The chills are multiplying
What is ASMR and why do some people react to it?
Why are these fully dressed women who mostly whisper encouraging acts of self-care being treated as sex traffickers?
A fully clothed blonde woman whispers into her camera while strumming her manicured fingers across a soft-bristle make-up brush. "I’m just examining. Just paying attention … making sure that you’re in good health," she purrs, as she strokes the camera lens with the brush. It’s not sexual in any way, but it feels personal and is oddly soothing. This is Maria "Gentle Whispering", a YouTube "ASMRtist" with 1.4-million subscribers and more than half-a-billion views since she started in 2011. The acronym stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, a physical reaction experienced by some people when they are exposed to the right visual and auditory stimuli. According to a study by psychology professor Stephen Smith of the University of Winnipeg, ASMR is probably the first psychological phenomenon that was discovered by internet users rather than by scientists. The study found that people who experience ASMR reactions have neural networks that are fundamentally different to those of o...
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