Why Are People Losing the Blissful Tingles of ASMR?
In more ways than one, the tingles seem to be fading.
Just a few years ago, autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), a puzzling and blissful sensation, became the sudden focal point for a sizable Internet community. Practitioners liken it to a current of electricity running down the scalp and spine. Audiences marveled at online videos, the community’s primary artifacts, featuring earnest amateurs performing whispered role-plays and small, repetitive gestures designed to invoke the sensation in others. Specific triggers varied, but larger patterns emerged:, , even the gentle-hearted of Bob Ross. Enthusiasts and bystanders alike speculated at length on the nature of this community, how and why it came to be.
