ASMR explained: Role play videos as a form of touching with the eyes and the ears

Abstract

In this paper, I introduce and discuss technologically-mediated ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) in the form of role play videos. I suggest using haptic audio-visuality as a theoretical elaboration to describe a form of touching with the eyes and the ears through interpersonal triggers, direct address and directional touching. And I present ASMR role play videos as a category that can be viewed as both a shared pleasure and a personal experience. Despite its mediated — body-to-screen rather than body-to-body — and one-way format, research suggests that ASMR can be regarded as an intimate, present and interpersonal experience. ASMR has succeeded in integrating the viewer-listeners’ physical reality with virtuality and creating a perception of presence. What is missing, however, is a more in-depth exploration of how this perception of presence is created through the performative construction of a particular kind of attuned, imaginative and interactive viewer-listener within ASMR role play videos. This is what I intend to explore in this paper.