AweSMR
I’m a super visual person. I always have been. I’ve always worked in visual places, and the things I’ve made have always (for the most part) been visual things. That perspective has unconsciously filled my life and my “feed” with more visual things and I’m realizing it’s become a kind of self-fulfilling process.
I remember back in college watching Ken Robinson’s TED Talk on education. One of my formative takeaways from that video was about education’s role in destroying creativity. But during a recent rabbit-hole I was reminded of a particular section where he talks about a friend of his named Gillian Lynne who struggled in school, got in trouble for not concentrating, and TLDR—turned out she’s a dancer. She had to “move to think”. Her mum sent her to dance school, and she flourished, becoming one of the most influential choreographers in modern dance.
The rabbit-hole from which Gillian Lynne’s story was triggered began when I heard a series of strange clicks and whispers coming from my wife’s phone.
It had been a particularly long day for her, and she was on TikTok watching (and listening) to a live ASMR stream by a creator named ChelsASMR. In the moment I just didn’t get it. The combination of whispered narration and abstract repetitive sounds seemed like a weird combo of disconcerting and creepy. But my other half appeared to have achieved a sense of focus and relaxation that was quite enviable.
This ASMRtist is Loisa and is another common visitor to our house these days:
For any of you who may not have come across ASMR in the wild, here’s a definition from Wikipedia:
“A subjective experience of “low-grade euphoria” characterized by “a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin.” It is most commonly triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attention control.”
But in recent years, particularly via YouTube and Twitch, the category of ASMR has come to encompass this particular style of audio-trigger based media. Triggers generally include subdued narrative voices, tapping, and brushing sounds. If you’re curious, Wikipedia has some great cultural and scientific references.
However, what at first seemed so alien to me, made me realize that; It makes perfect sense that there would be people who connect deeply with audio based experiences. In the same way that Gillian Lynne was driven by movement, and I’m motivated by visuals, there must be people who prioritize their other senses, who have different strengths and motivations when it comes to sensory experiences. Chefs and culinary aficionados obviously focus on taste. Fragrance specialists (or “noses”) imagine through smell. And on the surface there’s an obvious progression here; Musicians think with sound, and there are billions of them.
But deeper down the rabbit-hole, music became to audio, what dance is to movement. Dance is a passionate, artistic interpretation of movement. But what about people that need to run to think? Or walk? Or ride their bike, or go to the gym? So listening to music is one kind of audio, but there are alternative, deeper, visceral aspects of sound too. And in the same way I don’t comprehend the need to go for a run, I shouldn’t expect to understand the emotional aspects of ASMR—but it doesn’t mean there aren’t millions of people who do.
To wrap this up—I look around the world I’m in, and it’s so often based on designing visual, tangible things. Sound (if ever considered) is an add-on or a background, never the focus or the catalyst. With a big caveat around music per se, I think there’s a lot of potential to design a wider range of audio experiences, and there are realms of sound creation we simply haven’t explored… like this device that turns the electrical activity within plants into melodies.
TikTok’s predominant short format lends itself well to soundbites, spoken word, ASMR style triggers, poetry… plants… and who knows what else. So maybe there’s a world where instead of swiping through memes, we can be swiping through sounds. And with the rise of everyone’s favorite new technologAI, a future of speech based—and subsequently audio based—interfaces means we should start taking some cues from these whispering influencers.
