Thursday, March 01, 2018
ASMR at Bernie's. I first got into ASMR in 2013. It began because sometimes I would get a strong yearning for a massage, but I have nobody to massage me, so I would look on YouTube for massage videos in order to vicariously experience being massaged. As I watched I would imagine I was the model in the video, and it would actually give me prosthetic feelings of relaxation. (STORY IDEA: MASSAGE ROBOTS)
One of the first channels I became obsessed with was PsycheTruth, and in particular a massage therapist named Athena Jezik.
What I particularly like about Athena's videos is that she is mic'd up and narrates what she's doing in an instructional kind of way, as if you're a junior colleague she's instructing. This gives her videos a wholesome pedagogical tone that makes you feel okay about watching a stranger being massaged. The production values are really high, too – you see the model really clearly from multiple angles, whereas some other videos I found are restricted by having a fixed camera placement, which limits their ability to display what the masseur is doing.
Yet there's also New Age relaxation music in the background, which makes you realise that the massage is a soothing spectacle intended for you as well as for the recipient, who is a passive model.
I would watch lots of other videos on the PsycheTruth channel. It's a very diverse wellness channel that does everything from yoga and massage to health tips and guided meditations. Another of my favourites is Corrina Rachel, whom I first saw as a model in one of Athena's videos. Corrina also seemed to spearhead Psychetruth's ASMR vertical, which moved away from wellness to the stylised set of 'triggers' that constitutes the ASMR genre. (But more about that another time.)
Dmitri is a masseur from the Gold Coast who seems to have quickly cottoned on to the fact that people like me were watching YouTube massage videos not for pedagogical reasons but for their relaxing, ASMR-inducing qualities. He started his channel, MassageASMR, in December 2012, which makes him one of the genre's early adopters. 'Foreign' accents are very popular in ASMR, but I found Dmitri's recognisably Australian accent really weird and offputting. I also don't like the hushed tones he adopts, although I realise other people really love whispering.
But it's kind of unfortunate that here, he's working on a disembodied, Dickie Knee-style head. Is that scalp attached to a person?
Late at night is when I indulge in huge binges of ASMR videos, and I am always struck by how weirdly present their means of production is. The ones I prefer are the ones that feel transparent, where you can't see the mics, let alone have to witness people nuzzling them while whispering soothingly. It always seems weird to me that this genre is so heavy, still (it's comparatively mature now, generically), on live performance rather than creating the ASMR effect in post. I wonder if 'liveness' is central to its appeal.
One of the first channels I became obsessed with was PsycheTruth, and in particular a massage therapist named Athena Jezik.
What I particularly like about Athena's videos is that she is mic'd up and narrates what she's doing in an instructional kind of way, as if you're a junior colleague she's instructing. This gives her videos a wholesome pedagogical tone that makes you feel okay about watching a stranger being massaged. The production values are really high, too – you see the model really clearly from multiple angles, whereas some other videos I found are restricted by having a fixed camera placement, which limits their ability to display what the masseur is doing.
Yet there's also New Age relaxation music in the background, which makes you realise that the massage is a soothing spectacle intended for you as well as for the recipient, who is a passive model.
I would watch lots of other videos on the PsycheTruth channel. It's a very diverse wellness channel that does everything from yoga and massage to health tips and guided meditations. Another of my favourites is Corrina Rachel, whom I first saw as a model in one of Athena's videos. Corrina also seemed to spearhead Psychetruth's ASMR vertical, which moved away from wellness to the stylised set of 'triggers' that constitutes the ASMR genre. (But more about that another time.)
Dmitri is a masseur from the Gold Coast who seems to have quickly cottoned on to the fact that people like me were watching YouTube massage videos not for pedagogical reasons but for their relaxing, ASMR-inducing qualities. He started his channel, MassageASMR, in December 2012, which makes him one of the genre's early adopters. 'Foreign' accents are very popular in ASMR, but I found Dmitri's recognisably Australian accent really weird and offputting. I also don't like the hushed tones he adopts, although I realise other people really love whispering.
But it's kind of unfortunate that here, he's working on a disembodied, Dickie Knee-style head. Is that scalp attached to a person?
Late at night is when I indulge in huge binges of ASMR videos, and I am always struck by how weirdly present their means of production is. The ones I prefer are the ones that feel transparent, where you can't see the mics, let alone have to witness people nuzzling them while whispering soothingly. It always seems weird to me that this genre is so heavy, still (it's comparatively mature now, generically), on live performance rather than creating the ASMR effect in post. I wonder if 'liveness' is central to its appeal.
