History of ASMR

While people have been experiencing the physical and mental signs of ASMR for generations, a term for the feeling did not exist until 2009. Jennifer Allen had been feeling the odd sensations in her head for years, and she would try to search different terms on the internet to try and find answers. Finally, in 2009, her searches brought up a health website forum where a post titled "Weird Sensation Feels Good?" was submitted to a message board. People from all over were talking about Bob Ross, hair brushing, and whispers and how their brains odd in the most wonderful way. A part 2 was posted soon after with people clamoring for an answer and wanting to know why their heads felt that way. Some wanted a research group to be formed while others feared trying to bring their odd sensation to mainstream knowledge. Some in the forum were calling the sensation a "Brain-gasm" and were afraid their innocent sensation would be mistaken for an odd new age fetish.

Allen wanted their community to be taken seriously by scientists, so in early 2010 she sat down and began to brainstorm ideas. She knew that having a clinical air about it would make it seem more legitimate than just 'that weird tingling sensation'. Eventually she came up Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Autonomous because the feeling came from within, Sensory which was self-explanatory, Meridian to suggest a peak and also to reference Chinese medicine and its knowledge of energy pathways, and Response was just to say it was not a constant state of being but something that was in response to a stimulus. Allen has stated recently she wishes she made it shorter, but she much preferred it to 'Brain-gasm'.

Allen now had a snazzy new title for the sensation, and created the very first ASMR community via Facebook. The following grew across 6 continents and eventually members of the community began making their own videos specifically designed to trigger ASMR, rather than the unintentional videos of painting and hairdressing they had been sharing previously. Now they had a keyword to put in the titles of their videos, and ASMR quickly garnered a huge following by utilizing YouTube algorithm. Back in 2009 there were about a dozen YouTube channels dedicated to whispering, and within a few years that number began to skyrocket. Eventually the movement became large enough to boast its own Wikipedia page in 2015. Within the past few years ASMR content has become a new norm, with there being hundreds of channels dedicated specifically to ASMR.

For the most part, ASMR is located on YouTube, though many creators also upload their videos as "Albums" on Spotify, breaking up the triggers into shorter passages so that their followers can download the sound from their videos. Other creators have Patreon and Kofi pages where followers can gain access to exclusive videos and request specific triggers to be put into newer videos. Instagram and Twitter are more about branding and marketing their YouTube channels, though many ASMRtists place shorter versions of their content on there as well. "Oddly Satisfying" channels often create ASMR content for their general audiences with videos focused on playing with slime, cutting kinetic sand, or shaving soap. Even TikTok has a large ASMR community, with creators putting on ASMR live streams with their videos being clips from their longer form videos from YouTube. In fact, many people love watching videos of slime, painting, sand cutting, and soap carving, and if you have watched these and felt mesmerized, calmed, relaxed, or hyper-focused, you too may have experienced ASMR! These are easy triggers that do not require high-tech microphones, elaborate props, or expert knowledge and can easily be recorded with a smartphone.

Many fledgling ASMR pages got their start during the Slime craze that started in the mid 2010s. The Slime craze really hit all-time highs during 2019 and 2020 when it became a part of pop culture. Videos of manicured hands mixing up, making, and playing with slime were all over YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. Nowadays you can see ASMR TikTok live streams and YouTube videos of ASMRtists making and playing with slime, and putting slime on top of microphones. Some have ear-shaped microphones that they cover in slime or floam so they can 'clean' the slime off of the ears.

But why Slime? One theory is that Slime, depending on what it is made out of, can reach almost all of the senses; sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. It can be made clear or as colorful as the rainbow, it can be made up of different textures, and pulling, folding, and stretching causes air bubbles trapped in the layers to pop and snap, you can also add scents to most slimes, and slime can even be made out of edible materials to more closely resemble an edible playdoh. Many people have a crossover between ASMR and Slime, which is why it can be an incredibly popular trigger. Slime is so popular it even has its own conventions with Global Slime Con and Maddie Rae's Slime Bash.