TY - JOUR AU - Klausen, Helle Breth PY - 2021/08/19 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - ASMR explained: Role play videos as a form of touching with the eyes and the ears JF - First Monday JA - FM VL - 26 IS - 9 SE - DO - 10.5210/fm.v26i9.11691 UR - https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/11691 SP - AB - <p>In this paper, I introduce and discuss technologically-mediated ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) in the form of role play videos. I suggest using <em>haptic audio-visuality</em> as a theoretical elaboration to describe a form of touching with the eyes and the ears through interpersonal triggers, direct address and directional touching. And I present ASMR role play videos as a category that can be viewed as <em>both</em> a shared pleasure <em>and</em> a personal experience. Despite its mediated — body-to-screen rather than body-to-body — and one-way format, research suggests that ASMR can be regarded as an intimate, present and interpersonal experience. ASMR has succeeded in integrating the viewer-listeners’ physical reality with virtuality and creating a perception of presence. What is missing, however, is a more in-depth exploration of how this perception of presence is created through the performative construction of a particular kind of <em>attuned, imaginative and interactive viewer-listener</em> within ASMR role play videos. This is what I intend to explore in this paper.</p> ER -