ASMR Community

History of ASMR: Birth of the ASMR Community (podcast episode #2)

/ Dr. Richard / 2 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityOctober 29, 2007 could be viewed as the birth date of the ASMR community.

On this day, an individual by the username of “okaywhatever” started a forum thread at the website http://www.steadyhealth.com.

The title of the thread was, “Weird sensation feels good” and attracted over 300 replies.  The content of these initial replies quickly created a clear and consistent description of ASMR which still accurately describes ASMR today.

Some of the participants in the thread, such as Jennifer Allen and Andrew MacMuiris, spawned out and developed resources which were monumental to the growth and understanding of ASMR.

Overall, this forum thread lead directly to the following ASMR milestones:

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Graduate student writes a theory paper about the ASMR community

/ Dr. Richard / Leave a comment

Shawn Watkins is a graduate student in the Communication department at Angelo State University located in Angelo, Texas.

He is interested in the cultural phenomenon of ASMR, including common themes and word meanings that have developed within the ASMR community. Shawn did a literature search on this topic and wrote up a paper about his perspectives and findings for one of his communication classes.

His paper investigates the ASMR community through the lens of Bormann’s Symbolic Convergence Theory.

He has agreed to share his paper and annotated bibliography to help others whom are researching ASMR or are trying to understand ASMR better. A link to his paper is included at the end of this post.

Shawn also agreed to answer some questions about his paper. He shares his inspiration for the paper, his favorite ASMR artist, his objectives for the paper, the most surprising thing he learned about ASMR, and more.

Below are my questions in bold and his replies in italics.

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