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Lacan and the Nonhuman pp 227–248Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

ASMR Mania, Trigger-Chasing, and the Anxiety of Digital Repletion

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Part of the book series: The Palgrave Lacan Series ((PALS))

Abstract

Performers in YouTube autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) videos speak directly into the camera, very close, in sibilant whispers, consonant repetitions, and with an attitude of oversolicitous caregiving that verges on the robotic. The goal is to trigger tingling sensations in the beholder’s head, neck, and spine. Whereas ASMR enthusiasts appear to seek a formula for tingly satisfaction, this chapter argues that ASMR is symptomatic of broader digital–millennial trends in its repudiation of the ‘lack of lack itself’ Lacan identifies as anxiety. ASMR’s empty verbal patter and sounds of extreme proximity mobilize the orifical locus of the drive. The beholder is not emotionally invested, but instead ‘triggered’ like a binary switch. Such millennial investments in trigger pleasure represent a drive-centered, anxiety-busting response to the oversaturation endemic to digital culture.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hannah Maslen and Rebecca Roache, ‘ASMR and Absurdity,’ Practical Ethics (blog), University of Oxford, July 29, 2015, http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/07/asmr-and-absurdity/

  2. 2.

    Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny, trans. David McLintock (New York: Penguin, 2003), p. 150.

  3. 3.

    Roberto Harari, Lacan’s Seminar on Anxiety: An Introduction, trans. Jane C. Lamb-Ruiz (New York: Other Press, 2001), p. 36.

  4. 4.

    Of concern in the drive are precisely such border-like bodily rims: not the stomach that digests food, but the lips and teeth; not the ear canal and eardrum that registers sound, but the external auricle and the void it surrounds. Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), p. 73.

  5. 5.

    Ibid., p. 96.

  6. 6.

    Ibid., p. 81.

  7. 7.

    Ibid.

  8. 8.

    Ibid., p. 96.

  9. 9.

    ‘*_* Oh Such a Good 3D-Sound ASMR Video *_*,’ YouTube.com , last modified September 7, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVpfHgC3ye0

  10. 10.

    Dolar (2006), p. 15.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., p. 20.

  12. 12.

    Michael Connor makes a similar claim about ASMR’s tendency to substitute one sense for another: ‘[W]atching ASMR videos of people folding towels is more pleasurable for many people than the real act of folding towels. It’s almost like what is satisfying about them is not the tactile sensation itself, but the fact that this tactile sensation is triggered by other sensory inputs’; that is, the up-close sights and sounds of the act of towel-folding. Michael Connor, ‘Notes on ASMR, Massumi and the Joy of Digital Painting,’ Rhizome (blog), May 8, 2013, http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/may/08/notes-asmr-massumi-and-joy-digital-painting/

  13. 13.

    Renata Salecl, Umbr(a) 1 (Buffalo, NY: The Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis & Culture, 1997), p. 106.

  14. 14.

    Lee Edelman, ‘Stop Thinking about Tomorrow: Queerness, Ideology, and Anticipatory Democracy,’ Lecture, Higgins School of Humanities Dialogue Symposium (Worcester, MA: Clark University), March 3, 2016.

  15. 15.

    Freud (2003), p. 141.

  16. 16.

    Ibid., p. 135.

  17. 17.

    ‘Tingleheads’ claim videos help ease stress,’ Today.com , last modified October 15, 2014, http://www.today.com/health/tingleheads-claim-videos-help-ease-stress-2D80174447

  18. 18.

    ‘~•••~Relaxing Physical Therapist Visit~•••~,’ YouTube.com , last modified January 6, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hso5_Glnyx8&t=396s

  19. 19.

    ‘patter, n.2,’ Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed February 15, 2017, http://goddard40.clarku.edu:2547/view/Entry/138972?rskey=F0NS1M&result=2#eid

  20. 20.

    ‘patter, n.1,’ Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed February 15, 2017, http://goddard40.clarku.edu:2547/view/Entry/138971?result=1&rskey=F0NS1M&

  21. 21.

    ‘patter, v.1,’ Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed February 15, 2017, http://goddard40.clarku.edu:2547/view/Entry/138973?

  22. 22.

    An interesting variation on classic ASMR roleplay patter is found in a video by YouTuber AccidentallyGraceful. Rather than improvising her dialogue, the speaker seems to have written out directions for making a cup of coffee using a French press, and then recites back the absurdly simplistic scripted directions in a calm, customary, perfectly enunciated monotone. Here again, the sense of rehearsal overrides that of real, caring interactivity. In similar videos by other YouTubers, mispronunciations and exaggerated foreign dialects only exacerbate this effect.

  23. 23.

    Historically , unintentional ASMR videos appeared first, and were collected in user lists before anyone thought to develop intentional roleplays. In 2017, however, roleplays clearly predominate.

  24. 24.

    ‘Cranial Nerve Test with Pat LaFontaine & Dr. James Kelly,’ YouTube.com , last modified April 28, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrKbOF3vHo8

  25. 25.

    Cranial nerve exam videos are among the most popular forms of intentional ASMR roleplay, but various unintentional versions—including cranial nerve exam compilations—have long circulated in ASMR lists, on message boards, and so on.

  26. 26.

    ‘About Us,’ Brainline.org , accessed February 15, 2016, http://www.brainline.org/function_pages/about.html

  27. 27.

    Rob Gallagher, ‘Eliciting Euphoria Online: The Aesthetics of “ASMR” Video Culture,’ Film Criticism 40(4), 2016; accessed 15 Feb 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/fc.13761232.0040.202

  28. 28.

    ‘[Discussion] Misconceptions about ASMR Caused by High Participation of People Not Actually Experiencing It,’ Reddit.com , accessed 15 Feb 2017, http://www.reddit.com/r/asmr/comments/4kkh1e/discussion_misconceptions_about_asmr_caused_by/

  29. 29.

    Steven Novella, ‘ASMR,’ SkepticBlog (blog), The Skeptics Society, March 12, 2012, http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/03/12/asmr/

  30. 30.

    Slavoj Žižek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (New York: Verso, 1999), p. 297.

  31. 31.

    Jacques Lacan, Anxiety: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. A. R. Price (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2014), p. 53.

  32. 32.

    Jacques-Alain Miller , ‘Commentary on Lacan’s Text,’ in Reading Seminars I and II, eds. Richard Feldstein, Bruce Fink, and Maire Jaanus (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006), p. 423.

  33. 33.

    Gallagher (2016), np.

Bibliography

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA

    Hugh S. Manon

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  1. Hugh S. Manon
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA

    Gautam Basu Thakur

  2. Independent Scholar, Worcester, MA, USA

    Jonathan Michael Dickstein

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Manon, H.S. (2018). ASMR Mania, Trigger-Chasing, and the Anxiety of Digital Repletion. In: Basu Thakur, G., Dickstein, J. (eds) Lacan and the Nonhuman. The Palgrave Lacan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63817-1_12

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