ASMR Community Update: January 2013

Hello again and welcome to the end of the month update. So what happened this month? Quite a bit it turns out. Let’s have a look:

A new version of the ASMR mobile app for iOS was released. It’s now up to version 1.3. I received a newsletter from Sassou Studio, the developer, at the beginning of the month confirming this.

ASMR Sounds, another app for iOS which launched last month, now has its own channel on YouTube, with a demonstration video of the app.

Th3HazySea launched a video response contest on YouTube, which received a few entries. The winner should be announced soon, probably by the time you read this.

Soothetube.com launched a poll, for people to vote for the best ASMR videos of 2012.

A small survey was drafted and put up on Survey Monkey. This survey delves in to ASMR as well as frisson and other possibly related conditions and sensory phenomena.

Whisper Hub started collecting opinions from people after drafting several questions and putting them up online in several places, with the aim of writing an eBook, which aims to answer questions people may have about ASMR, and to raise awareness. The profits will go towards the running costs of whisperhub.co.uk.

A new meetup group was started, this time in Miami Valley, Ohio. Anybody who is interested can sign up over at meetup.com.

Once again, there were no new articles online that I could find, but Nicholas Tufnell, who published an article on ASMR on the Huffington Post’s website last year, recently published a post about ASMR on his own blog which might be worth a read.

I think the lack of any new articles online was surely put aside after we learnt of the long awaited return of ASMR Island!

And finally, ASMR is recognised as a meme by many people, and this helps to promote its popularity. So say hello to the ASMR Unicorn! The unicorn was chosen as a mascot (besides Bob Ross) for ASMR seeing as both have the same sort of mythical status about them – or at least some people claim ASMR to be a myth. Quite apt, I’d say. Wouldn’t you?

And that is all that took place in January 2013. Judging by what went on this month alone, I think 2013 is going to be yet another eventful year!

ASMR eBook in the Works

Recently, on Facebook, Whisper Hub posted an interesting message on several Facebook groups.

Whisperhub.co.uk is due for its hosting and domain renewal in April this year, and Whisper Hub herself needs funding to keep the website running. So she has decided to write an eBook on ASMR, and wants as many people as possible to contribute, by answering a set of questions that she has drafted. She will then include some of these opinions in the book when published. The book intends to provide answers to readers who might want to know more about the meaning or purpose of ASMR, where the best ASMR resources are online, and to spread the word about ASMR. The profits of said book will go towards the running costs of the website.

These are the questions:

1. ASMR the beginning – were you around at the start of the whisper community (either as a listener or whisperer)? If so what can you tell us about that time?
2. What is ASMR and why do you think we experience it? If you do not experience ASMR what are your theories on it?
3. Why do you think people give up so much of their time to contribute content to the community? If an ASMRtist why do you do it?
4. Have you recently discovered any new ASMR sites that we should include in our website/resources list?
5. What are your top tips to someone who is just about to start making ASMR videos?
6. Any tips on good etiquette amongst the community?
7. What are your views on the current level of exposure of the ASMR community?
8. What do you see in the future of ASMR and the community?
9. What has being a part of the ASMR community meant to you?
10. Anything else you think I might have missed?

You can send your responses to Whisper Hub on Facebook or email her at whisperhub at gmail dot com.

ASMR Community Update: December 2012

I’m posting this in early January. I know, but I wasn’t around for the past week or two  over the holidays, as I took some time off. I hope you all had a happy holiday!

This then, is the December edition of the monthly community update.

In the past I’ve spoken about how great the website Soundcloud is. It’s a bit like YouTube, but obviously on Soundcloud it’s audio only. There’s no video. And people who listen to tracks posted to Soundcloud can even mark moments on a track – which can come in handy for marking times where an ASMR event takes place.

The website has risen in popularity over the past while with several users there submitting ASMR relaxation tracks and the like. I saw this month that an ASMR group has been launched on Soundcloud. This could mark the opportunity for a new ASMR presence online, and might become the home of many great things, like podcasts, whisper tracks and even instrumental music tracks that all intend to talk about or trigger ASMR.

Speaking of which, a podcast hosted on Soundcloud was made by ashellinthepit, a sound designer, where he spoke about the results of some studies he conducted, analysing asmrtists’ speech patterns on YouTube. He even went on to release his findings in the form of a Google Doc spread sheet.

David, a sound recording professional, asked people on Reddit and Facebook what sounds they would like to hear recorded so they could then play them back to their hearts’ content, and got a whole lot of requests. He then went about recording these and uploaded the results to his YouTube channel. You can probably still get a hold of him on either Facebook, Reddit, or YouTube, and put in a request.

Ephemeral Rift started his own project to try and get suggestions for sounds to be used in a 60 minute feature for his YouTube channel.

A new ASMR app was just released this month. It’s called ASMR Sounds and will work with iPods, iPhones and iPads, although naturally it’s optimised for the iPhone 5. You can grab it off of iTunes. There’s also this page on Facebook dedicated to the app. This app joins at least one other app on iTunes and not to mention there’s two or three over at the Android marketplace.

The official ASMR Research & Support forum now has a new subforum, which welcomes those with a scientific or medical background.

Research & Support held two contests that ran right from early November until the end of December. The original submission period for both contests is therefore over, although we are thinking of possibly extending it, to get as many entries as we can. We hope to put the logos and essays to good use in determining which direction to take with research, and to bolster the Kickstarter funding project. Thanks to everyone who entered!

Another project that needs funding is a new indie game, with an ASMR twist, in development called Blind Man’s Buff. It aims to explore binaural audio, and the developer wants to market it to both sighted and blind gamers. The project is hosted on Indiegogo, similar to Kickstarter, and is open to receive funds until February 19, 2013. The total amount needed to fund the project is $75 000. If the total is reached, then Evan Morrison, the developer, will hopefully have it ready for release in December, 2013. It will likely be up for purchase on Steam when finished. There are incentives for those who donate. A $25 donation will net you a copy of the game when released; $75 will get you a copy of the game’s soundtrack, and lastly $1000 will grant you a site licence.

There weren’t any news articles that I could find published this month, but there was a blog post over at soundstudiesblog.com, written by Joshua Hudelson, a Ph.D. student in the music department at NYU.

Not long to go until the January end of month update! Thanks for reading.