Frissons and solid information about coronavirus at the same time. What more could you ask for? Read the rest

To promote the new season of her show, the British comedy Sex Education (now streaming on Netflix), Gillian Anderson does a nearly four minute ASMR video. In her character of Dr. Jean Milburn, Anderson purrs and whispers, scratches and tickles the mics, open, pours, and sips wine, and does a number of other classic "braingasm" audio tricks. For X-Files fans and nerdy boys n' girls who've crushed on Anderson for decades, it might all be too much.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

For the first time ever, a collection of original paintings by the late TV painter Bob Ross will be exhibited on the east coast. "Happy Accidents" opens September 10 and runs through Oct. 15 at the Franklin Park Performing and Visual Arts Center in Purcellville, Virginia (which is just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Bob Ross headquarters in Herndon, Virginia).

Hyperallergic:

"...The exhibition will feature 24 original Ross paintings created on The Joy of Painting, the largest collection of Ross paintings to ever be displayed at a gallery. It will also be the first Bob Ross exhibition on the East Coast...

This past March, following a torrent of requests from Bob Ross fans, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art announced that it’s including a collection of the artist’s paintings, along with other items from The Joy of Painting (including the converted stepladder he used as an easel), in its permanent collection. Alas, the Smithsonian later said it had no plans to exhibit the new acquisitions. In April, Ross made his first museum debut when DePaul Art Museum in Chicago included four of his paintings in the exhibition New Age, New Age: Strategies for Survival...

Along with the unprecedented display of Ross’s paintings, Happy Accidents will also feature three workshops with Bob Ross-certified instructor Sandra Hill."

If you can't make it to the show and want to see the entire The Joy of Painting collection, go check out all six seasons of his art at TwoInchBrush. Read the rest

Apple wants you to "unwind with the whispered legend of Ghost Forest," with this ASMR video designed to send tingles through your body. Read the rest

Some people shiver with delight at whispers and certain kinds of soft sounds. A psychologist/neuroscientist at Manchester University named Nick Davis tells Wired about the science behind these "brain orgasms."

Image: Wired/YouTube Read the rest

The only noises to be heard are footsteps and video editing suites firing up. The nice ceremonies come later. Read the rest

“I got to work early today just to record this,” says IMGURian ZeusWaffle. Read the rest

Need to relax for a couple of minutes? Don those headphones and head over to Sand Tagious for some very satisfying slicing and smooshing of kinetic sand. Read the rest

In the five years since I first wrote about "Autonomous sensory meridian response" (ASMR) a folk-neurological condition that describes the pleasant shivers some people experience when hearing certain soft noises, ASMR has gone mainstream -- my ten year old daughter describes the texture of the slime she makes as "really ASMR." Read the rest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYkqG2vQDi8

Carving soap bars into tiny cubes is apparently so satisfying visually and aurally that there's a whole series of videos depicting its many pleasures. Read the rest

My fourth-favorite ASMR fad is dogs eating popcorn. Lots of treats for pups lately! Sadly, the wave has already crested and the garbage YouTuberati is burying the good stuff with rented animals and 7 minutes of titles, music, jibber-jabber and other monetization padding. A good rule is to only click on videos uploaded by actual dogs. Read the rest

Erika Rejka creates intertwined metal shapes into sculptures that can be manipulated by the viewer. Read the rest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgbSjRMqyjc

My only objection to Oscillating Fan Youtube is that the subculture fails to provide the model, make and specifications of their fans. Above is 10 hours of a Lakewood. Next up, an hour of a Lasko-brand box fan ("Finally!!!! I found one that sounds right!!!!! Thank you soooooo much!!!!," comments Cateia Jones.)

Here's a roaring, full-spectrum fan sound that I suspect has had a lot of processing done to it (or is entirely synthetic) despite being presented as a "classic fan sound." Read the rest

The apotheosis of ASMR. [via Reddit] Read the rest

The sound reminds me of a David Cronenberg film.

And here's how to make your own gold slime:

Read the rest

The soothing crunch, the rhythmic chewing... is there anything better than the tingly sound of panda mastication? Watch this cutie make quick work of a large bamboo shoot.

Here's another one, but not that doors slam now and then, which might scare the heck out of you.

These guys are more my style.

• Adorable Giant Panda Eating Bamboo Shoots (true ASMR video) (YouTube / Panpy Pie) Read the rest

I get a huge kick out of the videos of the always-entertaining nerd whisperer Jenny Nicholson. If you haven't seen her channel, check it out and watch as she sits on her bed, surrounded by sci-fi plushies, and shares her quirky, sometimes labyrinthine, and often convincing theories and opinions on sci-fi and fantasy films, comic books, novels, and other nerd media fodder.

In her latest video, she answers many requests she's apparently had for doing ASMR videos by explaining ten reasons why her answer is no. But she delivers her ten reason AS an ASMR video, right down to tapping, scratching, and scrunching things as she talks. One of her ten reasons made me laugh out loud:

"I just don't know how I'm supposed to take myself seriously when I'm crinkling bags for an hour."

For those unfamiliar, ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, is an intense tingling sensation some people claim they experience when they hear certain soft voices, pleasant repetitive sounds, or while watching someone doing a particularly mundane, repetitive activity.

I'm sure Jenny is going to get a lot of grief from ASMRtists for seemingly making fun of them, but I would hope they'd have a healthy sense of humor about it all. Several commenters who claim to experience ASMR said that they laughed at her reasons for not doing it. I do not have ASMR, but I do enjoy listening to some ASMR audio as I'm going to sleep and I'm fascinated by the whole phenomenon and the numerous, surreal, and just plain bizarre videos people are producing in the genre. Read the rest