In response to ASMR query, you, as a rule, will find a video with close up of a man speaking, looking directly into the camera, but this is not a vlog, not a video lesson, not a comedy, and, certainly, not another challenge. On an ASMR video, they are usually speaking in whispers and moving very smoothly, touching the camera, touching various objects, tapping, rustling, and generally behaving very strangely. There are plenty strange people, some might say, and close the video. While others will feel maximum relaxation, pleasant shivers over the whole body, and even drowsiness. And those others are not some random 1% of supersensitive individuals. In my estimates, the ASMR effect is felt by many people, more than half of people of any age and gender. This effect is sometimes also referred to as Unnamed Feeling, Head Orgasm, Braingasm, Head Tingle, etc. Its scientific definition is Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.

In August 2017, Google returns over 20 million results for ASMR query; social media have hundreds of thousands of subscribers to ASMR groups, and millions on Youtube! The growing popularity of “videos with tingles” is impossible to ignore if you are involved in marketing. The ASMR effect opens up new aspects of numerous goods: Paper books, postcards, toys, fabrics, linen, writing and drawing goods, cosmetics, perfumes, jewelry, clothing, and even gadgets, as well as services, such as healthcare, beauty, education, psychology, hospitality business etc.

IKEA was the first large company to discover the ASMR properties of their products. They recently made a 25-minute advertising video in ASMR style! Who’s next? )

This piece of advertising is a watershed moment. After five years of growth from scratch, ASMR is ceasing to be an enthusiasts’ hobby and becomes an industry. All those who “tingled” before August 2017 can boldly state to novices: “I had been watching ASMR before it became the mainstream” =)

I began studying ASMR when it was a fringe subculture. Of special interest to me are the visual style attributes, such as composition, color, and, of course, typography. Over five years of its evolution, this genre of video art has developed simple rules and criteria of effectiveness, but no visual style has emerged yet. It is easy to verify by searching «ASMR» by pictures or by analyzing title screens of ASMR channels.