AMSR

Woebot

Well-known member
well you think you know and have experienced everything then something arrives out of the blue!

and "blue" might be the right term - because although supposedly NOT PORNOGRAPHIC - this definitely has shades of it. in fact the bubble rubbing and prickling/crinkling plastic aspect doesn't do much for me - but the whispering voices are definitely triggers!

immediate thought was this adds whole new depths of understanding to the ol' "whispering sweet nothings"

and suddenly certain musics - MANY MANY passages of parmegiani. and (just this morning) the start of REM's "radio free europe"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response
 

droid

Well-known member
Ive seen several AMSR ladies vehemently protesting that there is nothing sexual about it. I dunno who they think they're fooling. The entire project is fundamentally about female intimacy.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
Ive seen several AMSR ladies vehemently protesting that there is nothing sexual about it. I dunno who they think they're fooling. The entire project is fundamentally about female intimacy.

yes and no. and yes. and no.

but also there are lots of men doing it for women's consumption so it isn't entirely about female intimacy.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Well of all the weird and not-particularly-wonderful fetishes the internet has helped incubate and propagate, this is surely one of the more harmless ones.
 

droid

Well-known member
Ive only seen the ladies - have looked at sampling some of them for mixes, but found it just a bit too sleazy. Not a million miles away from some of Christina Vantzou's stuff actually, or Félicia Atkinson's Valis.

But sure, point taken. The project is about intimacy in general, very hard not to see a sexual or sensual aspect there.
 

you

Well-known member
I've blogged and chatted about this for years now. At first I did dismiss ASMR as normative tertiary service low-level fetish porn... but increasingly I suspect this is a symptom of base-value click-baiting warping one's 'optics' on the 'phenomena'.
 

you

Well-known member
Surely the more troubling aspect of ASMR is the wholesale normalisation of meditation and relaxation materials moving online.
 

you

Well-known member
I also think it is a sort of 'slow-cyber' response to the increasingly frenetic cut-splicing of youtube channels where any hesitancy or dead-time is ruthlessly edited out for the attentional dearth of the typical 'viewer'.
 

you

Well-known member
I've, at times, proposed a link between ASMR and uterine tactile/aural bone conduction:

Because it is able to listen, the fetal ear can selectively highlight the mothers affirming voice amid the constant intrauterine noise. (…) The transmission of high and extremely high frequencies in the soft, sound-swallowing bodily milieu is enabled, according to Tomatis, by the unusual conductivity and resonant quality of the skeleton; the mothers pelvis in particular is supposedly capable of conveying the subtlest high frequency vibrations of the mother’s voice to the child’s ear like the back of a cello. This ear listens at the mother’s pelvic floor and spine as a curious visitor listens at a door behind which he suspects delightful presents. (Sloterdijk, 2011, pp. 507)

As the fluid in the middle ear inhibits the oscillation of the eardrum, the foetus hears almost exclusively through bone conduction. However, the resonance properties of the skeletal system act like a frequency modulator. Low frequencies are hardly transmitted at all, while high frequencies are transmitted in amplified form. Through the filter effect of the bone, the mother’s voice is rich in high frequencies. It is transmitted through the spinal column into the pelvis, which, being a resonance body, amplifies the high frequencies by up to 2.5 fold. If the child sinks into the pelvis in the last week, a particularly good transmission of sound from bone to bone is possible. The high-pass filter effect in the foetal cranial bone and the sound amplification of the mother’s pelvis are optimally coordinated. (Centre for Audio-Psycho-Phonology)

‘tingling, static-like sensation across the scalp [and] back of the neck’ (Barratt & Davis, 2015)
 

Woebot

Well-known member
i only listened for about 3 minutes and this morning my ears are really sore. [excuse the rather horrible graphic analogy - but wtf]. i suppose it's a little like have your nipples tweaked gently - and the quivalent uncomfortable chafing. fascinating stuff though. was faintly surprised there was no thread on it!!!!!!!!!
 

Woebot

Well-known member
Surely the more troubling aspect of ASMR is the wholesale normalisation of meditation and relaxation materials moving online.

a straight forward question but why would that be a problem? soma to distract the masses from armed struggle?
 

you

Well-known member
a straight forward question but why would that be a problem? soma to distract the masses from armed struggle?

It falls into a continuum of online-downtime, to switch off by logging on. See Benjamin Bennett, unboxing videos etc etc
 

Woebot

Well-known member
It falls into a continuum of online-downtime, to switch off by logging on. See Benjamin Bennett, unboxing videos etc etc

thank you you. i will look into that.

unrelated but frankly having discovered this phenomenon i wouldn't be tempted to listen to any more of them. i'm sure it's addictive or can become so.

-

update. ok, my daughter told me about this guy who sits looking at the screen and, yes i've seen some of these unboxing videos. but why do you object to online downtime? i mean, it seems reasonable to given that it's a waste of time that could be used doing something fruitful in the real world. presumably that's it?
 
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droid

Well-known member
We're not just fingertips and a brain, we're animals. We need sensation, the sun, the trees, the grass. Downtime shouldn't involve a screen.
 

you

Well-known member
We're not just fingertips and a brain, we're animals. We need sensation, the sun, the trees, the grass. Downtime shouldn't involve a screen.

Yes. This is one reason why I'm uncomfortable with online-downtime aesthetics, to answer Woebot's question.

But to elabourate... This is the ruse that most online 'relaxing or social' premises use. Lonely? Use 'social-media'. Tired of screen based work? Use an online game. Stressed? Need some feel good hormones? Try online relaxation. All these solutions are shite-surrogates for the real thing - they are the monetized equivalent ELIZA... when what humans really need is a holiday in the mountains for 6 months.

This is not to be nostalgic. It's just that I suspect all these online panaceas are shallow gauzy solutions on a platform that cannot and will not operate in a mode that helps us smooth-mammals.
 
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Woebot

Well-known member
Yes. This is one reason why I'm uncomfortable with online-downtime aesthetics, to answer Woebot's question.

But to elabourate... This is the ruse that most online 'relaxing or social' premises use. Lonely? Use 'social-media'? Tired of screen based work? Use and online game. Stressed? Need some feel good hormones? Try online relaxation.

thanks you. i am greatly soothed by your electronic communication.
 
I've experienced ASMR since I was a child, my Dad and sister too. I don't get triggered by the videos and hate the industry that's popped up around it. You're all conflating the physical response with the content people create to get people into that state. I think it's mostly a case of you get the head tingles or you don't, that's not to say people won't feel relaxed by watching that stuff.

And in terms of the feeling and what triggers it, it's definitely not connected to sexual arousal at all, but does feel intimate to a degree. I gte it very rarely these days, maybe once every few months. The first thing I remember giving me the feeling was the sound of a teacher slowly handing out pages in a quiet classroom. It starts at the back of the head and pulses across the scalp and temples and then down in to the neck. I can keep it going by focusing on the trigger or the feeling itself, but if something else grabs your attention it goes. I'll feel warmth and gratitude and very calm. It's almost like the a physical sensation of trust and safety, a signal.
 
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