Acrylic nails dance across the head of a $200 microphone with an ear-scraping drumbeat of clicks and clacks. A muffled outward breath clouds around the sharper staccato sound of finger-nail percussion like a soothing blanket of white noise. A soft whisper soon follows, flowing deep within your consciousness like a waking dream, hinting at a faint memory of an old friend. The kind eyes of a too-familiar stranger lock firmly onto yours, staring into your consciousness from an intimate, dimly lit room.

That’s ASMR, a format of video popularized in the mid-2000s. ASMR is an acronym for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. The National Library of Medicine defines ASMR as «a flow-like mental state,» where an individual is nearly entranced by specific stimuli and exhibits a bodily reaction to said stimuli. That’s the scientific definition—but in today’s social media landscape, almost anything can be considered ASMR.