The appeal of ASMR
Intense personal attention
The people we interviewed often said part of the appeal of ASMR videos was the soothing or attentive role played by the ASMRtist themselves.
In many videos, the content creators act out a scenario using a POV or ‘point of view’ style, playing a character and assigning the viewer an assumed role in the scenario too – as a friend, a boyfriend or girlfriend, a patient, or a client. They speak directly to the camera, making eye contact, sharing confidences, paying the viewer compliments. They might be doing your make-up, kissing you, doing a cranial nerve test or eye exam or reading your fortune.
Twenty-year-old Amelia said she enjoyed ASMR role-play videos of spa treatments or medical consultations because she liked the feeling of being paid this kind of close personal attention.
“Personal attention is like, somebody putting full attention… so, like, if it's a role-play that's specific to, I guess, the subject, which would be me listening, on something they're doing to me, or to something else, like, fixing something else in front of me, or, like, the barbershop thing would be cutting my hair.” – Amelia, 20
While watching his favourite personal attention video, Mike likes pretending he’s a robot in need of an MOT.
“There's an old one that I watched that's a really, really good one. ‘Dana ASMR: let me fix you.’
“It’s one where you're, like a robot and they're doing a service on you. Like how you do, like, a service or an MOT. But that one's got, like, loads of unscrewing panels with, like, a little drill, digital button pressing sort of noises. Yeah. That, mixed with personal attention. Some talking, some periods where there's just those sounds. A bit of binaural audio when, like, they’re unscrewing one ear to fix it. So you've only got one ear that's actually got sound in, and the other one’s, like, blank, as if there's no ear there while its being fixed.” – Mike, 27
Whether sci-fi, medical, romantic or in some cases softcore pornographic – these videos have in common an emphasis on the role-player giving you, and only you, their sole attention. Words like ‘pampering’, ‘preening’, ‘comforting’, ‘close-up’ and ‘intense’ are commonly included in the video captions and hashtags.
The role-play often includes ‘affirmations’ – compliments or reassurances that you, the viewer, have great skin, are beautiful, valued, or loved. In the medical genre you might have ‘perfect nerve responses’, or in Mike’s robot service the viewer is told, “Look at you, looking like a fancy new robot.”
These videos can be seen as the digital equivalent of the explosion in offline ‘self-care’ and pampering products and services – spas, gong baths, massages, nail salons, even yoga. These also often include elements common to some ASMR videos – head massage, affirmations, immersive audio, personalised experiences.
ASMR | Relaxing Spa Treatments for Sleep - Personal Attention
Clip taken from a 30 min video with 1.8 million views on YouTube
Let Me Fix You - Home Robot Annual Checkup RP
Clip taken from 55 min video with 11 million views on YouTube
Daphne, one of the ASMR content creators we interviewed, said in her experience, “people like to feel taken care of”, and that’s what she believed drew viewers to personal attention role-play videos.
“It's someone, like, physically taking care of you and giving you some personal attention, so to speak. I think people like the nurturing aspect of that.”
Because “people love praise”, Daphne always incorporates ‘positive affirmations’ or compliments into the videos she makes.
“My audience really likes that and I really like that when I hear it in ASMR videos. So positive affirmations are, I think, for me, a really important part of ASMR… And I think, from the comments I get from my own viewers, like, people just really, really love that nurturing aspect of being complimented and cared about, I guess.”
Daphne believes many people watch personal attention ASMR videos because they’re lonely and they’re seeking human connection.
“They feel like they can have a connection with another person, even if it's just, like, in their head.”
Several of the interviewees mentioned that they enjoyed the feeling of personal attention in ASMR videos without the attendant unpredictability or stress of receiving such personal attention in a similar real-life situation, for example a medical appointment.
“It’s pretend, it’s not real. You don’t actually have whatever they’re talking about and it’s usually like, kind of like an examination, then [at] the end but ‘Oh yeah, you’re fine.’ … It’s kind of just like attentive personal attention that kind of makes you feel safe.” – Anne
ASMR | Positive Affirmations
Clip taken from 23 min video with 638k views on YouTube
“I think someone giving you attention like that is very much like a sort of luxury experience”
Amelia, 20
“It's something that you don't get on your day-to-day. Someone pampering you, as it were. I don't have time to do that myself, so it's like a quick thing I can engage with that gives you the same feeling.”
Amelia, 20, watches role-play ASMR videos, mostly involving an ASMRtist pretending to give spa treatments or medical examinations using a POV (point of view) perspective. The content creator might role-play a beautician, addressing the camera directly as if the viewer were their ‘client’, talking through the skincare products they’re planning to use on them, arranging fluffy towels and putting on relaxing music. The scenario is arranged and filmed so that the viewer feels as if they’re lying on the treatment table. They see fingertips applying products to their ‘face’, while the ‘beautician’ tells them how beautiful and soft their skin is to touch. In others, an ASMRtist might appear in an optometrist’s white coat, holding up an eye test chart and appearing to shine a light in the camera as if looking directly into the viewer’s eye. Amelia likes the feeling that they’re paying her close personal attention.
“A lot of the videos I'm watching are role-play videos. All of them are addressing you like you're a person that's in front of them.”
“I think it's mostly, like, the face-touching that you're looking at, so for example the optometry and stuff like that, they’re, like, close up to the face. And I think that's what I find the most relaxing about it.”
“Looking at it from an outsider's perspective, making role-plays on things that are to do with your health is a little bit odd, maybe. I'm not sure what it is that makes that particularly relaxing, unless it's just the very personal element of it, that it's someone who's doing something for you specifically.”
Amelia, who is studying at Manchester University, finds living with her noisy flatmates stressful. She watches ASMR videos as a distraction and to block out background noise while at home. She also uses them to help her relax and get to sleep, which is how she first discovered them.
“I started listening to it in 2020 during the lockdown, the summer lockdown. I was supposed to be doing my GCSEs and then Covid hit, and then suddenly I had nothing to do. I think with so much free time, for some reason that meant that I didn't sleep very well. Like, I was quite restless with trying to work out what to do with my time. And I found that ASMR really relaxed me and really helped me go to sleep.”
ASMR Roleplay | Full Medical Exam Whispered
Clip taken from 20 min video with 1.7 million views on YouTube
“I think it’s tied to loneliness and people wanting some kind of human connection”
Daphne has been making ASMR videos for around three years. She specialises in content with an emphasis on immersive storytelling – often with a sci-fi vibe – and where possible she tries to film and incorporate nature sounds from the countryside near her Colorado home.
She typically spends two to three weeks making each video, which she usually shares on YouTube, often posting snippets on TikTok to entice people to watch the full video. She started out on TikTok – her first ever ASMR video got six million views – but although she gets fewer views on YouTube, it provides the potential to earn more, which is important as this is now her full-time job.
“I would say, like, okay, if I get, like, a million views on TikTok, [it] can either yield you, like, $50 to $100. A million views on YouTube probably would yield you around $4,000. So it's made a big difference.”
Posting to YouTube also means Daphne feels she can make more varied content.
“So, for example, if I have this long role-play on YouTube that incorporates some… trigger sounds at various moments, like, let's say I do, like, some visual effects with magic, and I use, like, I layer in some of those sounds, I'll use that little section for TikTok because that's gonna perform better on TikTok.
“Whereas, kind of, some of the more quiet moments of my longer videos are not gonna perform well on TikTok… But if I make content just for TikTok, I try to make it really heavily focused on personal attention. Yeah, people love personal attention on TikTok.”
Daphne says she thinks a lot of viewers of ASMR personal attention videos, as well as the stories and characters she creates, appeal to people because they are seeking comfort and connection. Based on the reactions to her own videos, and the research she does into other ASMR videos, she doesn’t think the majority of people watching ASMR videos feel tingles, rather that they’re more commonly watching for these reasons.
“Honestly, I think a lot of people are really lonely… I think everyone suffers from loneliness at times, like, at various points in their life, and role-plays kind of, like, it kind of breaks the fourth wall. It, like, it's almost like a, I've described it to some of my friends like it's like a virtual friend sometimes.
“And I think some people really find comfort in that, in that friendliness aspect. It helps them with their loneliness and kind of takes them out of their everyday life. And they feel like they can have a connection with another person, even if it's just, like, in their head, you know, like, they're just watching this video, but the person in the video is talking to the viewer, like, talking to them. So I really think it's so closely tied to loneliness and, like, people wanting some kind of, you know, human connection.”
“It’s kind of a feeling of everything’s going to be okay”
Cal, 29
Cal says he doesn’t get tingles from ASMR videos. He watches them because he finds them relaxing and reassuring. “It's kind of a feeling of like everything's going to be okay, I guess it's almost like a, kind of like, a safe space.”
He’s made a playlist of ASMR videos he likes to return to and says there are some ASMR creatives whose content he particularly enjoys.
“I have, like, some, favourite ASMR people that I listen to, and I guess there's maybe, like a parasocial element to it because they talk about their life and you kind of get invested in what they're up to and stuff like that.”
He says “unintentional ASMR” – content which hasn’t been created to elicit ASMR but which has that effect on some viewers – “works” particularly well for him. He listens to it in the background while he’s gaming or working in the flat he shares with his wife in Glasgow.
“I find it's mostly kind of like educational ASMR, and it almost, I don't know, it has this feeling of, like, it takes you back to being a kid again and, like, a teacher's teaching you something. I don't know, it's like a relaxing feeling. It's hard to explain.”
He says he used to focus on the videos, watching and listening to them at the same time, but now he more often just listens to them.
“I have ADHD and I don't know if it's maybe something to do with that, where when I first discovered it, it was kind of new and I could focus on it easier, but now I guess I'm more used to it, so it doesn't… I guess I feel more restless if it's just the only thing I'm watching. But I still like to have it as a background noise, I think. Yeah, it's maybe that I don't find it as engaging when it's my sole focus, but it helps provide a relaxing atmosphere, I suppose.”
He also enjoys watching ASMR videos of someone having a massage, or visiting a spa, but he doesn’t like the POV videos in which it’s as though he’s getting the treatment himself.
“I guess I gravitate towards more natural ASMR rather than when I feel like someone’s trying to ‘do’ ASMR, it doesn’t work as well for me.”
He says in the 10 or so years he’s been watching ASMR, it’s become more acceptable to talk about it. At first, he didn’t even tell his wife he watched it.
“I remember until a few years ago I was, like, super embarrassed to mention to people that I listened to ASMR. But I think it’s become a bit more of a mainstream thing, maybe because of Instagram and TikTok.”
ASMR Teaching You Logic - Soft-Spoken, Chalk Sounds
Clip taken from 40 min video with 53k views on YouTube
So relaxing ASMR Scalp Treatment to Fall Asleep to
Clip taken from 30 min video with 2.9 million views on YouTube
Why do people enjoy videos where a stranger pretends to pay such focused, intimate and personal attention to the ‘viewer’? Our interviewees suggest they find it relaxing, comforting, or even luxurious to feel as if someone is focusing on them and only them, even when thousands of others are watching the same video.
Some hypothesise that this comfort and craving is more acute for people who may be lacking that intimate social connection offline.
Summary
The soothing or attentive ‘personal attention’ role-played by the ASMRtist was cited by several of the people we interviewed – and our wider research – as a large part of their appeal.
In many videos, the content creators act out a scenario using a POV or ‘point of view’ style, playing a character and assigning the viewer an assumed role in the scenario too – as a friend, a boyfriend or girlfriend, a patient, or a client. They speak directly to the camera, making eye contact, sharing confidences, paying the viewer compliments.
Words like ‘pampering’, ‘preening’, ‘comforting’, ‘close-up’ and ‘intense’ are commonly included in the video captions and hashtags.
The role-play often includes ‘affirmations’ – compliments or reassurances that you, the viewer, have great skin, are beautiful, valued, or loved.
Read chapter 5 part 4 of ‘The appeal of ASMR’
Exploring why slime, saliva, and other tactile substances are so common in ASMR videos
Sign up to hear more
Get in touch
If you have any questions or would like to talk to us about this work, feel free to email: damon.deionno@revealingreality.co.uk to speak with the research team.
+44 (0)20 7735 8040
The Ballroom, Maritime House, Grafton Square, SW4 0JW
September 2024