You know something’s up at Cult of Mac headquarters when you see Leander sitting with his fingers steepled, exuding an air of complete calm.
It’s like a zen garden around here ever since I told him about ASMR videos, the strangely addictive YouTube phenomenon that turns quiet sounds into something like an aural orgasm.
Now he can’t get enough of the weirdly creepy clips — and I feel a little like a guy who inadvertently turned his friend on to crack.
ASMR is short for autonomous sensory meridian response, a phenomenon in which people feel a pleasurable tingling in their scalp, neck or other areas when listening to certain subtle sounds.
It’s a strange sensation that apparently not everybody can experience. But plenty of people can: ASMR, while scientifically controversial, is fueling a minor craze among a certain segment of YouTube viewers who can’t get enough of soft whispers, rustling papers and tippy-tapping fingers.
Videos by people like Maria, aka GentleWhispering, rack up millions of views as people who experience the strange sensations go online to get an earful of ecstasy.
“I believe that everybody has the ability to experience it,” Maria says in one of her videos introducing ASMR. “It’s simply a matter of finding the trigger that speaks to you.”
Well, Leander found lots of triggers that speak to him, and now he’s one of those ASMR true believers, existing in a state of perpetual bliss — headphones on, staring relaxedly at his iMac as Maria whispers sweet nothings about … crumpled paper or something.
He’ll tell you all about it in this week’s edition of Kahney’s Korner.
