Investigating ASMR opens up a whole world of weird, but it’s supposed to feel euphoric

Through knitting I came to autonomous sensory meridian response, ASMR, a bodily reaction to a sound or sight that feels euphoric or orgasmic, writes Christine Manby

Illustration by Tom Ford

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of knitting. There’s a great deal of satisfaction to be had in wearing a wonky jumper that you’ve made with your own fair hands but just as seasoned travellers say it’s not the destination but the journey that matters, I’ve come to realise that it’s the process of knitting and not the end product that actually fills me with joy. One of the best things about knitting is the sound of my wooden needles brushing against each other with a quiet swish as I make a stitch. It is remarkably calming.

Daily life in the city brings with it a lot of noise that causes distress: the roar of traffic by road, train and air, the endless building work or the blare of loud music you wouldn’t choose to listen to blasting from a shop can all set our teeth on edge. There’s a section of the Victoria line where the screech of Tube on rails sounds like a cry coming straight from hell. Quieter sounds can be distressing too. Some poor souls – those who suffer from misophonia – can be reduced to sobbing by the sound of another person chewing gum. The noise of my clicking knitting needles would probably drive to distraction the frightening man who verbally abused me for typing too loudly on a train earlier this year, but equally there are people who find joy in small sounds because they trigger something in them called an ASMR, an “autonomous sensory meridian response”.

According to the people who experience them, an ASMR typically manifests itself as a pleasant sensation that flows from the top of your scalp down the back of your neck, cascading over your shoulders like a waterfall of tiny tingles. It’s sometimes described as “euphoric” or even “orgasmic”. It’s typically triggered by auditory stimuli, such as a softly whispering voice or rhythmic tapping, but it can have visual triggers too, such as watching someone brushing their hair. Or tactile triggers, like using one of those strange head massage devices that looks like an umbrella without its fabric cover, or rubbing the edges of your own ears. Even chewing and loudly crunching food, which is very a common trigger for misophonia, has ASMR fans who are willing to pay to hear it.

Investigating ASMR opens up a whole world of weird. I fell down the rabbit hole after Instagram suggested I might be interested in watching a video of a pair of immaculately manicured hands crumbling weight-lifters’ chalk. I’m not sure why Instagram suggested it but it made a change from peonies and puppies.

There are people who make a living from posting ASMR videos on YouTube. Such internet stars are known as ASMRtists. They have agents and countless legions of dedicated followers, some of whom pay up to £50 per 10 minutes for bespoke videos of their favourites turning pages or chewing gum.

The YouTube channel belonging to ASMR Darling has almost 2.5 million subscribers. ASMR Darling is also known as Taylor Darling (she doesn’t use her real last name). The 23-year old from Orlando’s introductory video, entitled What Is ASMR?, has racked up nearly 4 million views. If her whispered explanation of the phenomenon doesn’t make you feel weird (pleasantly or otherwise), then the comments beneath it definitely will.

Whispering doesn’t work for me. Neither did crumbling chalk. However the website of Discoverasmr.com insists that ASMR is something that almost all of us can experience. “Focus. Soak in the soothing sights and sounds that may pop up throughout an ordinary day – whether it’s the sound of water running into the sink or tub, the bristles of a brush moving through your child’s or your own hair, or the pages of a good book turning.” You just have to find your very own particular trigger.

The twenty-something is estimated to make somewhere in the region of $1000 a day in advertising revenue from her channel

The nature of the ASMRtists, who tend for the most part to be beautiful young women, means that it occasionally attracts a dodgy crowd. However, most ASMRartists and fans claim that it isn’t sexual. In fact the term ASMR, which first entered the public vocabulary around a decade ago, was coined by Jennifer Allen precisely because she decided the phenomenon deserved a clinical-sounding name that reflected its true nature rather than the seedy image it conjures in the minds of the uninitiated.

Allen told the New York Times that when she met people, who, like her, frequently experienced ASMR, she found they, “…had been told they were on drugs or that they had lice – things like that. And then there was the factor of people calling it a ‘brain orgasm’ and it sounding like some sort of erotic fetish kind of thing.”

It really isn’t an erotic fetish kind of thing. In 2015, Emma L Barrett and Nick J Davis of the Department of Psychology at Swansea University studied the phenomenon of ASMR and found that 98 per cent of their subjects reported that they sought out ASMR for relaxation purposes. A mere 5 per cent said they used ASMR media for sexual stimulation. Several of the people interviewed in the study reported that for them, ASMR provided an effective means of controlling the symptoms or anxiety and stress and even chronic pain. Barrett and Davis concluded that ASMR media can be used to induce a psychological and physiological state similar to “flow”, increasing focus and diminishing the sense of the passing of time.

Most of Barrett and Davis’ subjects said that they liked to watch ASMR media in the evenings, as a means of helping them to fall asleep. I decided to try it out. ASMR Darling has made a video for the purpose, which begins with her tapping on the cover of a hardback book before scratching her fingernails down the spine. She follows that up by brushing fluffy make-up brushes over two microphones, and over the lens of her camera.

I couldn’t go on. I could just about stand the noise but not the knowing – and slightly smug looks ASMR Darling continually casts at the camera. But then, the twenty-something is estimated to make somewhere in the region of $1000 (£800) a day in advertising revenue from her channel. If you can’t be smug about that? ASMR media is an area undergoing huge expansion. Even American rapper and actress Cardi B has made an ASMR video, after claiming that she watches videos from the genre every evening to help her drop off.

Of course, reading about ASMR Darling’s extraordinary earning power, I started wondering whether ASMR media is something I should be getting into. Maybe I could monetise my knitting (no one’s going to buy the finished product, that’s for sure). Turns out someone – rather several people – have already beaten me to it. Typing “ASMR Knitting” into Google brings up some 1.5 million hits. You can even choose the type of needles you want to listen to: metal or wood. But knitting is still quite a niche trigger for ASMR compared to whispering. Maybe whispering while repairing socks is the way to go? I shall call my new YouTube channel ASMR Darning.