Here’s why videos of a woman tapping a hairbrush and Margot Robbie spreading Vegemite on toast have become internet sensations
Dove and IKEA have produced ads intended to trigger autonomous sensory meridian response, and W Magazine has produced a series of ASMR-inducing videos featuring celebrities
By Zoë Bernard
There’s a corner of the internet where people are posting videos of themselves whispering breathily into microphones, rubbing their fingernails on sequins, and eating pickles very, very slowly.
The videos might sound snoozy to some, but they’re incredibly popular, regularly garnering millions of views. This clip of a woman tapping a hairbrush and playing with a peacock feather, for example, has attracted more than 19 million views. A wordless 10-hour video of a man softly rubbing his palms together and mouthing words has been viewed nearly 14 million times.
And that video of a woman slowly eating a pickle? It’s garnered nearly 6 million views.
So, what’s the allure?
Viewers aren’t tuning into these videos for their visual content. Rather, the millions of hits are attributed to the videos’ ability to stimulate something called autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR.