Instant Genius - Why ASMR gives you tingles – Emma WhispersRed

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

We chat to YouTuber Emma WhispersRed ASMR about how she got into making the videos, why she thinks people find them so soothing, and why she wants to get the phenomenom officially recognised as a form of therapy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hank makes the pizza. Co-Pilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at M365Copilot.com slash work. This podcast is sponsored by name, audio and focal. Streaming has made music more accessible than ever, but true listening is about more than ease. It's about quality. British audio experts name audio,

alongside French acoustic specialist focal, combine handcrafted tradition with cutting-edge innovation and high-end materials, delivering digital precision with analogue warmth. So you can experience exceptional sound at home. Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response. It's a very relaxing physical sensation that usually begins in the crown of your head

and works its way down your back, down your spine, through your limbs too. It's just really relaxing. And when you're in this feeling, you are completely still and mindful or mind empty, should I say, and in the moment. You're listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Focus magazine team. We're the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world.

Find out more at ScienceFocus.com or look out for us in your app store. Hello and welcome to the Science Focus podcast. I'm Alice Lipscomb Southwell, the production editor of BBC Focus magazine. In this episode, we look at the growing phenomenon of ASMR. Over the last five or six years, millions of people have logged on to YouTube to watch ASMR videos or autonomous sensory meridian response videos. For the uninitiated, the soft whispering voices, gentle tapping and rustling sounds may seem a little odd.

But for ASMR enthusiasts, the videos can trigger feelings of security and relaxation that can be difficult to explain to those who don't experience them. YouTuber Emma Whisper's Red is one of the most well-known ASMR vloggers. on the internet. BBC Focus magazine's commissioning editor Jason Goodyear speaks to her about how she got into making the videos, why she thinks people find them so soothing, and why she wants to get the phenomenon officially recognised as a form of therapy. And don't forget to rate, review and share this podcast with anybody who you think might be interested. Also, if there is anybody you'd like us to speak to, or a topic you wanted to cover, then let us know on Twitter at Science Focus.

Okay, so you're perhaps best known as Whispers Red on YouTube and you're an ASMR vlogger. So first of all, can you tell us what is ASMR? ASMR is, well, it stands for autonomous sensory meridian response. It's a feeling. It's a very relaxing physical sensation that usually begins in the crown of your head and works its way down your back, down your spine, through your limbs too. It's just really relaxing and when you're in this feeling you are completely

still and mindful and or mind empty should I say and in the moment. So whatever it is you're looking at or listening to you're completely focused on. So it helps people to really relax. It helps them to relax before they go to sleep so they fall asleep quicker. Helps them to focus on study. So if you have sound on an ASMR video on in the background, then you can focus on your study or your emails or whatever. It's a really nice feeling. So when did you first start making the videos?

And how did you get into it? I started making videos five years ago. I got into it because, well, I've always experienced the sensation. We call it the tingles as well because it's kind of a tingley sensation. So I've always experienced the tingles, but I didn't know there was a name for it. And I didn't know that that many people experienced it as well. I tried to explain it to people, but they didn't really understand what I was talking about. And when there's no name for a feeling, it's very difficult to describe.

So that was me growing up, and I just stopped talking about it. And then I had a car accident, and I had lots of operations. and afterwards I couldn't sleep. So I went on to YouTube, found relaxation videos, you know, rainforest sounds and rain sounds and stuff like that to help me to fall asleep. And then as I was searching, I found ASMR videos. And then I thought, what's ASMR? And then I realized it was the name for the feeling I've always had

and that people all around the world feel it too. And there are people making videos to induce it. and there are communities online everywhere talking about it. It was really amazing. I was so surprised. And then I went on to Facebook and started a UK Facebook group for ASMR just so that people could talk about it with each other and possibly meet up and just further the community a bit.

And then people were saying to me, do you have your own channel? And of course I didn't. And I was a bit scared to have my own. But it was a very small community then. and people just had channels to communicate with each other. And so I started one, and that was it, really. It just kind of grew very slowly from there, and now it's a massive thing.

It's huge. It's a full-time job for me as well. Oh, right. So it's primarily a kind of sound-based phenomenon, isn't it? Is that right? Yeah, I would say that it is, but it's also personal attention, because when I was little,

I used to really enjoy people drawing letters on my back and playing with my hair and whispering to me and having my haircut and eye tests. So it was that accompanied with the sound as well. And it's also quite visual. So if I watch someone having their hair played with, for instance, I can feel it as well. It's kind of an empathy thing. There are so many things involved with it, but it's mainly sound. and with the YouTube videos we do use our microphones to emphasize the sound of different objects.

We use our nails to tap on things. But along with that is the connection you have with the person doing it as well. Okay, so obviously based on your name, a big part of it is this very gentle, soft whispering voice that a lot of these videos have. Would you mind just giving us a quick example, maybe 30 seconds, just so people, who are listening who perhaps haven't seen the videos on YouTube know what we're talking about. So I have a glass on my desk and when I'm speaking into my microphone it's all very, very quiet because the microphone is very, the volume is high and it's very sensitive. So I'll speak very, very quietly into the microphone and tap on the glass that's on my desk.

and if we were on camera then I probably describe the glass and talk about where I bought it and how long I've had it for I actually have a cat on my lap who's purring I don't know if you can hear that

but that's a very nice sound too so that would be a kind of ASMR video very simple yeah so you mentioned a few things that like the triggers I guess like the voice, the description of scenarios,

the tapping sounds or the sort of like the glass or ceramic sounds. So which ones do you find you get the best response to in your videos? Taping is very, very popular. Soft speaking is very popular, whispering. I'd say, I think at the moment tapping is the biggest. trigger. But for me, my favourite is a soft spoken voice. So I can just listen to someone speaking about absolute nothing for hours if they've got the kind of voice that makes me feel calm and triggers my ASMR. It's kind of a nurturing thing as well. So if I have a connection

or I feel really safe with the person who's making the video, it makes me feel really nurtured and and safe as well. So how do you go about finding new triggers? Because I imagine, you know, you always want to do new things with your videos. How do you search for sort of new ways to trigger the ASMR response? It's a really good question. And I get asked this a lot and I don't really know the answer because I just keep on making videos and don't run out of ideas.

And one thing leads to another really. But everything has a sound and everything can be made relaxing. and I could make a video out of just talking about my makeup bag and going through my makeup items and making sounds on all of everything in there or I could talk about my favourite book or I could make a video based around like a reenactment of a real life situation like a haircut or checking into a hotel and I'm tapping on the keyboard and that kind of thing. They're called role plays which is a real life. really odd name really for them, but they're just reenactments of situations in day-to-day life

where you would feel the tingles from someone. So if you're buying something at the counter and for some reason it's just a really nice sounding atmosphere and the lady's talking to you quietly and she's folding up your clothes very carefully and putting them into the crinkly bag and tapping on the till and that kind of thing, you can get them in just day-to-day life. So we make videos out of that as well. But based on your own experiences? Yeah, like a doctor's appointment, anything really. So the video ideas are just endless.

So as you're a primarily online community, I guess, I assume you get a lot of feedback from your listeners. And what sort of, you know, positive responses do you get from them? Mostly if you look at the comments under the videos, it's to do with helping people, making me feel confident, calm, helping me to sleep, helping me get over my anxiety and that sort of thing. It's mainly being calm, sleeping and anxiety. And we get a lot of comments about exam stress and job stress and all kinds of different things.

But it's really a distraction from whatever you're feeling or going through at the time. and then when you're in a calm state you can make better decisions so your life improves. So it's just about keeping people calm and in the moment and it's a meditative exercise. Sure. So you say you've been involved in this for about five years. How has the community grown and how has the kind of scene developed over the last five years? Yeah, it's just every few months it seems to grow and grow. even more. It was very small to start with. It started in this country. There was a lady in Nottingham called Whispering Life, or she was very young then, and she made her first whisper video, she called it,

and she said, I don't know why I'm whispering, I just like the sound of it, so here goes, and it took off from there. They were just called whisper videos, and then someone gave it a name, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. We don't exactly know what that means, but it sounds good. good. There are lots of different descriptions for it, but it's just, it just grew. And then people started showing their face on camera. And then more and more people started to talk about it. And then it got in the press a little bit. And then the press were saying, what on earth is this thing? This is really weird. What are you doing? You're whispering to a camera. And then people said, is this sexual? Because why else would you be doing it? And then now, we've had research come out.

and that's in this country again. So we've had the first study was in Swansea just to basically say that it exists and lots of people have it. And the second study that came out this year was from Sheffield was to say that when people listen and watch ASMAR videos,

their heart rate lowers considerably in line with meditation practices. So now when I do a lot of interviews, it's more along the lines of this being a wellness trend. But we're still, you know, cracking on with our videos and doing the same thing we've always done. And we know that it helps people and people have given us feedback for years. But now nurses recommend it and councilors recommend it. So it's just growing along those lines. And now I'm doing live events. I started doing that three years ago and it really

grew this year where people can just get together and we can do live in-person. and kind of treatments, if you like, on people. We even play with people's hair, and we do face brushing and backdrawing and all of those things that we used to like when we were little that calmed us down when we were little, all those nurturing things. We do that now to people. Yeah, so you sort of touched on there. You mentioned that a lot of people that don't get this type of feeling,

these sort of tingles, amongst those people, there's a misconception that it's in some way sexual, but that's not at all the case, is it? No, no. And that's kind of dying off now. It was more of a sensational kind of clickbait thing for articles for a long time. And then the article would just go in to say, but actually it's not. So we don't really get that very much anymore.

People do wonder, you know, if they see a video for the first time, especially if it's, say, a doctor video or something like that. And so if I'm coming up quite close to the case, camera and I'm giving eye contact to the camera and it's quite intense and very slow and very quiet. If you've never seen anything like that before, and especially if you don't experience the feeling and you just look at it and think, oh my goodness, what's she doing? Then yeah, the first reaction is, well, it must be sexual. Why are you doing it?

Because when people normally go close up to a camera and look softly into the camera, it's for other reasons, but this isn't like that. And the people that experience it and feel something really positive and calming from it, just don't see it like that at all. And it's just more like taking a, the actual feeling is like taking a sleeping pill. So it's the opposite of feeling aroused. So for someone who experiences it for someone to say to them, well, it must be sexual. It's kind of laughable, really. And it's also just a nurturing thing. So I liken it to just, putting my child to bed. And I stroke his head and singed him sometimes very quietly or just talk to him quietly

and draw letters on his back and he falls asleep really quickly because he's feeling the sensation and he likes it. Yeah, so why do you think it affects some people and not others? I have no idea. I just think some people are more sensitive than others. And that's that really. Some people don't need it. Some people can fall asleep really easily.

some people never get stressed. So that's fantastic. Yeah. And but yeah, it's just we're all sensitive to different things, aren't we? And some people are more sensitive than others. And people who experience ASMR, I usually find that they are super sensitive to all kinds of different things. Maybe they're a highly sensitive personality as well. Or they're quite empathic people or notice things.

So I always notice that ASMR people are the type of people that would walk into a room and if the and if one of the pictures was off they would have to straighten it before doing anything else you know real details people they just notice everything and yeah they tend to be the people that experience ASMR so what's your primary goal in making the videos then it's just it's become my whole purpose really I really wanted to become a recognized complementary therapy because it's it's therapeutic for so many people all already. And as more and more research comes out, we can do one-on-one treatments with people and the videos are therapeutic to people and we know why they are. So I just keep on plugging away,

developing the techniques as well in videos. I can't think of doing anything else. It's who I am really. I'm basically doing what I was meant to do. I am the type of person, the perfect type of person to do this. And so I'm so comfortable and I'll just keep on doing it forever really. Okay, great. So just one last thing then. How can our listeners find you on YouTube? If you search Whispers Red ASMR, then I shall come right up. Okay, great. Well, thanks very much for speaking to us. Emma, that was fascinating. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. You're welcome.

That was YouTube at Emma Whisper's Red, talking about all things ASMR, which you can read about more in our Christmas issue of BBC Focus. We also explore seven radical ideas that will expand your mind, look back at the greatest moments in the Royal Institution Christmas lectures, and find out if the party drug, MDMA, can help treat alcoholism. Thank you for listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Focus magazine team. We're the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly, available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world.

Find out more at ScienceFocus.com or look out for us in your app store. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analogue warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist Focal, name creates high-end audio systems,

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