Hugh S. Manon’s research while affiliated with Clark University and other places

ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) has grown to immense popularity on YouTube and drawn HCI designers' attention to its effects and applications in design. YouTube ASMR creators incorporate visual elements, sounds, motifs of touching and tasting, and other scenarios in multisensory video interactions to deliver enjoyable and relaxing experiences to their viewers. ASMRtists engage viewers by social, physical, and task attractions. Research has identified the benefits of ASMR in mental wellbeing. However, ASMR remains an understudied phenomenon in the HCI community, constraining designers' ability to incorporate ASMR in video-based designs. This work annotates and analyzes the interaction modalities and parasocial attractions of 2663 videos to identify unique experiences. YouTube comment sections are also analyzed to compare viewers' responses to different ASMR interactions. We find that ASMR videos are experiences of multimodal social connection, relaxing physical intimacy, and sensory-rich activity observation. Design implications are discussed to foster future ASMR-augmented video interactions.

ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) has grown to immense popularity on YouTube and drawn HCI designers' attention to its effects and applications in design. YouTube ASMR creators incorporate visual elements, sounds, motifs of touching and tasting, and other scenarios in multisensory video interactions to deliver enjoyable and relaxing experiences to their viewers. ASMRtists engage viewers by social, physical, and task attractions. Research has identified the benefits of ASMR in mental wellbeing. However, ASMR remains an understudied phenomenon in the HCI community, constraining designers' ability to incorporate ASMR in video-based designs. This work annotates and analyzes the interaction modalities and parasocial attractions of 2663 videos to identify unique experiences. YouTube comment sections are also analyzed to compare viewers' responses to different ASMR interactions. We find that ASMR videos are experiences of multimodal social connection, relaxing physical intimacy, and sensory-rich activity observation. Design implications are discussed to foster future ASMR-augmented video interactions.

Performers in YouTube autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) videos speak directly into the camera, very close, in sibilant whispers, consonant repetitions, and with an attitude of oversolicitous caregiving that verges on the robotic. The goal is to trigger tingling sensations in the beholder’s head, neck, and spine. Whereas ASMR enthusiasts appear to seek a formula for tingly satisfaction, this chapter argues that ASMR is symptomatic of broader digital–millennial trends in its repudiation of the ‘lack of lack itself’ Lacan identifies as anxiety. ASMR’s empty verbal patter and sounds of extreme proximity mobilize the orifical locus of the drive. The beholder is not emotionally invested, but instead ‘triggered’ like a binary switch. Such millennial investments in trigger pleasure represent a drive-centered, anxiety-busting response to the oversaturation endemic to digital culture.