of music
that took place in the twentieth century, one which now sees its end in a new
paradigm of sharing and caring on the internet.
Nitin Ahujas short article for Perspectives in Biology and Medicine is the
only other scholarly essay I have been able to find on the topic of ASMR. Ahuja,
an MD, examines ASMR through a literary lens in order to glean what it might
teach doctors about clinical medical practice. In his discussion, he describes a
Postmodern sensitivity that might be borne out in the customs of ASMR. I
tend to see the phenomenon as rather more connected with Post-postmodern
movements like so-called New Sincerity that shed Postmodernisms ironic
exterior in favor of greater emotional authenticity and personal transparency.26
Ahuja also considers that ASMR might present a vision of the problematized relationship between technology and modern loneliness sorting itself out.27 With
this latter point, I wholly agree. Rather than enforcing body-negativity, distance,
or cool impersonal acrimony, the very mediating interface of the internet seems
to be bringing people into more intimate and human spaces, and increasingly
more embodied awareness. Musical response, now, can be felt in the head, skin,
and limbs, and not only in the ears, and the internet seems to be just the place
to do it. Comment threads on ASMR videos are filled with rapturous dialogue
of deep affection, appreciation, and gratitude. To anyone familiar with YouTube
26 Jonathan D. Fitzgerald, Sincerity, Not Irony, Is Our Ages Ethos, The Atlantic, November 20, 2012, accessed November 23, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/11/sincerity-not-irony-is-our-ages-ethos/265466/.
27 Nitin K. Ahuja, It Feels Good to Be Measured: Clinical Role-Play, Walker Percy, and
the Tingles, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 56, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 448.

11

culture, a comment thread not brimming with hostility is a rare sight.

Nick Messitte wrote for Forbes earlier this year, wondering what could
happen if ASMR became a bona fide musical genre, able to be commercialized.28
Messitte invites the reader to imagine a world where ASMR is a category on Billbord charts. Although this might at first seem like the stuff of science fiction, superstars like GentleWhispering have already monetized their YouTube channels.
Maria expressed concerns about what that income might mean for the authenticity and sincerity of her work, saying in an interview that she has maintained
a day job even though she could produce a higher volume of videos and live off
money from advertisements.
Ive realized that I just cannot do it as a job; I almost start to resent it. If this
is the only thing I have to do, its going to be very hard to do it on the genuine
level I want.29

The problem of economy brings us back to Attali, and his hope for a music that
can end the pattern of objectification and violence enacted by organized sound
since antiquity. McClary elegantly articulates Attalis prophecy in her afterword
to Noise, identifying in his text a desire for a new music, controlled neither by
academic institutions nor by the entertainment/recording industry.30 If ASMR
communities can successfully circumnavigate the danger of what happens when

Figure 3. A sampling of typical comments on a GentleWhispering video

(from *_* Oh such a good 3D-sound...).
28 Messitte, Nick. Is There Any Money To Be Made In ASMR? Forbes. March 31, 2015,
accessed November 23, 2015, http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmessitte/2015/03/31/is-thereany-money-to-be-made-in-asmr/.
29Gibson.
30 Attali, 38.

12

people listen to it in silence and exchange it for money31 (although the former is of course already true) they stand ready to enact this new music in a way
unimaginably different from what Attali anticipated. While he calls for an end
to repetitive rituals of recording and performance, which he believes imprison
sound though violent enclosure, ASMR videos seem defined by their very reproducibility, indeed ritualistically so. The medium of recording itself builds private
chambers of quiet grace that are forever inhabitable, mutable, nurturing, and
mellifluous. Rather than inflicting lethal wounds of change, the space, people,
time, and aesthetic of ASMR all seem to hover weightlessly in suspension, reviving our senses to life over and over as we patiently look, listen, and feel.

31 Susan McClary, The Politics of Silence and Sound, afterword to Noise: The Political
Economy of Music, by Jacques Attali (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009): 149.

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