December 25, 2018 • 46 mins
Merry Christmas, Nerd-Fam! This week we’re having an almost Silent Night as we say our “Goodbyes” to 2018. Ify and Dani, back in her seat for hosting duties, discuss the quiet culture of ASMR or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. The duo talk about their triggers and what they do and do not like about the whispers and noises that give some people the tingles, including the potential medical benefits of the said sensations. Enjoy the Holiday season and kick back with your favorite nerds on this episode of Nerdificent!
FOOTNOTES:
STUDY: ASMR: a flow-like mental state by Emma Barratt and Nick Davis
FORBES: ASMR Could Have Health Benefits
MEDIUM: Why are Whispering Videos So Popular on YouTube?
BUSTLE: Is ASMR good for you?
VOX: ASMR Explained
ASMR Amy: Very Intense Breathing Sounds
The Most Satisfying Slime Video Compilation
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
And hello today it's going to be a very special
episode of sens is a s m R, which stands
for Autonomous sensory meridian responses. Um enjoying this or you
might be hating it because some people do not like
a s m R at all, which is so interesting.
(00:36):
But you but just in case you want to know
you're in the right place. You are listening to Nerd Defficent.
I am your host if you away, And you know,
I'm really excited about this one because it's very very
quiet at times and sometimes it's loud. Um. You know,
I do know someone who hates a s MR. So
(00:56):
I and that person did pick it. It's Danny. She
hates a SMR, so I think you know, in her honor,
I'm just gonna do it like this for the rest
of the episode. The binural mix that I hew you doing,
little mom, I'm here, I'm back. I made it back
(01:22):
to the show. It's been sh wrong. I've been on
her show. How Naomi now she's in college, daughter Naomi
should college. She's in college now. It's been show long s.
I'm being on there NERD Tactic Podcast. During that whole bit,
(01:45):
Danny was moving her arms like she was using the cane,
but it just looked like she was going to ready
to shoot some dice. I was like, all right, you
want to lose your money, this is how much I
love you. I'll not that literally anyone at because I
don't think anyone. Maybe one person might have asked a
long time ago, but I can't remember. I thought it
would be fascinating to look at the world of a
(02:06):
s mr um because it is technically, I think a
part of the nerd community. I considered part of the
nerd community. It's definitely part of the YouTube community that's
really taken off its existed before YouTube. But yeah, but
that's kind of what made it explode. I don't like it.
I in our group chat of this podcast that we
(02:27):
have with Dan and our producer and Anna i Um,
I said I would rather us going over hardcore porn
um SMR. I'm one of those people that find it
what's the word uncomfortable. That's the word I'm looking for.
And it's got to find your right trigger. See, because
I was the same way, and I was like, this,
(02:48):
this is what's Bernain doing it for? But then I
found out slime and scratches is where Well, the thing
that I do want to say is that a lot
of these YouTubers are upset and rightfully so, that they're
being flagged as it being just a sexual fetish. And
they do a lot of people use a s MR
to sleep, to relax and sleep, and and there are
(03:11):
a lot of people that use it for sexual reasons.
And that's fine too, and that's true, Iffy. Yeah, like
we said with Roger Craigsmith, some of that sonic art
you know, some of the sonic sonic art on Tumbler,
which Tumbler is now taking off porn anyways, Yeah, a
(03:33):
s MR, as if you said it is autonomous sensory
meridian response. Essentially, it is. This is the definition, is
an experience characterized by a static like or tingling sensation
on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and
moves down the back of the neck and upper spine.
We know it as people talking very quietly on YouTube,
(03:54):
very very quietly, like like like this quietly, and you
can hear my mouth sounds. You can hear when my
my mouth comes together. But you might somebody might be like, yep,
that's it. I need Danny to start a YouTube play
I guess I could do an sm R Patreon. Maybe,
I don't know. I have some projects I need to
get funded. Um, I think i'd be good at it too,
(04:17):
especially this voice that I have. But voice I think too.
So yeah, if you tell me what we're what are
some of your favorite videos? Like what are you into? Well,
you know, I mean, what are you what do you
like to watch with a sm R. Let's not get
into what you're Well, it's too general of a question
with with a sm R. I found that it is
(04:39):
like The Slimes. And I found it because I was
like at a party, and you know how you go
to a party, the conversation is kind of all kind
of die out and you talk to everyone that you know,
and you know, you're like, all right, well let me
bust out this phone and you know, use this until
somebody tries to shame me for using AM at the
party and I tripped across it was so random. It
(05:02):
was on the Explore page, but it was a slime
Instagram channel and for some reason I had like, oh,
I didn't have headphones. I was watching it and then
like I was watching the Slimes and I was like, oh,
this is oddly pleasing to look at, but it said
a S A SMR, and then I kind of put
the phone up to my ear and I was like, oh,
(05:24):
this is tight. So yeah, I can't remember. I think
Danielle Radford, who is one of our close friends. She
was on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode. Yes, she
likes she like, She's openly said this, so I'm not
outing her. She likes listening to people eating sandwiches, and that,
to me is how I figured out that it was sexual.
(05:46):
I thought it was just like, oh, yeah, okay. I
didn't really think anything of it. And then when I
heard that of like people with beards eating sandwiches, I
was like, oh, oh gotcha. Yeah okay, but yeah, let's go,
let's get into uh a s MR. So although the
term a s MR and the niets YouTube community are
relatively new, the sensation itself is arguably not. There's no
(06:10):
actual record of a s MR existing until a few
years ago because people had no way of really talking
about it. The sheer volume of a s MR videos
on YouTube, though, is a testament to the thousands, I
would say, millions of people who feel these tinglies and uh,
I don't know they enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah, uh and
(06:30):
it's and it is crazy because it has like blown
up and it's been interesting to see kind of where
it started, which was I feel like a lot of
the videos kind of focused on the whispering kind of touching. Yeah, whispering,
but like it's kind of blown up and there's so
many likes. Oh wait, I have it? Wait hang on,
(06:51):
oh yeah, you know what I feel like if wispy,
I mean they did the entire a song like that.
I bet that was you know, so I'm looking at
a billboard. This is an article on Billboard. It was
the ten times whispering and rap songs unintentionally created an
a SMR experience. You know, hip hop might have been,
(07:14):
it might have been started it, especially though, because that's
a little sexual. You know, that's a little sexy. Sexy. Well,
what's the number one pick on that? Let's see what
is another? Can you think of others? I mean that
wasn't oh David Banner, yes, yes, play yes, wait no,
(07:36):
oh no, this is the edited one. Okay, you would
have been late by the time you realize that. You said,
oh wait right after where two spice? You're right, and
that was a good call on their part because we
can't play that on here. Number one, run girl, we're
trying to get your body wet. Yeah we can say that,
(07:58):
you know. Number one I don't with is Ice Ice Baby.
I've yeah, no, no, no, but yeah, I totally agree too.
Is the Whisper song from Yanang Twins and three is
David Banners play, which we're both both parts of my
high school experience. Um yeah, well, because I mean my
(08:24):
big thing was the like a pimp that was David Banners,
like big banger for me, but but definitely by like
I was well aware of David Banner by the time
play came out, But like that was the one in
high school I remember mostly because that was I got it.
Got it as a ringtone for my Boost mobile phone
(08:45):
and I was playing it because someone showed me how
to hack your Boost mobile phone to like put free
ring tones on and I was I was the King Frog,
remember that, Like commercially, I don't know how that frog
was like the baby Shark of our generation because everyone
was all about that dumb frog, and I was like,
how did this get so popular? Like I understand that
(09:07):
Ali McBeal, baby, I don't understand that Frog. Yeah. Yeah,
for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, Andrew,
you're younger than us. Um. It was this weird like
cartoon frog where you could get your ringtone essentially, you
could like, wouldn't it be a number that you set
up or you texted or called or something, and they
it would like give met you. It was called crazy Frog. Yeah.
(09:31):
Do you remember while we're on this kick, do you
remember the Gerbil song or what was it? Like? Didn't
eat that? You don't remember that? Well? Aware of that
weird ass song, people have either tuned in or turned out.
(09:52):
Oh all right, you should be able to Oh my gosh,
this is what happens when I'm delirious from shooting for
two weeks and you bring me back on this show.
This not only so so I buried the lead here.
I found someone who uploaded the original commercial. But Crazy Frog,
which is the name of it, has its own Vivo
(10:14):
and so is it still alive. It's still posting. It's
under the first video. Okay, gonna eat that? You know,
I feel like I've seen this frog recently, like oh,
this was from nine years ago, but it's also copied
written Crazy Frog commercial jamster that was it. Okay, let
(10:36):
me see this is from two thousand and five from
your respond Okay, so you would text crazy one if
(10:57):
you wanted one of the like one of those songs,
and easy too if you wanted a different one. Anyways,
that was our life back then. Wow, didn't date that?
D No, d that didn't go and we'll pay whatever
dumb amount of money. Are you doing it right now?
Do you think that it still exists out all right?
(11:18):
Live on air? You're hearing right now if this jamster
frog works crazy that's so watch you like give money
to I don't know, hell, you've given one million dollars
to Isis. I was like, oh no, all right, let's
(11:38):
let's really reeling this back into a s MR um.
It's a great so. The a s m R community
is a great example of how the rise of social
media and online communities and the Internet in general has
transformed the human experience. It was so fascinating. I don't
know if you saw Iffy today. I posted about not
ghosting people because people are people, and I think instead
(12:01):
of ghosting or ignoring someone, you can literally say hey,
you know that you want to move on? Instead of
doing that some passive aggressive stuff because that that person
on the other side of the phone has, you know,
feelings and value and worth and the world is no. No.
I was trying to say. I was trying to I'm
trying to tell the community here as a whole. I
(12:26):
was trying to tell the community here as a whole
um and uh that it's the adult thing to do
would be to just be like, hey, I'm sorry. You
know I've I'm going to move on from this. What
I mean here, I'm here for you, and you're right.
What I meant to say was somebody came back at
me and said, well, I saw on the Today Show
they interviewed people from dating apps and they said they've
(12:48):
ghosted people and it doesn't bother them. And I want
to be like one not going to take dating advice
from people on the Today Show. But that doesn't mean
that it's okay. But also if you talk about because
you can't just use that okay. If you're on a
dating app and someone goes to you're like, all right,
we're here to play ball. When someone you know in
(13:08):
real life and I know it's bad because someone's been
trying for the longest to shoot a video at BuzzFeed
where they're like, um, where the casting notes that they
send internally to all of us is like, have you
ghosted someone? I'm doing a video where people like go
up to the person that they've ghosted and like, you know,
basically confronted and apologize and stuff. And that person has
(13:30):
been trying to shoot that video for like I think
at least two months now, because no one who wants
to admit that. Yeah. Yeah, But what I was going
to say is because they said that this has transformed
the human experience, and I was going to say that
person said, now we're really antisocial. That was their response
to me about why people ghost or whatever, which I'm
not disagreeing with, but because they're saying that people ghost
(13:52):
because we're antisocial. Yeah, And I think that's one of
those things where it's like, yeah, you kind of have
to get over it. You can't, Like I, I feel
like we're allowing too many excuses. I agree. Um, And
so what I was gonna say this relates in some
way to a sm R is that I think the
sounds of human touch. That's so this is like a
(14:13):
Black Mirror episode. I think the sounds of human touch. Um,
something about that that has that side of the human
experience that even though you might people might be antisocial,
they're able to find some comfort in. That's why now
we've seen the rise of like professional snugglers, which is
another thing that I've not smugglers. Snugglers that I've tweeted about,
(14:36):
and people like that's a thing. It is a thing
where you can pay someone to cuddle. When I made
a joke about it, I don't think the men that
wrote me understood what cuddling means. That it's not me
having sex with you. I don't do it, But I
just joked of like, hey, I want that as a job,
Like you know, um, have someone pay me to snuggle them.
They're like, i'll pay you. I'm like, yeah, you're saying
it though in a way that you think that it's
(14:57):
you know, sexual, when it's just supposed to be transact Anyways,
Frog update, OK, I got terrible news for everyone. Shot.
They didn't just take your money and run. Now, they
didn't take my money. It belongs to Etna, the prescription
the company Etna r X. This automated system doesn't recognize
(15:20):
your message. Sign into your member website if you have
any questions about your prescriptions. And it's funny to think
that my favorite, uh not my favorite, that my initial
message was crazy one. So now it's like give me
the crazy ones, give me a crazy peel. I'm doing
drugs anyway. Um So, what was previously private and personal
(15:46):
is now public and common. Experiences that were not discussable
have been named and identified people who are alone in
their feelings as we're talking about of how may it
be you know, now people are able to share this
community online essentially. Yeah. So there was a pure viewed
article on a SMR by Emma Barrett and Nick Davis
and they're basically trying to show why the recent trend
(16:07):
could be important and helpful from a medical stamp. Interesting. Yeah,
and they're saying it's a SMR was previously unstudied sensory phenomenon.
So and like you were saying, I think it was
because you know, it's it's interesting because I think it's
all kind of fresh and new, especially with it being unstudied.
(16:28):
But I do think it was like this thing people
would experience and you know, you didn't fit feel a
need to explain it to anyone because it might have
been weird or it might have come from, you know,
some whispering in your ear right before you're about to
do that thing, and you're like, of course, this feels wonderful.
You know. Uh, you know what's so fascinating. They keep saying,
like in this article, it's it's the static like sensation
(16:48):
across the scalp. You know what that reminds me of
this same right he whoever feels a prickly things from
the back of your dad, whoever feels a cleansing. Yeah, yeah,
you're you're talking about six Yes, so a SMR was
now just um go SMR. Yeah, this the prickly sensation
(17:14):
against your scalp, the back of your neck, and at
times further areas in response. So now so yeah, So
essentially a sm R like if you watch and we'll
play some videos for y'all, but if you watch it now,
it's everything under the sun. It's people like with what
I've noticed is a lot of women with manicured nails
because they make that sound like on they'll scratch their
(17:35):
nails across hair brushes or tap it on, you know,
piece of plastic or something. The sensation itself is widely
reported to be accompanied by feelings of relaxation and well being.
The study that if he was talking about identifies several
common triggers used to achieve a sm R, including whispering,
personal attention. That is another thing that I've noticed in
(17:56):
the videos, crisp sounds, and very slow movements. And the
data obtain also illustrated that temporary improvements and symptoms of
depression and chronic pain and those who do engage in
a SMR and a high prevalence of synesthesia within a
sample suggests a possible link between a SMR and synesthesia
(18:17):
similar to that of miss aphonia. Links between the number
of effective triggers and heightened flow states suggest that flow
may be necessary to achieve sensation with a s MR.
So you know that that can be a tip to
any you know what what would you call the a
s MR or you know the person making them? Well, anyway,
that's a tip to you. But here's another tip. How
(18:39):
about you listen to these messages right before we come
back so you know where to find us that and
welcome back, okay, So if you so, I found another
reason why people thought that a sm R was sexual.
Is many colloquial and why are you giggling because you
(19:00):
said it in a way that you're like you were
just waiting, like as soon as as soon as this
breaks over, I'm about to hit you all with these facts. Okay, listen.
So many colloquial informal terms used and proposed between two
thousand seven and two thousand ten included reference to orgasm,
and there was during that time a significant majority objection
to this use among those active and online discussions because
(19:24):
again people are saying that they just they don't only
use a sm R for sexual arousal um people of
a SMR wanting to know we're not horny. This is
this is this reminds me of the anime community. Listen,
it's not all tennacle porn. Yeah, it is somewhat technical
port there was there was that that period where when
(19:47):
nerdy wasn't InVogue, where like there were the people when
you you're like, oh yeah, you like that, you like that? Like, No,
those are two different things. Like saying like people who
like anim may like hinta is just being like if
someone's like, hey man, yeah I really like move movies,
I'm like a cinephiles, like, oh you like porn, you
(20:09):
like making love to movies. However, by a division had
in fact occurred within the a sm R community over
the subject of sexual arousal. So this created a segment
of videos categorized as a SMR erotica. Yeah, there was
a video I saw a while back of this woman
(20:30):
doing a SMR on YouTube where some of the comments
were very critical because I guess she was like wearing
like a low cut top and all this stuff, and
they're like, oh, we feel like you don't have to
be that sexual, and then there was a fight in
the community. I was like, let her do what she wants,
which there's truth to that, but their motives I don't
think are the same. Their motives are not let's give
her autonomy their their motives is I like that. But
(20:54):
so it is like interesting that it is kind of
something at the forefront of the community. And I wonder
if that is because you know you, I mean, it
kind of removes some of the stigma I guess you
can say around the A S m R where like
if you were to tell someone you're in the a SMR,
they'll be like, oh, that's sexual sound thing. You're like,
(21:16):
you like bearded men eating sandwiches. Um, Well, I think
actually one of the hugest reasons is because it changes
their ads. So because now if you are categorized as
a sexual, it's going to change your your ads. And
we'll get into that as well. Yeah, so if you
sent me a video, it is a s MR. Amy.
(21:38):
This is from November, so not too long ago. It
has over a million views. Um, it's a s MR
very intense breathing sounds to relax tingle with me, English whispering,
and she is wearing a low cut top. She is
a well endowed woman, which is fine and should be
acceptable on the internet. I I got ahead start on these,
(22:01):
so I just want to talk about these, uh the
specific one because you know, there's a million different types
of trash comments and you know, I the only ones
I really want to point out are the ones that
are like seem offended by it. Be like reap beats,
Uh said, Uh, this wouldn't be a bad a SMR
(22:21):
if she wore an actual shirt. But what does that mean?
Because a SMRs for listening. That's you snatched the words
right out of my mouth, which is so funny. Uh Yeah.
And then the one right after that was like who
came straight to the comments to see what people wrote,
and it was like, yeah, me too, um, because it's
like it's so funny that that, like people are so
(22:44):
mad in their life. People'll get so worked up over boobs,
which are just boobs, and like half the population has
boobs and and all of the population uses them to
eat typically at some point. You know, it's um interesting
if you I do know that some of the terminology
change in the a s MR community regarding this because
(23:07):
it was perceived as sexual. Yeah. So the initial consensus
among the a SMR community was that the name should
not pose a high risk of the phenomenon being perceived
as sexual, and so because of that consensus, Jennifer Allen
proposed autonomous sensory meridian response. Alan chose the words intending
or assuming them to have the following specific meaning autonomous, spontaneous,
(23:31):
self governing, or with or without control. The sensory is
pertained to the census, of course, the meridians signifying a peak, climax,
or highest point of development, and response referring to the
experience triggered by something external or internal. Then Alan went
ahead and verified it into two thousand and sixteen interview
that she purposely selected these terms because they're more objective, comfortable,
(23:54):
and clinical than alternative terms for the sensation uh and
Alan explained that she selected the word meridian to replace
the word orgasm due to its meanings to the point
of period greatest prosperity. UH So, thus create the term
autonomous sensory meridian response and it's acronym a SMR. We're
(24:15):
both adopted by the community. And it seemed like everyone
else commenting on this phenomenon. Yeah, so if we were
to go back to the actual history of trying to
track down maybe where it started. The contemporary history of
a s MR began on October nineteen, two thousand seven,
when a twenty one year old registered user of a
discussion forum for health related subjects at a website called
(24:38):
Steady Health with the user name Okay whatever, submitted a
post in which they described having experienced a specific sensation
since childhood, comparable to the stimulated by tracing fingers along
the skin. Remember used to do that when like they
would like spell the alphabet or something on your back
and you had to guess what letter it was, or
the crack and egg on your head and let dripped down.
(25:01):
There Actually are a bunch of videos that have something
similar with running their fingers down their scalp, so yet
often triggered by seemingly random and unrelated non haptic events
such as watching a puppet show or being read a story.
So essentially something like that, like being read a story,
is having a reaction in Someone replied to this post,
which indicated that a significant number of others experienced the
(25:24):
sensation as well. They also talked about having a response
to witnessing mundane events, and that is a lot of
a SMR videos. It's like eating a sandwich, that's a
mundane event, you know, doing your nails, brushing your hair,
like those are all everyday events that people are having.
But when you use these microphones that are picking it
up to the level that it is that you can
(25:46):
hear every sound and every mouth sound, people are having
a reaction in their body and or they just find
it relaxing and or sexual. But if we wanted to
go further back, a writer, Clemens J. Set suggested that
the paths from the novel Mrs Dollaway, authored by Virginia Wolf,
which was published in nineteen twenty five, describe something kind
(26:07):
of comparable in the passage from Mrs Dollaway that Sets
is referring to a nursemaid speaks to a man who
is her patient and deeply, softly like a mellow organ,
but with a roughness in her voice, like a grasshoppers,
which rasps his spine deliciously and sent running up to
his brain waves of sound. You know, this kind of
(26:28):
sounds like a fan, like some of those Lemon fan
fictions that I used to read in a middle school
rasp his spine delicious But yeah, no, that sounds like
if I was trying to be extra when describing a SMR.
That's that's the words I'd use. Yeah. According to Sets,
this citation generally alludes to the effectiveness of the human
(26:49):
voice and soft or whispered vocal sounds, specifically as a
trigger of a s m R for many of those
who experience it. So let's up play them some. You
think we should play them some? Yeah, so this is
from gentle whispering a s m R. So you will
have to, Uh, We'll go ahead and play a couple
of I'll make sure that I'm relatively quiet. We'll play
you a couple of videos, and then you can turn
(27:11):
your volume back down because I don't want to. I
don't want you to have to turn it up to
listen to this and then be crushed. Your ear jumps.
So this is from Gentle Whispering a s MR. This
is from It has over twenty million views. It is
a video called oh such a good three D sound,
a SMR video one of my fades tapping sounds to
(27:36):
remind me of the sound of to me something Dando.
So she is this is Danny again. She is essentially
just using her fingernails to tap a brush a hair brush,
(27:57):
and it makes that sound. I'm going to switch over
to another video, which is a SMR ultimate head and
scalp massage roleplay realistic by Binarial Sounds for relaxation. This
has over four million views. From Heather Feather a s MR. Okay,
(28:24):
right there you go. So it's essentially her scratching her scalp.
This is from a SMR Requests and its face massage
water sounds soft speaking, So I will say that at
(28:45):
the start of each of these videos, it's um they're
speaking very softly and introducing what they're going to do
in the video. Typically it's going to still really light
gentle circles, your cheek. She's using am one of those
(29:06):
poor like an exfoliator, a vibrating exfoliator. Face Massager's I
used one of these at home myself. I have one more.
I have one more, which is pretty funny. It is
(29:26):
one that Universal put out. I think this year was it?
This year? It was this year. It's the Grinch eating
a raw onion and her layer, multiple layers. I think
I need to have a nipple. Oh my god, it's
(29:56):
just him staring at the camera. Why eating an onion?
But do you hear all those sounds? Okay, so this
is Danny. I'm going to stop the videos now and
we can turn the volume back up. Do you hear
(30:19):
all of those sounds? So when he was taking that bite,
like each of those little like crevice is essentially all
of those little raspy sounds. That is what people enjoy.
I mean, they enjoy so many different aspects of a SMR.
But essentially, if you're making an a SMR video, that
is what you're all the different sounds, The crispness, I guess,
(30:41):
is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, it's like like
they say, or like Danny was saying earlier, is that
you know those sounds. A lot of the sounds are
oftentimes ones that are that can be linked to physical touch,
just like the head scratching one from earlier and on
and so forth. So you know, anything that almost has
(31:04):
a tactile feel to the sound is is let people
go crazy. So here's one trying a smart for the
first time with my dad. It seems very on brand
for me. Um. So we're gonna take a break and
when we come back, we'll talk about some of the
health benefits that they've found from a smart. Right after
these messages and we're back. And uh, I realized because
(31:35):
I was talking with Iffy during the break about how
I mentioned that the front pagers all women. What I
meant to say is I think that a lot of
times women like we see with the cosplay community with women,
is any time that they do anything like that, it's
automatically categorized as sexual. Um So I understand their argument.
And there you know that just because these women are
(31:58):
speaking softly into microphone or tapping a hair brush or
you know, whatever they're doing, it's seen as um as sexual,
even though that might not be their intent. A lot
of them do say like so this front page that
I'm looking at says a SMR Christmas triggers to help
you sleep, a sm R relaxing triggers to help you sleep.
So you know, even though some of them are clearly
(32:21):
labeled to help you sleep, it doesn't mean that everyone's
gonna use them the same way, I guess. So just
something I wanted to point out, and that they've been
doing studies that a SMR is actually helpful to people's health.
So Forbes reported that researchers from the University of Sheffield
in the United Kingdom wanted to find out whether a
(32:41):
SMR tingles might also confer other benefits or it's just
all about the feeling, and to investigate they conducted a
two part study. So in the first part, more than
a thousand people watched a s m R triggering videos
and other videos without a sm R elements, and then
they completed an online survey the frequency of their sensations
while why watching the videos and their emotional responses such
(33:02):
as excitement, calmness, sadness, etcetera. And people who watched the
SMR videos answered follow up questions about which part of
the videos induced the sensations. The results showed that the
participants who experienced the most frequent A SMR sensations also
reported the highest levels of excitement and calmness. Conversely, they
also said they experienced the lowest levels of sadness and
(33:25):
feelings of stress. Fascinating because it is calming, it is relaxing. Yeah.
And the next part of the study moved the experiments
into a lab to more closely control the conditions that
they were gonna put them under, and researchers recruited a
mix of ten A SMR and non A SMR experience
participants that took baseline measurements of their heart rates skin
(33:47):
conductance responses a way to basically measure your emotional arousal.
The participants then watched the A SMR and control videos
and in the first part of the study, reported on
the frequency of the sensation. Then the researchers measured their
heart rates and skin conductance responses again while they watched
the videos to compare against the baseline measurements. The results
(34:10):
ended up showing that the participants with the history of
experiencing A s MR sensations had a significantly lower heart
rate and average of three point four teen beats per
minute lower when watching a SMR videos than those who
hadn't previously experienced the sensation. Then those who hadn't previously
experienced the sensations. The a SMR experiencing participants also had
(34:33):
a higher reading on the skin conduction on the skin
conductance test, indicating greater emotional responses. Results across both parts
of the studies suggest that people who will experience a
SMR benefit emotionally and physiologically when watching videos that trigger
the sensations. They report at the highest levels of positive
(34:53):
emotion and lowest levels of negative emotions, and their heart
rates dropped to levels comparable to what has been observed
during mind yes, mindful meditation. Yeah. One catch is that
this all only appears to hold true for people with
a history of experiencing a SMM. Got it. Yeah, you know,
I was going to say some of these I don't.
I don't listen to a sm R, but I do
(35:14):
do hypnosis and uh meditation. I have a meditation app
called Calm, which I highly recommend because I hate meditating.
I'm one of those people that it's so everyone's like
just doing it's so easy. No, it's not being alone
with your thoughts, sitting sitting, still for ten minutes is torture.
But calm app I feel like helps a lot because
they'll kind of talk you through it. Um. But I
also do hypnosis, and there's a lot of hypnosis if
(35:36):
you're interested on YouTube, and it's kind of similar a
little bit different, but it is someone kind of whispering
because I'll do hypnosis for sleep, um, and it's supposed
to help you relax. They'll they will walk, they'll do
a body scan sometimes while they'll walk you through your body,
relaxing different parts of your body to help you sleep. Uh.
And since they are whispering, it is somewhat similar. So
(35:58):
that is really fascinating for me. Someone that said that
they didn't like a SMR to find out that people
that are doing it have these instances of positive emotions
and lower levels of negativity. I might need to get
on it and or start my own account. I can
help you find your trigger. I can help you find
your trigger. Dang. Yeah, and you just need to be
(36:19):
more open with myself not doing anything for you. I
don't mind it. I don't mind it. Um. I like rain,
so my meditation apps normally have rain. I did want
to say. So this was from an article from Forbes. Uh,
which so, yeah, I did want to say, well, I
(36:41):
did want to say, actually before we move on, that
we forgot the godfather of a s m R, who
is Bob Ross. Bob Ross is known as the godfather
of a s MR. Um. You know in the community,
I think for a lot of people that he was
someone that people would listen to to go to sleep.
That sounds bad, but not not not bad. You know,
(37:03):
he was relaxing. He was a lot of people would
listen to him or listen to his tapes and watch
him and stuff because he was relaxed, relaxing. Yeah, so
they they liked his soft speaking and some of his
mouth sounds and whatnot. Um. So this is an article
from another article from Forbes. It says, is there any
money to be made in a s m R. Let
(37:23):
me go ahead and just skip this whole article, And yes,
so there's a couple of ways to make money in
a sm R when obviously having viral videos like the
ones that we showed you that had like four million views.
The only problem is is that sometimes if they're flagged
as being sexual, that can't affect their monetary income. So
some uh, a s mr r's a s mars have
(37:45):
opened patreons. Patreon has also gotten weird about their sexual
stuff as well though, So and again I'm not tying
a sm R too, you know, sex work and and that,
but it just seems that everywhere people try to go
it seems to be kind of blocked. So that was
just what I was going to note. Yeah, it looks
(38:08):
like you can also get it maybe on other platforms
such as like iTunes and Spotify. I hadn't even thought
of that, but that makes sense. That makes sense to
have a SMR and those well. Also, it's like it's
crazy how like you know, once things kind of blow
up as a way people sleeping, you can probably get
a SMR on Alexa. I know that we do rain
(38:28):
sounds because Naomi. It helps her. It helps her. I
have a question if he's so, if an attractive woman
is has a lowish cut top and is has you know,
her her manicured nails and is wrapping on a brush
or something like that, and it's flagged as being sexual,
(38:48):
do you think that that would happen to a man? No,
because I mean I feel like do you can probably
even do it shirtless? You know, and it wouldn't be set. Yeah,
now there's I mean, it's very obvious that there's a
bias against women and a lot of the sex sex working,
(39:08):
sex work banning across platforms. I mean, like Tumbler literally
said female presenting nipples, which was absurd because that's kind
of been the I feel part of of the debate
behind like banning nipples that was that that's been shied
away from, is that it's like, oh, you'll bann male nipples,
but not female nipples. And for Tumbler to just outright
(39:31):
be like female presenting nipples, which is basically literally in
that same rule saying like oh, shirtless men are fine,
just not women. So I think I think that that
hammer tends to fall the same way, you know, just
if it's not as bad, it doesn't look that and
(39:51):
I think it's it's a double standard. It's unfair and
it sucks, especially in this case where like I mean,
not this isn't to say that you know, if you
if you are doing sex work, you should be banned
from doing it. But then the fact that it's like
affecting women who aren't even in the sex work industry,
it just seems like an excuse, and it seems like
no one should care because the majority of women do it,
(40:15):
so that sucks. But I mean, like the core of
that also comes from like SESTA and fosta UM, which
was the law that passed that basically allowed the government
to like find and shut down websites if you know,
if they find if someone is trafficked sexually on it.
(40:36):
So that kind of closed down places like Craigslist because
even though a lot of you know, sex workers used it,
if one person was found to be using it for trafficking,
then now they get to punish the site. And that's
just kind of a way to get the sites to
bully people out of you know, harboring a safe space
(40:56):
for sex workers to work. I mean, you know, I'm
sure butchering it. But that's the general gist of SESTA
and FASTA, And it was voted on because you know,
people here sex trafficking and obviously want to stop that,
but it's been kind of used as a dog whistle
to kind of shut down a lot of safe sex work.
Yeah yeah, which leads to unsafe sex work. So yeah,
(41:18):
so I don't know, it is it is interesting that, um,
some of these studies that we can link in the
notes that talk about how it reduces depression, anxiety, panic
attacks UM, and helps those susceptible to insomnia. I do
want to say, if you're having better sleep, that is
going to affect your mental health. That is going to
improve your mental health. So if you're someone that has
(41:39):
difficulties sleeping and a smore helps you have a deeper
sleep and a longer sleep, UM, then that would make
sense that it would lower your depression, anxiety and panic attacks. UM.
Also just having a calming I know for me using
my meditation app, we have one for panic attacks. It's
like a ninety second or three minute like calming. You
actually just watch a bubble and you breathe with the bubble.
(42:01):
You watch the bubble span and you watch it decrease
and UM. I can imagine that for those that are
having panic attacks, putting on something calming like a SMR
and listening to someone quietly, you know, helping you and
talking to you would would be helpful. So I am
I'm going to you know, nineteen is the year that
I accept a SMR and I'm such an open person,
(42:25):
it's I really should There's no reason, Yeah, why shouldn't
be in the a s m R community. SMR is
a fun thing to try. It, I think, uh, you
know we have We're gonna be dropping some YouTube channels
in the footnotes for you to check out, just to
see and you know, this has been a fun one.
Let us know what your triggers are or end up being,
(42:47):
or if you found a s m R through this
episode and found one that really works for you, let
us know and we'll check it out and see if
we match up anything you want to plug. Danny follow
me at MS Danny Fernandez. I guess tell me, yeah,
tell me what you're kind of? You'r a smart What
you think that I would be into? Y'all listen to me.
You've listened to me for almost a year. Now. What
do you think that I would being? What would turn
(43:08):
me on to a SMR? I guess what do you
think is like a welcoming, comforting thing for me to try?
I guess I don't. Here's one of my pet peeves,
people eating. I can't. This is why I don't like
a smart I do not like the sound of people.
I'm one of those people that like, if your spouse
is you know, even though you've been dating them for
like three years and they're right next to you and
(43:29):
they're chewing allowed apple. I cannot handle it. I have
to go in the other room. It's too much the
sounds of people eating loudly. Anyways, Well, and you know me, uh,
January nine and twentie, Like I said last week, I
will be at San Francisco sketch Fest doing the three
(43:51):
shows as it stands that I know of. First one
being me doing stand up live at the Alumo, second
one being white women You're techoing friend live at sketch Us,
and the last one is doing yo is this racist?
Live at sketch Fest? So catch me there or I
guess you can catch me later on yo is this racist? When?
When they released that live that But you know, it's
(44:13):
probably fun to be there live. Feel that energy coming
at your face. I saw Childish Gambino Monday night or
that was last night. It's Tuesday, guys this week. Did
you feel reinvigorated? Oh? Yeah, that It sent waves through
my body seeing uh Childish and I'm ready. That's how
I felt seen into the Spider verse. I felt like, yeah,
(44:35):
there's a reason I'm doing this, and it's to get
more stories. You know, there's a reason why I'm here
and trying to make TV and trying to make you know,
both of us trying to make UM our creative endeavors
of getting stories that haven't previously been able to be
told and having characters that don't you know, haven't always
been able to be represented out there. And it. I
(44:56):
loved it. I cried. I cried. I cannot wait to
see it. I was supposed to see it. I ended
up missing the screening I was supposed to catch um.
And then in the year in the end of it all, Uh,
you know, I saw I bumped into Demmy actually on
my way here and he was going to go see
that movie. Yeah, I was gonna say that. Um, I
(45:18):
saw it like they So they let um like movie
critics see it like two months in advance. That's how
they know it's good when they when something so here's
just a little inside thing. When something's not good, they
either don't have a screening of it, or they'll do
it the week of, like two days or something before,
so you don't really have time to do a review. Um.
They let people see into the Spider verse like two
(45:41):
months in advance. I saw it a month in advance.
But even when I had saw a bunch of our
friends had already seen it, like the month before, so
they were like, it's good. Tell everybody. They even get
early screenings at Regal for like they're like insider fans.
I was like, yeah, they want people to see this.
They're like they know it's good as they should. Um
cool on ah. Yeah. This has been a movie talk
(46:03):
portion of our a smur podcast and I always just
make you view, like in some screen stared
And hello today it's going to be a very special
episode of sens is a s m R, which stands
for Autonomous sensory meridian responses. Um enjoying this or you
might be hating it because some people do not like
a s m R at all, which is so interesting.
(00:36):
But you but just in case you want to know
you're in the right place. You are listening to Nerd Defficent.
I am your host if you away, And you know,
I'm really excited about this one because it's very very
quiet at times and sometimes it's loud. Um. You know,
I do know someone who hates a s MR. So
(00:56):
I and that person did pick it. It's Danny. She
hates a SMR, so I think you know, in her honor,
I'm just gonna do it like this for the rest
of the episode. The binural mix that I hew you doing,
little mom, I'm here, I'm back. I made it back
(01:22):
to the show. It's been sh wrong. I've been on
her show. How Naomi now she's in college, daughter Naomi
should college. She's in college now. It's been show long s.
I'm being on there NERD Tactic Podcast. During that whole bit,
(01:45):
Danny was moving her arms like she was using the cane,
but it just looked like she was going to ready
to shoot some dice. I was like, all right, you
want to lose your money, this is how much I
love you. I'll not that literally anyone at because I
don't think anyone. Maybe one person might have asked a
long time ago, but I can't remember. I thought it
would be fascinating to look at the world of a
(02:06):
s mr um because it is technically, I think a
part of the nerd community. I considered part of the
nerd community. It's definitely part of the YouTube community that's
really taken off its existed before YouTube. But yeah, but
that's kind of what made it explode. I don't like it.
I in our group chat of this podcast that we
(02:27):
have with Dan and our producer and Anna i Um,
I said I would rather us going over hardcore porn
um SMR. I'm one of those people that find it
what's the word uncomfortable. That's the word I'm looking for.
And it's got to find your right trigger. See, because
I was the same way, and I was like, this,
(02:48):
this is what's Bernain doing it for? But then I
found out slime and scratches is where Well, the thing
that I do want to say is that a lot
of these YouTubers are upset and rightfully so, that they're
being flagged as it being just a sexual fetish. And
they do a lot of people use a s MR
to sleep, to relax and sleep, and and there are
(03:11):
a lot of people that use it for sexual reasons.
And that's fine too, and that's true, Iffy. Yeah, like
we said with Roger Craigsmith, some of that sonic art
you know, some of the sonic sonic art on Tumbler,
which Tumbler is now taking off porn anyways, Yeah, a
(03:33):
s MR, as if you said it is autonomous sensory
meridian response. Essentially, it is. This is the definition, is
an experience characterized by a static like or tingling sensation
on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and
moves down the back of the neck and upper spine.
We know it as people talking very quietly on YouTube,
(03:54):
very very quietly, like like like this quietly, and you
can hear my mouth sounds. You can hear when my
my mouth comes together. But you might somebody might be like, yep,
that's it. I need Danny to start a YouTube play
I guess I could do an sm R Patreon. Maybe,
I don't know. I have some projects I need to
get funded. Um, I think i'd be good at it too,
(04:17):
especially this voice that I have. But voice I think too.
So yeah, if you tell me what we're what are
some of your favorite videos? Like what are you into? Well,
you know, I mean, what are you what do you
like to watch with a sm R. Let's not get
into what you're Well, it's too general of a question
with with a sm R. I found that it is
(04:39):
like The Slimes. And I found it because I was
like at a party, and you know how you go
to a party, the conversation is kind of all kind
of die out and you talk to everyone that you know,
and you know, you're like, all right, well let me
bust out this phone and you know, use this until
somebody tries to shame me for using AM at the
party and I tripped across it was so random. It
(05:02):
was on the Explore page, but it was a slime
Instagram channel and for some reason I had like, oh,
I didn't have headphones. I was watching it and then
like I was watching the Slimes and I was like, oh,
this is oddly pleasing to look at, but it said
a S A SMR, and then I kind of put
the phone up to my ear and I was like, oh,
(05:24):
this is tight. So yeah, I can't remember. I think
Danielle Radford, who is one of our close friends. She
was on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode. Yes, she
likes she like, She's openly said this, so I'm not
outing her. She likes listening to people eating sandwiches, and that,
to me is how I figured out that it was sexual.
(05:46):
I thought it was just like, oh, yeah, okay. I
didn't really think anything of it. And then when I
heard that of like people with beards eating sandwiches, I
was like, oh, oh gotcha. Yeah okay, but yeah, let's go,
let's get into uh a s MR. So although the
term a s MR and the niets YouTube community are
relatively new, the sensation itself is arguably not. There's no
(06:10):
actual record of a s MR existing until a few
years ago because people had no way of really talking
about it. The sheer volume of a s MR videos
on YouTube, though, is a testament to the thousands, I
would say, millions of people who feel these tinglies and uh,
I don't know they enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah, uh and
(06:30):
it's and it is crazy because it has like blown
up and it's been interesting to see kind of where
it started, which was I feel like a lot of
the videos kind of focused on the whispering kind of touching. Yeah, whispering,
but like it's kind of blown up and there's so
many likes. Oh wait, I have it? Wait hang on,
(06:51):
oh yeah, you know what I feel like if wispy,
I mean they did the entire a song like that.
I bet that was you know, so I'm looking at
a billboard. This is an article on Billboard. It was
the ten times whispering and rap songs unintentionally created an
a SMR experience. You know, hip hop might have been,
(07:14):
it might have been started it, especially though, because that's
a little sexual. You know, that's a little sexy. Sexy. Well,
what's the number one pick on that? Let's see what
is another? Can you think of others? I mean that
wasn't oh David Banner, yes, yes, play yes, wait no,
(07:36):
oh no, this is the edited one. Okay, you would
have been late by the time you realize that. You said,
oh wait right after where two spice? You're right, and
that was a good call on their part because we
can't play that on here. Number one, run girl, we're
trying to get your body wet. Yeah we can say that,
(07:58):
you know. Number one I don't with is Ice Ice Baby.
I've yeah, no, no, no, but yeah, I totally agree too.
Is the Whisper song from Yanang Twins and three is
David Banners play, which we're both both parts of my
high school experience. Um yeah, well, because I mean my
(08:24):
big thing was the like a pimp that was David Banners,
like big banger for me, but but definitely by like
I was well aware of David Banner by the time
play came out, But like that was the one in
high school I remember mostly because that was I got it.
Got it as a ringtone for my Boost mobile phone
(08:45):
and I was playing it because someone showed me how
to hack your Boost mobile phone to like put free
ring tones on and I was I was the King Frog,
remember that, Like commercially, I don't know how that frog
was like the baby Shark of our generation because everyone
was all about that dumb frog, and I was like,
how did this get so popular? Like I understand that
(09:07):
Ali McBeal, baby, I don't understand that Frog. Yeah. Yeah,
for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, Andrew,
you're younger than us. Um. It was this weird like
cartoon frog where you could get your ringtone essentially, you
could like, wouldn't it be a number that you set
up or you texted or called or something, and they
it would like give met you. It was called crazy Frog. Yeah.
(09:31):
Do you remember while we're on this kick, do you
remember the Gerbil song or what was it? Like? Didn't
eat that? You don't remember that? Well? Aware of that
weird ass song, people have either tuned in or turned out.
(09:52):
Oh all right, you should be able to Oh my gosh,
this is what happens when I'm delirious from shooting for
two weeks and you bring me back on this show.
This not only so so I buried the lead here.
I found someone who uploaded the original commercial. But Crazy Frog,
which is the name of it, has its own Vivo
(10:14):
and so is it still alive. It's still posting. It's
under the first video. Okay, gonna eat that? You know,
I feel like I've seen this frog recently, like oh,
this was from nine years ago, but it's also copied
written Crazy Frog commercial jamster that was it. Okay, let
(10:36):
me see this is from two thousand and five from
your respond Okay, so you would text crazy one if
(10:57):
you wanted one of the like one of those songs,
and easy too if you wanted a different one. Anyways,
that was our life back then. Wow, didn't date that?
D No, d that didn't go and we'll pay whatever
dumb amount of money. Are you doing it right now?
Do you think that it still exists out all right?
(11:18):
Live on air? You're hearing right now if this jamster
frog works crazy that's so watch you like give money
to I don't know, hell, you've given one million dollars
to Isis. I was like, oh no, all right, let's
(11:38):
let's really reeling this back into a s MR um.
It's a great so. The a s m R community
is a great example of how the rise of social
media and online communities and the Internet in general has
transformed the human experience. It was so fascinating. I don't
know if you saw Iffy today. I posted about not
ghosting people because people are people, and I think instead
(12:01):
of ghosting or ignoring someone, you can literally say hey,
you know that you want to move on? Instead of
doing that some passive aggressive stuff because that that person
on the other side of the phone has, you know,
feelings and value and worth and the world is no. No.
I was trying to say. I was trying to I'm
trying to tell the community here as a whole. I
(12:26):
was trying to tell the community here as a whole
um and uh that it's the adult thing to do
would be to just be like, hey, I'm sorry. You
know I've I'm going to move on from this. What
I mean here, I'm here for you, and you're right.
What I meant to say was somebody came back at
me and said, well, I saw on the Today Show
they interviewed people from dating apps and they said they've
(12:48):
ghosted people and it doesn't bother them. And I want
to be like one not going to take dating advice
from people on the Today Show. But that doesn't mean
that it's okay. But also if you talk about because
you can't just use that okay. If you're on a
dating app and someone goes to you're like, all right,
we're here to play ball. When someone you know in
(13:08):
real life and I know it's bad because someone's been
trying for the longest to shoot a video at BuzzFeed
where they're like, um, where the casting notes that they
send internally to all of us is like, have you
ghosted someone? I'm doing a video where people like go
up to the person that they've ghosted and like, you know,
basically confronted and apologize and stuff. And that person has
(13:30):
been trying to shoot that video for like I think
at least two months now, because no one who wants
to admit that. Yeah. Yeah, But what I was going
to say is because they said that this has transformed
the human experience, and I was going to say that
person said, now we're really antisocial. That was their response
to me about why people ghost or whatever, which I'm
not disagreeing with, but because they're saying that people ghost
(13:52):
because we're antisocial. Yeah, And I think that's one of
those things where it's like, yeah, you kind of have
to get over it. You can't, Like I, I feel
like we're allowing too many excuses. I agree. Um, And
so what I was gonna say this relates in some
way to a sm R is that I think the
sounds of human touch. That's so this is like a
(14:13):
Black Mirror episode. I think the sounds of human touch. Um,
something about that that has that side of the human
experience that even though you might people might be antisocial,
they're able to find some comfort in. That's why now
we've seen the rise of like professional snugglers, which is
another thing that I've not smugglers. Snugglers that I've tweeted about,
(14:36):
and people like that's a thing. It is a thing
where you can pay someone to cuddle. When I made
a joke about it, I don't think the men that
wrote me understood what cuddling means. That it's not me
having sex with you. I don't do it, But I
just joked of like, hey, I want that as a job,
Like you know, um, have someone pay me to snuggle them.
They're like, i'll pay you. I'm like, yeah, you're saying
it though in a way that you think that it's
(14:57):
you know, sexual, when it's just supposed to be transact Anyways,
Frog update, OK, I got terrible news for everyone. Shot.
They didn't just take your money and run. Now, they
didn't take my money. It belongs to Etna, the prescription
the company Etna r X. This automated system doesn't recognize
(15:20):
your message. Sign into your member website if you have
any questions about your prescriptions. And it's funny to think
that my favorite, uh not my favorite, that my initial
message was crazy one. So now it's like give me
the crazy ones, give me a crazy peel. I'm doing
drugs anyway. Um So, what was previously private and personal
(15:46):
is now public and common. Experiences that were not discussable
have been named and identified people who are alone in
their feelings as we're talking about of how may it
be you know, now people are able to share this
community online essentially. Yeah. So there was a pure viewed
article on a SMR by Emma Barrett and Nick Davis
and they're basically trying to show why the recent trend
(16:07):
could be important and helpful from a medical stamp. Interesting. Yeah,
and they're saying it's a SMR was previously unstudied sensory phenomenon.
So and like you were saying, I think it was
because you know, it's it's interesting because I think it's
all kind of fresh and new, especially with it being unstudied.
(16:28):
But I do think it was like this thing people
would experience and you know, you didn't fit feel a
need to explain it to anyone because it might have
been weird or it might have come from, you know,
some whispering in your ear right before you're about to
do that thing, and you're like, of course, this feels wonderful.
You know. Uh, you know what's so fascinating. They keep saying,
like in this article, it's it's the static like sensation
(16:48):
across the scalp. You know what that reminds me of
this same right he whoever feels a prickly things from
the back of your dad, whoever feels a cleansing. Yeah, yeah,
you're you're talking about six Yes, so a SMR was
now just um go SMR. Yeah, this the prickly sensation
(17:14):
against your scalp, the back of your neck, and at
times further areas in response. So now so yeah, So
essentially a sm R like if you watch and we'll
play some videos for y'all, but if you watch it now,
it's everything under the sun. It's people like with what
I've noticed is a lot of women with manicured nails
because they make that sound like on they'll scratch their
(17:35):
nails across hair brushes or tap it on, you know,
piece of plastic or something. The sensation itself is widely
reported to be accompanied by feelings of relaxation and well being.
The study that if he was talking about identifies several
common triggers used to achieve a sm R, including whispering,
personal attention. That is another thing that I've noticed in
(17:56):
the videos, crisp sounds, and very slow movements. And the
data obtain also illustrated that temporary improvements and symptoms of
depression and chronic pain and those who do engage in
a SMR and a high prevalence of synesthesia within a
sample suggests a possible link between a SMR and synesthesia
(18:17):
similar to that of miss aphonia. Links between the number
of effective triggers and heightened flow states suggest that flow
may be necessary to achieve sensation with a s MR.
So you know that that can be a tip to
any you know what what would you call the a
s MR or you know the person making them? Well, anyway,
that's a tip to you. But here's another tip. How
(18:39):
about you listen to these messages right before we come
back so you know where to find us that and
welcome back, okay, So if you so, I found another
reason why people thought that a sm R was sexual.
Is many colloquial and why are you giggling because you
(19:00):
said it in a way that you're like you were
just waiting, like as soon as as soon as this
breaks over, I'm about to hit you all with these facts. Okay, listen.
So many colloquial informal terms used and proposed between two
thousand seven and two thousand ten included reference to orgasm,
and there was during that time a significant majority objection
to this use among those active and online discussions because
(19:24):
again people are saying that they just they don't only
use a sm R for sexual arousal um people of
a SMR wanting to know we're not horny. This is
this is this reminds me of the anime community. Listen,
it's not all tennacle porn. Yeah, it is somewhat technical
port there was there was that that period where when
(19:47):
nerdy wasn't InVogue, where like there were the people when
you you're like, oh yeah, you like that, you like that? Like, No,
those are two different things. Like saying like people who
like anim may like hinta is just being like if
someone's like, hey man, yeah I really like move movies,
I'm like a cinephiles, like, oh you like porn, you
(20:09):
like making love to movies. However, by a division had
in fact occurred within the a sm R community over
the subject of sexual arousal. So this created a segment
of videos categorized as a SMR erotica. Yeah, there was
a video I saw a while back of this woman
(20:30):
doing a SMR on YouTube where some of the comments
were very critical because I guess she was like wearing
like a low cut top and all this stuff, and
they're like, oh, we feel like you don't have to
be that sexual, and then there was a fight in
the community. I was like, let her do what she wants,
which there's truth to that, but their motives I don't
think are the same. Their motives are not let's give
her autonomy their their motives is I like that. But
(20:54):
so it is like interesting that it is kind of
something at the forefront of the community. And I wonder
if that is because you know you, I mean, it
kind of removes some of the stigma I guess you
can say around the A S m R where like
if you were to tell someone you're in the a SMR,
they'll be like, oh, that's sexual sound thing. You're like,
(21:16):
you like bearded men eating sandwiches. Um, Well, I think
actually one of the hugest reasons is because it changes
their ads. So because now if you are categorized as
a sexual, it's going to change your your ads. And
we'll get into that as well. Yeah, so if you
sent me a video, it is a s MR. Amy.
(21:38):
This is from November, so not too long ago. It
has over a million views. Um, it's a s MR
very intense breathing sounds to relax tingle with me, English whispering,
and she is wearing a low cut top. She is
a well endowed woman, which is fine and should be
acceptable on the internet. I I got ahead start on these,
(22:01):
so I just want to talk about these, uh the
specific one because you know, there's a million different types
of trash comments and you know, I the only ones
I really want to point out are the ones that
are like seem offended by it. Be like reap beats,
Uh said, Uh, this wouldn't be a bad a SMR
(22:21):
if she wore an actual shirt. But what does that mean?
Because a SMRs for listening. That's you snatched the words
right out of my mouth, which is so funny. Uh Yeah.
And then the one right after that was like who
came straight to the comments to see what people wrote,
and it was like, yeah, me too, um, because it's
like it's so funny that that, like people are so
(22:44):
mad in their life. People'll get so worked up over boobs,
which are just boobs, and like half the population has
boobs and and all of the population uses them to
eat typically at some point. You know, it's um interesting
if you I do know that some of the terminology
change in the a s MR community regarding this because
(23:07):
it was perceived as sexual. Yeah. So the initial consensus
among the a SMR community was that the name should
not pose a high risk of the phenomenon being perceived
as sexual, and so because of that consensus, Jennifer Allen
proposed autonomous sensory meridian response. Alan chose the words intending
or assuming them to have the following specific meaning autonomous, spontaneous,
(23:31):
self governing, or with or without control. The sensory is
pertained to the census, of course, the meridians signifying a peak, climax,
or highest point of development, and response referring to the
experience triggered by something external or internal. Then Alan went
ahead and verified it into two thousand and sixteen interview
that she purposely selected these terms because they're more objective, comfortable,
(23:54):
and clinical than alternative terms for the sensation uh and
Alan explained that she selected the word meridian to replace
the word orgasm due to its meanings to the point
of period greatest prosperity. UH So, thus create the term
autonomous sensory meridian response and it's acronym a SMR. We're
(24:15):
both adopted by the community. And it seemed like everyone
else commenting on this phenomenon. Yeah, so if we were
to go back to the actual history of trying to
track down maybe where it started. The contemporary history of
a s MR began on October nineteen, two thousand seven,
when a twenty one year old registered user of a
discussion forum for health related subjects at a website called
(24:38):
Steady Health with the user name Okay whatever, submitted a
post in which they described having experienced a specific sensation
since childhood, comparable to the stimulated by tracing fingers along
the skin. Remember used to do that when like they
would like spell the alphabet or something on your back
and you had to guess what letter it was, or
the crack and egg on your head and let dripped down.
(25:01):
There Actually are a bunch of videos that have something
similar with running their fingers down their scalp, so yet
often triggered by seemingly random and unrelated non haptic events
such as watching a puppet show or being read a story.
So essentially something like that, like being read a story,
is having a reaction in Someone replied to this post,
which indicated that a significant number of others experienced the
(25:24):
sensation as well. They also talked about having a response
to witnessing mundane events, and that is a lot of
a SMR videos. It's like eating a sandwich, that's a
mundane event, you know, doing your nails, brushing your hair,
like those are all everyday events that people are having.
But when you use these microphones that are picking it
up to the level that it is that you can
(25:46):
hear every sound and every mouth sound, people are having
a reaction in their body and or they just find
it relaxing and or sexual. But if we wanted to
go further back, a writer, Clemens J. Set suggested that
the paths from the novel Mrs Dollaway, authored by Virginia Wolf,
which was published in nineteen twenty five, describe something kind
(26:07):
of comparable in the passage from Mrs Dollaway that Sets
is referring to a nursemaid speaks to a man who
is her patient and deeply, softly like a mellow organ,
but with a roughness in her voice, like a grasshoppers,
which rasps his spine deliciously and sent running up to
his brain waves of sound. You know, this kind of
(26:28):
sounds like a fan, like some of those Lemon fan
fictions that I used to read in a middle school
rasp his spine delicious But yeah, no, that sounds like
if I was trying to be extra when describing a SMR.
That's that's the words I'd use. Yeah. According to Sets,
this citation generally alludes to the effectiveness of the human
(26:49):
voice and soft or whispered vocal sounds, specifically as a
trigger of a s m R for many of those
who experience it. So let's up play them some. You
think we should play them some? Yeah, so this is
from gentle whispering a s m R. So you will
have to, Uh, We'll go ahead and play a couple
of I'll make sure that I'm relatively quiet. We'll play
you a couple of videos, and then you can turn
(27:11):
your volume back down because I don't want to. I
don't want you to have to turn it up to
listen to this and then be crushed. Your ear jumps.
So this is from Gentle Whispering a s MR. This
is from It has over twenty million views. It is
a video called oh such a good three D sound,
a SMR video one of my fades tapping sounds to
(27:36):
remind me of the sound of to me something Dando.
So she is this is Danny again. She is essentially
just using her fingernails to tap a brush a hair brush,
(27:57):
and it makes that sound. I'm going to switch over
to another video, which is a SMR ultimate head and
scalp massage roleplay realistic by Binarial Sounds for relaxation. This
has over four million views. From Heather Feather a s MR. Okay,
(28:24):
right there you go. So it's essentially her scratching her scalp.
This is from a SMR Requests and its face massage
water sounds soft speaking, So I will say that at
(28:45):
the start of each of these videos, it's um they're
speaking very softly and introducing what they're going to do
in the video. Typically it's going to still really light
gentle circles, your cheek. She's using am one of those
(29:06):
poor like an exfoliator, a vibrating exfoliator. Face Massager's I
used one of these at home myself. I have one more.
I have one more, which is pretty funny. It is
(29:26):
one that Universal put out. I think this year was it?
This year? It was this year. It's the Grinch eating
a raw onion and her layer, multiple layers. I think
I need to have a nipple. Oh my god, it's
(29:56):
just him staring at the camera. Why eating an onion?
But do you hear all those sounds? Okay, so this
is Danny. I'm going to stop the videos now and
we can turn the volume back up. Do you hear
(30:19):
all of those sounds? So when he was taking that bite,
like each of those little like crevice is essentially all
of those little raspy sounds. That is what people enjoy.
I mean, they enjoy so many different aspects of a SMR.
But essentially, if you're making an a SMR video, that
is what you're all the different sounds, The crispness, I guess,
(30:41):
is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, it's like like
they say, or like Danny was saying earlier, is that
you know those sounds. A lot of the sounds are
oftentimes ones that are that can be linked to physical touch,
just like the head scratching one from earlier and on
and so forth. So you know, anything that almost has
(31:04):
a tactile feel to the sound is is let people
go crazy. So here's one trying a smart for the
first time with my dad. It seems very on brand
for me. Um. So we're gonna take a break and
when we come back, we'll talk about some of the
health benefits that they've found from a smart. Right after
these messages and we're back. And uh, I realized because
(31:35):
I was talking with Iffy during the break about how
I mentioned that the front pagers all women. What I
meant to say is I think that a lot of
times women like we see with the cosplay community with women,
is any time that they do anything like that, it's
automatically categorized as sexual. Um So I understand their argument.
And there you know that just because these women are
(31:58):
speaking softly into microphone or tapping a hair brush or
you know, whatever they're doing, it's seen as um as sexual,
even though that might not be their intent. A lot
of them do say like so this front page that
I'm looking at says a SMR Christmas triggers to help
you sleep, a sm R relaxing triggers to help you sleep.
So you know, even though some of them are clearly
(32:21):
labeled to help you sleep, it doesn't mean that everyone's
gonna use them the same way, I guess. So just
something I wanted to point out, and that they've been
doing studies that a SMR is actually helpful to people's health.
So Forbes reported that researchers from the University of Sheffield
in the United Kingdom wanted to find out whether a
(32:41):
SMR tingles might also confer other benefits or it's just
all about the feeling, and to investigate they conducted a
two part study. So in the first part, more than
a thousand people watched a s m R triggering videos
and other videos without a sm R elements, and then
they completed an online survey the frequency of their sensations
while why watching the videos and their emotional responses such
(33:02):
as excitement, calmness, sadness, etcetera. And people who watched the
SMR videos answered follow up questions about which part of
the videos induced the sensations. The results showed that the
participants who experienced the most frequent A SMR sensations also
reported the highest levels of excitement and calmness. Conversely, they
also said they experienced the lowest levels of sadness and
(33:25):
feelings of stress. Fascinating because it is calming, it is relaxing. Yeah.
And the next part of the study moved the experiments
into a lab to more closely control the conditions that
they were gonna put them under, and researchers recruited a
mix of ten A SMR and non A SMR experience
participants that took baseline measurements of their heart rates skin
(33:47):
conductance responses a way to basically measure your emotional arousal.
The participants then watched the A SMR and control videos
and in the first part of the study, reported on
the frequency of the sensation. Then the researchers measured their
heart rates and skin conductance responses again while they watched
the videos to compare against the baseline measurements. The results
(34:10):
ended up showing that the participants with the history of
experiencing A s MR sensations had a significantly lower heart
rate and average of three point four teen beats per
minute lower when watching a SMR videos than those who
hadn't previously experienced the sensation. Then those who hadn't previously
experienced the sensations. The a SMR experiencing participants also had
(34:33):
a higher reading on the skin conduction on the skin
conductance test, indicating greater emotional responses. Results across both parts
of the studies suggest that people who will experience a
SMR benefit emotionally and physiologically when watching videos that trigger
the sensations. They report at the highest levels of positive
(34:53):
emotion and lowest levels of negative emotions, and their heart
rates dropped to levels comparable to what has been observed
during mind yes, mindful meditation. Yeah. One catch is that
this all only appears to hold true for people with
a history of experiencing a SMM. Got it. Yeah, you know,
I was going to say some of these I don't.
I don't listen to a sm R, but I do
(35:14):
do hypnosis and uh meditation. I have a meditation app
called Calm, which I highly recommend because I hate meditating.
I'm one of those people that it's so everyone's like
just doing it's so easy. No, it's not being alone
with your thoughts, sitting sitting, still for ten minutes is torture.
But calm app I feel like helps a lot because
they'll kind of talk you through it. Um. But I
also do hypnosis, and there's a lot of hypnosis if
(35:36):
you're interested on YouTube, and it's kind of similar a
little bit different, but it is someone kind of whispering
because I'll do hypnosis for sleep, um, and it's supposed
to help you relax. They'll they will walk, they'll do
a body scan sometimes while they'll walk you through your body,
relaxing different parts of your body to help you sleep. Uh.
And since they are whispering, it is somewhat similar. So
(35:58):
that is really fascinating for me. Someone that said that
they didn't like a SMR to find out that people
that are doing it have these instances of positive emotions
and lower levels of negativity. I might need to get
on it and or start my own account. I can
help you find your trigger. I can help you find
your trigger. Dang. Yeah, and you just need to be
(36:19):
more open with myself not doing anything for you. I
don't mind it. I don't mind it. Um. I like rain,
so my meditation apps normally have rain. I did want
to say. So this was from an article from Forbes. Uh,
which so, yeah, I did want to say, well, I
(36:41):
did want to say, actually before we move on, that
we forgot the godfather of a s m R, who
is Bob Ross. Bob Ross is known as the godfather
of a s MR. Um. You know in the community,
I think for a lot of people that he was
someone that people would listen to to go to sleep.
That sounds bad, but not not not bad. You know,
(37:03):
he was relaxing. He was a lot of people would
listen to him or listen to his tapes and watch
him and stuff because he was relaxed, relaxing. Yeah, so
they they liked his soft speaking and some of his
mouth sounds and whatnot. Um. So this is an article
from another article from Forbes. It says, is there any
money to be made in a s m R. Let
(37:23):
me go ahead and just skip this whole article, And yes,
so there's a couple of ways to make money in
a sm R when obviously having viral videos like the
ones that we showed you that had like four million views.
The only problem is is that sometimes if they're flagged
as being sexual, that can't affect their monetary income. So
some uh, a s mr r's a s mars have
(37:45):
opened patreons. Patreon has also gotten weird about their sexual
stuff as well though, So and again I'm not tying
a sm R too, you know, sex work and and that,
but it just seems that everywhere people try to go
it seems to be kind of blocked. So that was
just what I was going to note. Yeah, it looks
(38:08):
like you can also get it maybe on other platforms
such as like iTunes and Spotify. I hadn't even thought
of that, but that makes sense. That makes sense to
have a SMR and those well. Also, it's like it's
crazy how like you know, once things kind of blow
up as a way people sleeping, you can probably get
a SMR on Alexa. I know that we do rain
(38:28):
sounds because Naomi. It helps her. It helps her. I
have a question if he's so, if an attractive woman
is has a lowish cut top and is has you know,
her her manicured nails and is wrapping on a brush
or something like that, and it's flagged as being sexual,
(38:48):
do you think that that would happen to a man? No,
because I mean I feel like do you can probably
even do it shirtless? You know, and it wouldn't be set. Yeah,
now there's I mean, it's very obvious that there's a
bias against women and a lot of the sex sex working,
(39:08):
sex work banning across platforms. I mean, like Tumbler literally
said female presenting nipples, which was absurd because that's kind
of been the I feel part of of the debate
behind like banning nipples that was that that's been shied
away from, is that it's like, oh, you'll bann male nipples,
but not female nipples. And for Tumbler to just outright
(39:31):
be like female presenting nipples, which is basically literally in
that same rule saying like oh, shirtless men are fine,
just not women. So I think I think that that
hammer tends to fall the same way, you know, just
if it's not as bad, it doesn't look that and
(39:51):
I think it's it's a double standard. It's unfair and
it sucks, especially in this case where like I mean,
not this isn't to say that you know, if you
if you are doing sex work, you should be banned
from doing it. But then the fact that it's like
affecting women who aren't even in the sex work industry,
it just seems like an excuse, and it seems like
no one should care because the majority of women do it,
(40:15):
so that sucks. But I mean, like the core of
that also comes from like SESTA and fosta UM, which
was the law that passed that basically allowed the government
to like find and shut down websites if you know,
if they find if someone is trafficked sexually on it.
(40:36):
So that kind of closed down places like Craigslist because
even though a lot of you know, sex workers used it,
if one person was found to be using it for trafficking,
then now they get to punish the site. And that's
just kind of a way to get the sites to
bully people out of you know, harboring a safe space
(40:56):
for sex workers to work. I mean, you know, I'm
sure butchering it. But that's the general gist of SESTA
and FASTA, And it was voted on because you know,
people here sex trafficking and obviously want to stop that,
but it's been kind of used as a dog whistle
to kind of shut down a lot of safe sex work.
Yeah yeah, which leads to unsafe sex work. So yeah,
(41:18):
so I don't know, it is it is interesting that, um,
some of these studies that we can link in the
notes that talk about how it reduces depression, anxiety, panic
attacks UM, and helps those susceptible to insomnia. I do
want to say, if you're having better sleep, that is
going to affect your mental health. That is going to
improve your mental health. So if you're someone that has
(41:39):
difficulties sleeping and a smore helps you have a deeper
sleep and a longer sleep, UM, then that would make
sense that it would lower your depression, anxiety and panic attacks. UM.
Also just having a calming I know for me using
my meditation app, we have one for panic attacks. It's
like a ninety second or three minute like calming. You
actually just watch a bubble and you breathe with the bubble.
(42:01):
You watch the bubble span and you watch it decrease
and UM. I can imagine that for those that are
having panic attacks, putting on something calming like a SMR
and listening to someone quietly, you know, helping you and
talking to you would would be helpful. So I am
I'm going to you know, nineteen is the year that
I accept a SMR and I'm such an open person,
(42:25):
it's I really should There's no reason, Yeah, why shouldn't
be in the a s m R community. SMR is
a fun thing to try. It, I think, uh, you
know we have We're gonna be dropping some YouTube channels
in the footnotes for you to check out, just to
see and you know, this has been a fun one.
Let us know what your triggers are or end up being,
(42:47):
or if you found a s m R through this
episode and found one that really works for you, let
us know and we'll check it out and see if
we match up anything you want to plug. Danny follow
me at MS Danny Fernandez. I guess tell me, yeah,
tell me what you're kind of? You'r a smart What
you think that I would be into? Y'all listen to me.
You've listened to me for almost a year. Now. What
do you think that I would being? What would turn
(43:08):
me on to a SMR? I guess what do you
think is like a welcoming, comforting thing for me to try?
I guess I don't. Here's one of my pet peeves,
people eating. I can't. This is why I don't like
a smart I do not like the sound of people.
I'm one of those people that like, if your spouse
is you know, even though you've been dating them for
like three years and they're right next to you and
(43:29):
they're chewing allowed apple. I cannot handle it. I have
to go in the other room. It's too much the
sounds of people eating loudly. Anyways, Well, and you know me, uh,
January nine and twentie, Like I said last week, I
will be at San Francisco sketch Fest doing the three
(43:51):
shows as it stands that I know of. First one
being me doing stand up live at the Alumo, second
one being white women You're techoing friend live at sketch Us,
and the last one is doing yo is this racist?
Live at sketch Fest? So catch me there or I
guess you can catch me later on yo is this racist? When?
When they released that live that But you know, it's
(44:13):
probably fun to be there live. Feel that energy coming
at your face. I saw Childish Gambino Monday night or
that was last night. It's Tuesday, guys this week. Did
you feel reinvigorated? Oh? Yeah, that It sent waves through
my body seeing uh Childish and I'm ready. That's how
I felt seen into the Spider verse. I felt like, yeah,
(44:35):
there's a reason I'm doing this, and it's to get
more stories. You know, there's a reason why I'm here
and trying to make TV and trying to make you know,
both of us trying to make UM our creative endeavors
of getting stories that haven't previously been able to be
told and having characters that don't you know, haven't always
been able to be represented out there. And it. I
(44:56):
loved it. I cried. I cried. I cannot wait to
see it. I was supposed to see it. I ended
up missing the screening I was supposed to catch um.
And then in the year in the end of it all, Uh,
you know, I saw I bumped into Demmy actually on
my way here and he was going to go see
that movie. Yeah, I was gonna say that. Um, I
(45:18):
saw it like they So they let um like movie
critics see it like two months in advance. That's how
they know it's good when they when something so here's
just a little inside thing. When something's not good, they
either don't have a screening of it, or they'll do
it the week of, like two days or something before,
so you don't really have time to do a review. Um.
They let people see into the Spider verse like two
(45:41):
months in advance. I saw it a month in advance.
But even when I had saw a bunch of our
friends had already seen it, like the month before, so
they were like, it's good. Tell everybody. They even get
early screenings at Regal for like they're like insider fans.
I was like, yeah, they want people to see this.
They're like they know it's good as they should. Um
cool on ah. Yeah. This has been a movie talk
(46:03):
portion of our a smur podcast and I always just
make you view, like in some screen stared
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Ify Nwadiwe
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.